Center Cockpit vs Aft Cockpit

[lesterbutch]

Originally Posted by Benny

OK - To give you as much factual info as possible on CC's - I have an Irwin 37 centre cockpit ketch. You can go to Irwin Yachts and view my model - the 37 Mk III and you can see the interior accomodations which are huge for a boat this size. It has the room of a 42 footer. I have 2 full cabins each with its own head and shower and a full galley and salon.

The centre cockpit allows for all kinds of advantages including more room down below with an aft cabin, easy engine access, higher freeboard and drier sailing, roomier cockpit as it is located in a beamier part of the boat, allows for a full cockpit enclosure that is accessible all around, a nice aft deck for lounging or sunning, very wide and uncluttered side decks, as a ketch all sails are completely visible and my bimini has a window in the top to view the leech and entire main.

Lastly it is an economically priced boat if you're looking for a good cruiser and easy to handle at 37 feet long and 11.5 feet beam and mine has a shoal draft of 4 feet.

I have sailed all my life - 52 years and have owned many aft cockpit boats and I would not go back to them unless it was a catamaran - in order to get the space both on deck and below. I believe you and your friends and family might as well be comfortable and have a spacious boat that can be enjoyed. My 37CC fits the bill nicely on all counts. It sails well too.

Good luck with your choice.

I had the same boat and now have an aft cockpit sloop! Comparing the two, I liked the Irwins overall design but find the Pearson sloop more commodious. I particularly like the Pearsons larger forecabin, but obviously the Irwin was able to get more livabilty aft. Sometimes the Pearsons cockpit seems to be too long. It's give and take.

[Jim Cate]

The trade offs between CC and AC are pretty simple: in a CC boat of a given lentgth, one enjoys a larger aft cabin for sleeping, at the expense of a smaller, kinda cramped saloon and galley area. No advertising BS can alter that simple relationship.

So it comes down to your values. For us as liveaboard cruisers, we spend a lot of time in the saloon, accomplishing most of one's daily tasks. We spend around 8 hours a day in our bunk, mostly unconscious and in the dark. So, for us the practicalities of an aft cockpit and a spacious forward "stateroom" (silly marketing term) which affords a large, open and uncluttered saloon/galley area is an easy choice.

Each to his own!

Jim

[a64pilot]

Boats significantly larger than ours, I like a CC for the aft cockpit, but in my opinion it doesn't work well in 40' boats, just not quite big enough to pull it off.

[Eleuthera 2014]

Interesting.... thread had died 9 years ago...

Lazarus is that you???