Hinckley Bermuda 40 Yawl good choice for bluewater cruiser?

[jtsailjt]

I live and sail mostly up here in eastern Maine where Hinckley's can be seen in almost every anchorage. For several years, I sailed out of Southwest Harbor so I am very familiar with both the esthetics and high quality of these beautiful boats. My first "cruising sailboat" was a Hinckley Pilot 35 and I loved it for day sailing and occasional overnights. But the B40 is one of the very last boat's I'd consider for bluewater cruising. The reason I feel this way is that they are extremely small with very limited interior accommodations and almost no storage space, and they lack many other useful attributes of a good cruising sailboat. If you look at their ultimate stability numbers, they're frightening when compared with most other cruising sailboats (I was aboard one that was knocked down with the sails stowed while at anchor here in Maine where winds never exceed about 50 knots) and freeboard is so low that you'll feel like you're on a wet surfboard offshore (fun and exciting for awhile, but not day after day). They sail nicely in moderate coastal conditions, and are great "cruisers" for a couple and maybe a few guests who get out for a weekend now and then and want to look great at the yacht club docks. They were marketed and sold to wealthy east coast CCA sailors back in the 60's and 70's. They still look GREAT and hold their value well, but there are so many other boats out there that were actually designed with offshore cruising in mind and there have been so many improvements in yacht design (not esthetics) since the B40. Lest you think I have a vendetta against these boats or the Hinckley company, I definitely do not. I have one older friend who recently moved to the Chesapeake and sold his stunning wooden Concordia yawl and I have been doing my best to encourage him to replace it with a B40, perfect for his personality and the kind of sailing he plans to do. I have another friend who was looking at Alerions to keep on his Camden, Maine mooring to use as a daysailor on his days off and I tried to convince him to get a simply equipped but well cared for Hinckley Pilot 35 instead. I really do love a lot of things about these boats, but even taking the price and varnishing issues out of the equation, neither are very appropriate for long distance bluewater sailing. But once you're finished with long distance traveling aboard a boat, but want to look great and occasionally go "cruising" over a weekend when the weather looks fine, then it's the perfect sailboat.