Decisions, Decisions.....

[bajamas]

My wife and I are considering the purchase of a sailboat next year and I would like to gain some advice or opinions of other cruisers.
This is our first boat and we would like to consider the boat for Bahamas and Keys cruising until we discover the muster to cross larger bodies of water, but I don't wish to keep purchasing and selling boats for each purpose. I would like a solidly constructed boat that is dual purpose, both shallow water and moderate weather with the ability to handle anything that mother nature whipped up on a moments notice. My wife likes the look and the stability of the newer Hunter boats but all reviews seem to place this boat in the weekender range and not much of an open water boat. I like the lines of the older boats but don't want to get stuck with something that is going to suck my wallet dry.
I have heard that boats build in the late 70's, early 80's were built a bit better since no-one really had the feel for how much fiberglass should be used and the older boats tended to be "Overglassed" where the newer boats had a thinner hull.
If my wife and I were looking for a gentle handling boat for island hopping with the idea of possibly living aboard later and considering some distant travels, would someone recommend, say a 32' Bristol, shoal draft, made in the early 80's over a 32' Hunter made in the mid 90's or the other way around?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Bajamas

[CSY Man]

Hi and welcome aboard Mr. Bajamas.

This topic has been touched on the forum before so why don't ya look around a bit and ya may find the answers to yer questions are already here.

I have sailed a CSY 33 in Florida and the Bahamas for a few years and enjoy the boat....Yup, the hull is thick, 1 3/8".

Did a local delivery of a Bristol 35 with shoal draft yeasteday, it is for sale..Special deal before the next hurrican hits us....

[Talbot]

From the sound of it your wife, like mine, does not like being heeled over. I ended up buying a cat because of this, and now would not revert to a monohull. They will provide the space for liveaboard, the shallow water capability, and deep sea ability.

By the way, you are very unlikely to get exactly the right boat first time

[BC Mike]

It is different for diferent folks. Off the wind it is not a factor with a monohull. Our boat will do about 6 hard on the wind but with a bit of tippy, maybe too much for making a meal, but if we slow down to 5 then the tippy is quite acceptable. An easily driven hull should provide sufficient speed with not too much tippy. A larger boat than ours will give you a bit more speed with a minimal angle of heel. BC Mike C

[harryrezz]

Hi - Me again! You are asking one boat to provide two opposing things - shallow draft and stability. It tends to be an either/or - unless you go with a very flat, wide boat - which will slam and pound in any kind of rough weather or a cat - and I've already discussed those a bit on my post elsewhere.
Keep in mind - shallow draft is a relative thing - and has trade-offs. Do you want shallow draft so you can get right up close to the beaches in the Bahamas? If so, be prepared with good screens, because bugs can esily fly out to reach you if you are near shore. Also, shallow draft usually means relatively poor performance going to weather because of side-slip - such boats simply don't present as much lateral resistance to the water, and also don't provide as much lift from the keel. (Shallow keels with a drop-down or swing keel addition are viable. Shannon, a top builder, has been making these for years, but they are tricky to build right, and they do offer just one more thing to break down.) Also, a shoal draft tends to make for a tender (tippy) boat - there just isn't enough weight far enough down below to resist the lateral forces of the wind against the sails and rigging. (In our case, CSY offered the 44 with either a deep draft of 6'6" - which we have - or a shallow draft of around 5 ft. Even with the added ballast which the factory put into the shoal draft boats they are more tender and tend to bounce around a lot more when at anchor and they don't go to weather nearly as well as the deep draft.)
As with most things in life, boats are a compromise. Try several before you buy. You'll be surprised at how your "needs" will change!

[Jeff H]

First of all I would like to touch upon your mention of the myth "that boats build in the late 70's, early 80's were built a bit better since no-one really had the feel for how much fiberglass should be used and the older boats tended to be "Overglassed" where the newer boats had a thinner hull." It is really hogwash. The late 1970's through early 1980's was the worst period for blisters and generally was the worst period in terms of overall build quality since boats were getting lighter but the engineering had yet to improve.

Then there is the old saw that early boat were heavily built because designers did not know how strong fiberglass was. Earlier boats had heavier hulls for a lot of reasons beyond the myth that designers did not know how strong fiberglass was. Designers knew exactly how strong fiberglass was. The US government had spent a fortune developing fiberglass information during WWII, and by the early 1950’s, designers had easy access to the design characteristics of fiberglass. (Alberg, for example, was working for the US Government designing fiberglass composite equipment when he was hired to design the Triton and Alberg 35) The reason that these hulls on the early boats were as thick as they were had more to do with the early approach to the design of fiberglass boats than a lack of knowledge of the material. Early designers and builders had hoped to use fiberglass as a monocoque structure with a minimal amount (if any) framing to take up interior space.

