Opinions on Hunter Passage 42

[MBLittle]

Originally Posted by ShaktisBoy

You guys crack me up. How is it that you believe a boat that sold new for 200k should lose 75% of its value in 20 years if its maintained? What if the owner just replaced the rig added new sails and a genset? Maybe a watermaker for extended cruising? This cost allot and retrofitting is expensive. I maintain that a well cared for, well equiped boat is going to cost close to 6 figures unless she is ancient. Keep in mind those prices on yachtworld are asking prices and the real sale ammount will most likely be somewhat lower. Now back to the boats mentioned above, they are nice well founded boats but they wont appeal to everyone. If you only sail and and never spend a considerable ammount of time living onboard and swimming diving then the boats listed above are great. But for me there are several glaring issues that would make all of them a no go fo us. 1 athwartship berths. Im getting to old to crawl over my partner to use the head in the middle of the night. She hates being woken up while I crawl over her so for her it is a deal breaker as well. 2 . With no easy water access, swiming diving or just plain old getting back onboard if I fall over in the middle of the night is a problem. For me it seems like a no brainer, there is more safety with a swim platform and steps. Being divers we enjoy being able to launch multiple folks at a time off our cat. The hunter passage has a wide back swim step so launching two at a time seems dooable on it as well. 3. Draft. We like to get away from the beaten path and particularly in the keys and Bahamas so 5 feet was the maximum draft we would accept. The Passage barely meets this requirement. 4. Quarter berths cant stand em. Nuff said. Flame away

I agree with every single thing you presented. I stated already that having a transom that was easy on/off while at anchor is an absolute requirement for us. Not sure why I'd spend the same amount of money for a boat 10 years older that doesn't have that.

Yes, we plan on crossing oceans, once. We're not going from San Francisco to Oz and back. We're island and land hoping from St Thomas (where we live) around the world. Taking out island/land hoping, what is there? Galapagos to FP, India to SA, SA to the med and med to Carib. That is seriously less than 5% of our sail time which is already 20% of our actual time.

I'm not taking my wife, 2 year old daughter and our black lab from Antarctica to Norway, I don't need a boat built for that.

To me and the wife, 80% of our time will be at anchor, buying a boat solely for 5% of the time seems just plain stupid, especially since we don't plan on racing anywhere. 6 knots is just fine with me. Our circumnavigation is about the family time and learning experiences for everyone that gets to join us, not some fictional trophy for my ego.

[MBLittle]

My last post wasn't directed at anyone in particular. I appreciate everyone's input but I need reliable knowledge from first-hand that I can directly equate to our needs and circumstances. Every hunter owner I've seen loves their boat. Multiple forums echo the same. There's a reason for that I'm guessing. Hunter Passage 42 owners in particular are always extremely happy. There's a reason for that too.

It appears to me that people that bash Hunters have usually never sailed one, much less owned one. That advice while appreciated, is always taken with a grain of salt.

[bobconnie]

We have never sailed a Hunter, but we have sure seen them in a lot of places weve been to! Anchorages thruout the Pacific and the Caribe! Maybe they had them flown there?? Cus reading this thread has made me realise they could not have sailed there! right?? Come on folks ! just how many of the folks sayin they are not safe have really ever owned or even sailed one? just wondering??

[Matt Johnson]

I for one never said they weren't safe, just that for the money, I dont see them as a good value vs other options. My first sailboat was a 1998 Hunter. I bought it because I wanted a new boat at the time, it fit the budget, and our homeport was full of Hunters and Catalinas... it's all I knew. It was reliable, but we out grew the boat pretty quick and moved onto our current boat (which is basically like any other production boat), and are cruising it full time. I'm not knocking production boats, its just that if the boat market at the time of our last purchase was like it currently is, I would have purchased something much different then what we are cruising on.

You currently have the opportunity to pick just about anything, just want to make sure you get whats going to be best for your adventure.

And Bob, If he owned the Hunter right now, it would be one thing, but are you saying you would recommend thats the boat to buy with $100k for his circumnavigation?

