Yacht size around here on hook

[TheThunderbird]

66'
57'
54' (me)
2x 50's
2x 45's

The notional concept of the Tiny boat is lost here in Sicily.

I now consider a "big" boat beyond 58' LOA. A 50' is for simple human comfort.

The 30's were developed in the wake of popular boating, in the 60s . They make little sense to the builders too.

No offense is meant to those owners..ofc

[Gene Neill]

No offense taken here. Maybe I could top off the cruising kitty by renting out my 27' as a dinghy to you zillionaires once in a while.

[Mirage35]

Suddenly remembered an expression my father often used: "Are you bragging or complaining?"

[TheThunderbird]

I am a liveaboard. Anyone including informed people commented it being too big for singlehanding.

Any boat is too short by a couple of feet...

[UNCIVILIZED]

My questions having to do with boats growing ever larger are:
Where the bleep does the $ come from to afford one, & often a house (or two) as well?
Where do the funds for her upkeep come from?
And when do you find time to sail, given all of the complex systems onboard requiring regular maintenance? A huge time suck if ever there was one.

[Windward9999]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

My questions having to do with boats growing ever larger are:
Where the bleep does the $ come from to afford one, & often a house (or two) as well?
Where do the funds for her upkeep come from?
And when do you find time to sail, given all of the complex systems onboard requiring regular maintenance? A huge time suck if ever there was one.

I have asked the same question, and the sales guy said to me" you can take it over 240 months (20 years)".

I started to laugh ( I think not), then he said" ya and the sad part is over 90% only pay the minimum payment, so the first 5 years your just paying interest.

Explains why some people are asking a lot for old boats.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

66'
57'
54' (me)
2x 50's
2x 45's

The notional concept of the Tiny boat is lost here in Sicily.

I now consider a "big" boat beyond 58' LOA. A 50' is for simple human comfort.

The 30's were developed in the wake of popular boating, in the 60s . They make little sense to the builders too.

No offense is meant to those owners..ofc

We've noticed the same phenom throughout the Med over the past six years. The vast majority of boats in the 38-50ft range are charter boats, most privately owned are larger.

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

My questions having to do with boats growing ever larger are:
Where the bleep does the $ come from to afford one, & often a house (or two) as well?
Where do the funds for her upkeep come from?
And when do you find time to sail, given all of the complex systems onboard requiring regular maintenance? A huge time suck if ever there was one.

Hard work, forward planning and diligence.... nothing magic.

[TJ D]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

My questions having to do with boats growing ever larger are:
Where the bleep does the $ come from to afford one, & often a house (or two) as well?
Where do the funds for her upkeep come from?
And when do you find time to sail, given all of the complex systems onboard requiring regular maintenance? A huge time suck if ever there was one.

Well, where does the money come from? Working hard, I suppose. Unless one inherits a large sum.

To the complex systems and all the time to maintain them-I sort of think that this is an outdated argument against bigger boats. Gear has come a LONG way over the last couple of decades. I really don't spend any more time wrenching on Rocket Science than I did on my little, simple 36 footer back in the day.

Further, a bigger boat doesn't NEED to be really complex. We really don't have any more equipment on this boat than we did on the 44 footer that it replaced. OK, a water ballast system, but there isn't 1 cruising boat in 1000 that has something like this, so it's not relevant anyway.

So, it's my contention that there is very little downside to a bigger boat, even on the maintenance front, provided you don't use all that space to load it up with as much gear as you can stuff in.

But, if you have to have an AC, washer/dryer, dive compressor, ice maker, dishwasher, etc, it can get complex and expensive, for sure.

My biggest bitch about the bigger boat is anything to do with the sails/rig. We replaced our working sails when we bought the boat, and the price of them alone could have purchased any number of nice little pocket cruisers. Everything else is pretty much the same.

Back to working on the dinghy motor... I'm ready to toss that thing overboard.