On its own, fiberglass laminate does not develop much stiffness and it is very dense. If you simply try to create stiffness in fiberglass it takes a lot of thickness. Early fiberglass boat designers tried to simply use the skin for stiffness with wide spread supports from bulkheads and bunk flats. This lead to incredibly heavy boats and boats that were comparably flexible. (In early designs that were built in both wood and fiberglass, the wooden boats typically weighed the same but were stiffer, stronger, and had higher ballast ratios)

Fiberglass hates to be flexed. Fiberglass is a highly fatigue prone material and over time it looses strength through flexing cycles. A flexible boat may have plenty of reserve strength when new but over time through flexure fiberglass loses this reserve. There are really several things that determine the strength of the hull itself. In simple terms it is the strength of the unsupported hull panel (by 'panel' I mean the area of the hull or deck between supporting structures) itself, the size of the unsupported panel, the connections to supporting structures and the strength of the supporting structures. These early boats had huge panel sizes compared to those seen as appropriate today.

This fatigue issue is not a minor one. In a study performed by the marine insurance industry looking at claims on older boats and doing destructive testing on actual portions of older hulls, it was found that many of these earlier boats have suffered a significant loss of ductility and impact resistance. This problem is especially prevalent in heavier uncored boats constructed even as late as the 1980's before internal structural framing systems became the norm. Boats built during the early years of boat building tended to use a lot more resin accelerators than are used today. They also would bulk up the matrix with resin rich laminations (approaching 50/50 ratios rather than the idea 30/70) non-directional fabrics (mat or chopped glass) in order to achieve a desired hull thickness. Resin rich laminates and non-directional materials have been shown to reduce impact resistance and to increase the tendency towards fatigue. The absence of internal framing means that there is greater flexure in these older boats and that this flexure increases fatigue further. Apparently, there are an increasing number of marine insurance underwriters refusing to insure older boats because of these issues.

As to the specifics of your question, if you are going to go distance cruising with the goal of doing the Bahamas and then beyond you should be considering boats that are designed for that purpose. There certainly are a number of good choices out there. Neither the Hunter 32 (by which I assume that you mean the Hunter Vision 32 with the freestanding aluminum rig) nor the Bristol 32 are particularly well suited to your plans. The Hunter 32 is designed to be a good coastal cruiser. It has an interior layout that makes sense when cruising for coastal cruising from anchorage to anchorage but which is not really suitable for offshore useage; lacking the kind of storage, seaberths, tankage, handholds, ventilation, cockpit design etc. that are so essential to a good offshore cruiser. Hull form wise, the Hunter would tend to have a quick motion that would be quite uncomfortable on the Bahama banks

The Bristol 32 began life as a CCA era race boat and suffers from all of the issues that is implicit with the excesses of that era. They were tortured to meet a racing rule and while pretty boats they are miserable boats to sail in either light or heavy conditions. Thier short waterline length means a very uncomfortable motion combined with limited carrying capacity, cramed quarters and poor performance. A better choice would be the later Bristol 31.1, Bristol 34 or Bristol 35 (with the 1970's era 34 being a real favorite of mine).

Jeff

[CSY Man]

This problem is especially prevalent in heavier uncored boats constructed even as late as the 1980's before internal structural framing systems became the norm.

Mr. Jeff:

Is the CSY boats included in the above statement?

(The hull is 1 3/8" thick on the 33', ABOVE the waterline. Overkill or what?)

Seriously, the boats are holding up good with no structural issues, problems or blisters, they just keep on trucking..So far.

Yet reading yer piece I get nervous 'cause I don't have a lightweight, cored, hi-tech performance boat.

What should I do?

Confused sailor in Florida.....

[BC Mike]

I was selling boats in the 70's and 80's. There was a lot of misimformation going around concerning the blister problem and other fibreglass issues. Some builders would claim heavy is better, plead ignorance, not admit that gelcoat was porous and so on. We had name brand so called quality boats that were resin rich. Few builders would discuss the manufacturing conditions. Chosing which boats to sell was not always easy. I do not know the sail boat brands as well as Jeff and I would heed his advice on sailboats of that era. I have a Tanzer made in Dorion Quebec, I sold quite a few of them before I purchased mine new in 1979. I do not know of any hull problems with any of the boats. I had long talks with the factory about the manufacturing process and I was happy with that. I talked with Industrial Formulators a lot about glass lay up and blister problems and barrier coats. A tour of the plant is always good value but not available to most people. BC Mike C

[bajamas]

WOW!!