[Gerrycooper56]

Originally Posted by MBLittle

Was the ride enjoyable too?

We enjoyed most of it.

[dennisail]

Originally Posted by funjohnson

I for one never said they weren't safe, just that for the money, I dont see them as a good value vs other options. My first sailboat was a 1998 Hunter. I bought it because I wanted a new boat at the time, it fit the budget, and our homeport was full of Hunters and Catalinas... it's all I knew. It was reliable, but we out grew the boat pretty quick and moved onto our current boat (which is basically like any other production boat), and are cruising it full time. I'm not knocking production boats, its just that if the boat market at the time of our last purchase was like it currently is, I would have purchased something much different then what we are cruising on.

You currently have the opportunity to pick just about anything, just want to make sure you get whats going to be best for your adventure.

And Bob, If he owned the Hunter right now, it would be one thing, but are you saying you would recommend thats the boat to buy with $100k for his circumnavigation?

I recommend it. For 100K you can get a 40.5 and have money left to outfit it for blue water cruising. You will end up with a spacious, safe, strong and fast boat. Thinking about it you would be hard pressed to find a better deal out there.

There is my suggestion. Now what is yours?

[Artful Dodger]

My wife and I bought our new to us 42cc passage almost two years ago, our previous vessel was a Morgan OI33, so to compare we have found that both seem to be both as stable, both have ample room, but the 42cc is much more comfortable sailing and more room. It also has a back stay and not a fractional sail set up. Of all the things I like the most is the added speed where instead of leaving an hour earlier than everyone and arriving sometimes 2 hours later at the next anchorage and being hard to find a happy spot. The other things were that my wife is a short girl, the Morgan was hard for her to sail from the helm, as well very hard to dock and anchor,yet for backing up don't even try. Now the helm is in the same distance from the bow were the Morgan was and therefore doesn't seem so intimidating as well she is higher up for viewing, not to mention she can dock this vessel and back it up. So if someone was to ask me about this vessel to purchase I would be in full encouragement mode. As for price we were able to get ours for under the 100,000.00 purchase price. We are full time live a boards now nine years, and look forward to heading on more sailing east, south and across the pond starting in 2015.

[MBLittle]

Originally Posted by Artful Dodger

My wife and I bought our new to us 42cc passage almost two years ago, our previous vessel was a Morgan OI33, so to compare we have found that both seem to be both as stable, both have ample room, but the 42cc is much more comfortable sailing and more room. It also has a back stay and not a fractional sail set up. Of all the things I like the most is the added speed where instead of leaving an hour earlier than everyone and arriving sometimes 2 hours later at the next anchorage and being hard to find a happy spot. The other things were that my wife is a short girl, the Morgan was hard for her to sail from the helm, as well very hard to dock and anchor,yet for backing up don't even try. Now the helm is in the same distance from the bow were the Morgan was and therefore doesn't seem so intimidating as well she is higher up for viewing, not to mention she can dock this vessel and back it up. So if someone was to ask me about this vessel to purchase I would be in full encouragement mode. As for price we were able to get ours for under the 100,000.00 purchase price. We are full time live a boards now nine years, and look forward to heading on more sailing east, south and across the pond starting in 2015.

My wife is quite short as well, so I'm sure she'll be happy to hear this.

We also really like the Hunter 450 as well

Sent from my LG-E980 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Artful Dodger]

It has been told to me by many an old salt from the Newfoundland waters that when measuring boating time of the 100 percent of the time on water that 95 percent is spent at anchor ortied to a dock. The remaining 5 percent is spent on the water sailing, and of that 1 quarter of 1 percent is spent in bad weather and of that 1 quarter percent 95 percent of it we can make a decision, leaving a very small amount of time of which we can not control, so instead of trying to figure out if a boat meets our needs, I think one must decide how responsible we are in making our decisions when sailing in bad weather. As today there is so much information available for us to decide on whether to set sail