TJ

[TJ D]

Just a small addition on the finances side of things- Have the boat be your only home. I think that a 50'+ boat makes a perfectly good year-round abode, so if fit's not in the cards to have a big boat and a house... Ditch the house!

That's what we've done-the boat is home.

[El Pinguino]

What flag are the other boats?

[Palarran]

I just came from Sicily and am in Cagliari now. My observations are that half the boats are Bavaria's and being used quite nicely. There are a lot of smaller boats around but many are looking pretty ragged out. A lot of the bigger ones are looking bad also so it's about the same. Lots of old plastic that's not well maintained.

[SoundOfSilence]

Of course there is more maintenance to do on a bigger boat with more complex systems, especially an older one. But when something broke on my last boat, a new Hanse 400 from 2007, I got more annoyed because it was impossible to get to the broken system and sometimes I had to make new hatches in the glued glassfibre section just to get there. With this one, a Grand Soleil 52 from 1991, when something breakes, there is always a factory fitted hatch to get to that system. This makes a huge difference.

And sneeking away from wife and kids one day a week with the excuse to work on the boat is not so bad

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TJ D

. . .
To the complex systems and all the time to maintain them-I sort of think that this is an outdated argument against bigger boats. Gear has come a LONG way over the last couple of decades. I really don't spend any more time wrenching on Rocket Science than I did on my little, simple 36 footer back in the day.

Further, a bigger boat doesn't NEED to be really complex. We really don't have any more equipment on this boat than we did on the 44 footer that it replaced. OK, a water ballast system, but there isn't 1 cruising boat in 1000 that has something like this, so it's not relevant anyway.

So, it's my contention that there is very little downside to a bigger boat, even on the maintenance front, provided you don't use all that space to load it up with as much gear as you can stuff in.

But, if you have to have an AC, washer/dryer, dive compressor, ice maker, dishwasher, etc, it can get complex and expensive, for sure.

My biggest bitch about the bigger boat is anything to do with the sails/rig. We replaced our working sails when we bought the boat, and the price of them alone could have purchased any number of nice little pocket cruisers. Everything else is pretty much the same.

Back to working on the dinghy motor... I'm ready to toss that thing overboard.

TJ

I agree with all of this. I don't understand at all the argument about larger boats and complexity. Complexity doesn't necessarily go up with size -- it goes up with -- having more systems. If you don't want more systems, you can not have them just as well on a bigger boat, as on a smaller one. As far as I can tell, the average modern 36 footer, usually has more or less the same systems as the average modern 50 footer.

In reality, however, most people who live aboard or spend a lot of time on their boats, want more, and not less civilization. Why is having a washing machine, for example, some kind of tragic over-complication? You don't consider it something decadent in a land dwelling. Do you ever hear anyone saying "I wouldn't have a washing machine in my house; what would I do when it breaks? How can I find time to do all the maintenance on it?"

If you are just sailing around the bay on the odd weekend, then you may need a different kind of boat -- and not necessarily smaller -- than those of us who spend months at a time on board.

[sailorboy1]

I started a thread once about "what is a complex boat". Somewhere in that thread there was post on just about any system/item on a boat, so in that thread almost all boats at "complex". But it seemed the dividing line was whether you had refrigeration or not.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Windward9999

I have asked the same question, and the sales guy said to me" you can take it over 240 months (20 years)".

I started to laugh ( I think not), then he said" ya and the sad part is over 90% only pay the minimum payment, so the first 5 years your just paying interest.

Explains why some people are asking a lot for old boats.

I've commented on this before.
General Aviation as in four passenger aircraft died long ago, people that used to buy them, can't any longer.
However Corporate Jet deliveries has been ever increasing for years, the biggest, most expensive jet there is, has a back log years long.

Many boat manufacturers of 30 and 40 ish boats have disappeared, however deliveries of Super Yachts are at an all time high I read the other day.

I see it as the " one percenters" are increasing their wealth, others not so much.