I gotta say, if information is what I desired, INFORMATION is what I received!!

Thanks so very much for the help Jeff, it certainly makes a person think about the initial investment.

I fully understand both what you and Harry are talking about. It all makes perfect sense to me and obviously these are serious considerations.

Not knowing so much about (and being fairly new to the cruising scene) the history of some of these manufacturers, makes me wish I had chosen this subject for my desire long ago. I have ALWAYS had a love for sailing and own nearly every book there is regarding the subject, yet seriously lack the hands on experience. I have sailed lightly with friends aboard several types of vessels, and know that this is what my wife and I wish most of our lives to do. Breaking into this "Lifestyle" may become a bit more research-intensive but I know it will all be worthwhile.

I do have to thank everyone here for participating and spending such time on my queries.

We are headed to the Newport boatshow this year to absorb more information toward our decision next year. Hope to see some of you there.

Quick question on Insurance while we're all on the subject.
I haven't looked too deeply into the subject since we're not quite ready for the purchase but...A) Is insurance NECESSARY for a boat owner. Obviously I understand that my best bet for being in the position that I am would be to get as much as possible for my learning curve (Jeez, I can already picture my first few conversations with my agent....."Well sir, Trees are usually indigenous to land...") Meaning, do I HAVE to purchase insurance to cruise? And B) what are the policies looking like for a first time boat owner in the 30-35 foot range?

Again, thanks so very much for all your help!!

Bajamas

[kingfish]

If you keep your boat in a marina they will make you have insurence, (at least here in california). Insurence for a boat is relitivly inexpencive. For instance my 30 foot boat is 100 dollers a year. Thats liability only. As for cruising, I know for me That I do not see the need for it. and most of my cruising freids do not carry it. Just my 2 cents.
Cheers
Dustin

[BC Mike]

My primary concern with insurance is liability. If someone gets injured or drowned or if one of my animals drop kicks someone in to next week. This is where the big bills could happen. I can afford to replace the boat but I can not afford $500,000.00 in liability damages. BC Mike C

[harryrezz]

I can't be a big help on the insurance question. We carry LOTS of liability because of our charter business - and our cruising area is expensive for insurance as well. Ours runs about $2,400 per year.
So far as an individual is concerned, that's a very personal question. We've heard of people losing their boats out in the middle of nowhere. Then we hear either, "That was their home - everything they had in the world - and they had no insurance, poor souls - what will they do now?" or "The boat was a total loss - thank goodness they had good insurance". Insurance is something which is not cheap - and which you hope you never need .... but if you need it, its awfully nice to have! The liability question evolves mainly around how you plan to use the boat. While at the boat show, take a few minutes and chat with some folks in the insurance booths - they'll give you good info.
By the way - one last "commercial", CST also made a good '37 in two layouts. They sail very well, and have LOTS of room for their length. To my eye they are not the prettiest boats in the world, but theydo have character - and I've seen a few in beautiful shape.

[CSY Man]

CST also made a good '37 in two layouts

Aye Harry, ya mean CSY, not CST....?

[John Drake]

Hello everyone,

Insurance is becoming more and more of a must have out there. Not only do more marina's require it (mine does) but more anchorages (mooring fields) even.

You can get just liability insurance. It covers your liability for accidents to other people and their property...but does not cover your boat. I *believe* that satisfies most requirements. But....who can really afford to lose their boat and then pay cash for another one (boats are not getting any cheaper). Keep in mind that if you are in the unfortunate situation of having to replace a lost yacht...there is "full replacement value" and "AGREED value". VERY different amounts of money.

I am by far no expert, so as the poster above mentions, talk with these guys at the boat show booths. And...get the details on how they would value your boat should you lose it at some point in the future.

Insurance companies seem to be quite varied in their support, costs and coverages. Many have strick stipulations on crew and where you can sail. If you have any connection to the US military whatsoever, you are eligible for USAA insurance. They are fantastic and rates quite reasonable. Also, depending on your qualifications, some policies have no restrictions at all.

Hope this helps

John
s/v Invictus
Hood 38

[harryrezz]

Oops! Right, Dag!