Montebello 12.5 | Any Advice ?

[gelliott]

am looking at a charter in the whitsundays in August, and have a choice between a leopard 47 and a montebello 12.5. the leopard there is plenty of advice on how she sails etc, but no the montebello as its fairly new. Has anybody ever sailed one? Im new to the forum so any advice appreciated....

[Factor]

Yep sailed a montebello, nice boat sailed well, no vices, seemed easily driven and looked like a good boat for a charter holiday.

[downunder]

Montebello is nice vessel only max 2 yrs old, possibly more room on Leopard 47 and depends if you were considering purchasing a Leopard 2nd hand down track.

Monte will be newer and is a well finished vessel. Don't know about sailing relatively but as a Roger Hill design should be more than competetive with the Leopard.

[ausaviator]

Sexy boat the Montebello.

I would have said check their website, it had lots of pics, but it wasn't there when I went to look for it, I'm getting an "under construction" type message.

It has an impressively large outboor area at the rear which was one of my takeaways when I saw it.

[Ozbullwinkle]

I chartered a Leopard 47 through Sunsail on Hamilton Is and loved it and I really put it through its paces and was really happy with it's performance in winds over 30 knots. There is a clip on youtube or I can post it here if you can't find it. It also had a large outdoor covered area under the hardtop which was fantastic as we had 8 on board and never felt in each others way.

I am not familiar with the Monte but would expect it would be a fair bit smaller than the Leopard if it is only 12.5m.

[gelliott]

thanks guys, i think the Mb has nice space too, I was more interested in how it actually sailed , particularly in light winds, as the leopard seems to have good reviews for both strong and weak....the mb has a really nice lounge area but i limited galley, but not over bothered about that....though the trampolines where my wife and kids like to lay seem small

[gelliott]

actually also just realised, the leopard is actually a 464 not a 47, with sunsail who i have never used

[gelliott]

factor how you you compare the MB to other boats you've sailed?

[Ozbullwinkle]

I can highly recommend Sunsail at Hamilton Island & one of the benefits of starting your charter from here is that you are right in the Whitsunday Islands which maximises your sailing time in the best locations.

For the benefit of overseas readers here is a clip of the Montebello 12.5 sailing off the Gold Coast in Queensland Australia. It certainly is a beautiful vessel & was designed by Roger Hill.

Montebello 12.5m Sail Catamaran - YouTube

[Factor]

Originally Posted by gelliott

factor how you you compare the MB to other boats you've sailed?

Pretty Good, probably not quite as responsive as the Seawind 1250, but better than most.

BUT if its charter boats we a re talking about then just remember - what private boats do and don't do is marginally relevant to charter boats, some companies tie off topping lifts so you can never get decent leech tension, very few charter boats use the best sails with the biggest roach, most will have not necessarily optimum rig and batten tension. And certainly all will be chockers with fuel and water and usually grog. What I am trying to say is that its sometimes hard to judge the sailing performance of a brand and model by chartering, that charter boats may not be representative of the possible performance.

Having said that (in the time honoured words of Paul Keating) let me say this , The MB will I think be a very nice holiday platform, and given its relatively young age, will probably still have sails with shape etc. So it should be Good.

Just on the "start you holiday at Hamilton" yes thats an option, upside is as Oz said, downside is you cant do your own provisioning terribly easy and you cant drive to the boat. When I was chartering I used to drive up - stop at Mackay and shop cheap, then head to the boat. But flying into hammo and jumping on the boat is certainly easier.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Factor

Just on the "start you holiday at Hamilton" yes thats an option, upside is as Oz said, downside is you cant do your own provisioning terribly easy and you cant drive to the boat. When I was chartering I used to drive up - stop at Mackay and shop cheap, then head to the boat. But flying into hammo and jumping on the boat is certainly easier.

Have heard someone keeping a boat a Hamilton over Christmas did there provissioning at Hamilton through either Wollworths or Coles as they daily deliver via refrig trucks by barge to Hamilton. Found it very very good service. May be through their on line sales. Worth a try. They have Grog also I think.

[Ozbullwinkle]

When I chartered with Sunsail out of Hammo we took up their fully catered option as well. Yes, it was a bit more than doing your own provisioning but the way that we figured was that we would rather be out sailing straight after the briefing instead of wasting some of our charter time in a supermarket and then packing everything away. The quality of the food was great and the amount was spot on as well and I'm sure that if we had shopped for ourselves we would probably had much more left over at the end of the charter which makes self shopping a bit of false economy.

Worth taking a look at - they have differeent food catering options depending on what you want to eat.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Ozbullwinkle

When I chartered with Sunsail out of Hammo we took up their fully catered option as well. Yes, it was a bit more than doing your own provisioning but the way that we figured was that we would rather be out sailing straight after the briefing instead of wasting some of our charter time in a supermarket and then packing everything away. The quality of the food was great and the amount was spot on as well and I'm sure that if we had shopped for ourselves we would probably had much more left over at the end of the charter which makes self shopping a bit of false economy.

Worth taking a look at - they have differeent food catering options depending on what you want to eat.

Good point - its hard sometimes to estimate quantity if you haven't cruised much.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Ozbullwinkle

When I chartered with Sunsail out of Hammo we took up their fully catered option as well. Yes, it was a bit more than doing your own provisioning but the way that we figured was that we would rather be out sailing straight after the briefing instead of wasting some of our charter time in a supermarket and then packing everything away. The quality of the food was great and the amount was spot on as well and I'm sure that if we had shopped for ourselves we would probably had much more left over at the end of the charter which makes self shopping a bit of false economy.

Worth taking a look at - they have differeent food catering options depending on what you want to eat.

Works out at around $60/head/day for reasonable menu through Charter companies and of course they get a kick back.

The Woolworth online delivery apparently included loading supplies into fridges on vessel at fraction of cost. Worth checking out. Will try and find more info.

[DevoDave]

There were a couple of MB's in the charter fleet XTsea used to be in. I think they were the first couple of hulls, and may have moved on to other fleets when WPYC went belly-up. Montebello have gone belly-up as well.

I heard that the production quality on those couple of boats was not overly high and they had a lot of problems. The 24V electrics with distributed switching sounded good but turned out to be poorly implemented, and the diesel cooking never worked well.

(My suggestion, go for a Seawind 1160! Preferably ours!)