Honest and knowledgeable opinions, keep current boat or change to older heavier?

[Cynara]

I suppose we would have carried more fuel if we could. But not having a lot made us sail more. There was one 24 hour passage where we averaged one knot. The first 1,200 miles heading south from Long Beach California we ran the engine 30 hours. Even though I thought I was a good sailor, this just made me better

[DeValency]

If you look at the original diesel tankage of most to all well considered offshore cruising boats at the 42-50’ range it is around 300-400 liters (I have original 350 liters) - all for a reason. This is what the buyers are looking at. Solar panels, wind and hydro generators added a decent more electrical power over the last 15 or so years but so the increase in the typical consumption with more devices on board.

This should be more than enough for any serious offshore cruising sailor. Yes, you sometimes need better weather planning, patience and performance on maximizing the sails inventory, trimming etc. For us, the engine use, in most remote offshore passages, was to escape or better deal with very bad weather/seas situations, not to speed up whenever we couldn’t get over, say, 4kts under sails.

As such, we never ended a long passage with less than 1/3 tank

[captprogreso]

I too have a h41, in yucatan peninsula, we use it to sail around many reef we have around. 4 or 5 days without civilization around. Nasty high winds in this part of the gulf. Long story short the more i use the more i love the boat.
I will not trade her for anyting older than she is (2005) she doest not have Ikea interiors, so I will not trade her for newer ikea boats. I use the front toilet for storage, i take off the sofa (yes a sofa on a boat) and now i have the most confortable berth under way. I will keep making mods to suit her my way. I was thinking too about selling her and having a heavier boat, but, after nasty weather i have been in i only want to have another jib roller on the front )solent rig) so i am going to keep modifying her. Do not buy a 120 volt watermaker because you will depend on your gen for making water ( my mistake now). and if you are only two of you space storage is still good. i hope to do many more miles off her. Older boats have a lot on myths on them, you can sail in a new modern boat the same or better way than in a older one of the same size. Speaking of size my h 41 is the biggest 40 foot i have seen around unless you go with 2020 new boats. Most of people who comments on the net have not sailed more than a weekend off, so do not go with the loving style of older boats!

[Cloroxbottle]

Originally Posted by davethedog

Seen a 1991 year 47 foot boat we like and looks to be ideal for us as in good condition and a "blue water" type vessel. Large fuel and water tanks, decent sails and rigging, semi skeg hung rudder, decent keel etc

We currently own a 2004 Hunter Legend 41AC that we have fitted solar, wind gen, etc but we are finding her a little small now as we could really do with a bunk room for storage etc

So, we are wanting to sail across the Atlantic (from here in the Canaries) this time next year and then have a few years in that sort of region.

Now, we could outfit the current boat with a hydrovane, watermaker, inner forestay etc and spend about 20K Euro doing that....but it will still only be 41ft and a light displacement boat.

Or, we could get this other boat, fit a hydrovane, watermaker, etc then sell the current boat and I calculate the cost to change to be about 70K euro/. This would give us a bigger, heavier, more tankage, boat (centre cockpit) but it would be 13 years older!

So, what do people think, as we are erring towards the bigger older boat as we could do with the extra space and just got this feeling that IF (that is IF) we were caught in really bad weather the current boat would not handle it as well as the older heavier boat.

DTD

I would not cross an ocean in a Hunter 41AC.


I would make the switch to the Northwind 47 before trying it.


The decision would have everything to do with build quality, rudder design, and seakeeping ability...and nothing to do with space.


I'm sure that some have...but ask yourself, is it better to be lucky or is it better to be good?