Newcomers needing advice on boat purchase

[BalideMAS]

Hi everybody, we are a sea/sailing loving family of 5 (our kids are 3,6 and 7 y.o ), and we have limited sailing experience (only in the Med, mainly Balearic islands and a bit of Italy and Greece).
We are planning to go long term sailing (an old dream starting to come real!) starting in the Med and are currently looking to buy our first sailing boat. Our priority is to get a sturdy boat, we are not concerned about speed/sailing performance. Our budget is £60.000-£70.000. We have set our eyes in a Tradewind 39 (which is out of our budget..). Can anyone advice me which boats would you recomend me for blue water sailing/circumnaviation and why ? (we are looking for a single hull). Thanks!
Patricia

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Patricia.

[carstenb]

Tere are tons of threads on this forum that have turned this question inside out and outside in. There is no "right" answer. You are five persons. Depending on your lifestyle, you can buy anything from a 30 footer up to XXX feet (XXX= BIG). None here can tell you.

You budget is probably low, when 5 persons are considered. Were it me (an my lifestyle) I would say minimum 40 feet, better 45 feet. Others will say differently.

Check out some of the other threads, you'll find that you need to quantify you question a hell of a lot, before you get qualified answers.

One major question: When you say long term sailing, do you mean living aboard and sailing in the MED or similar for a year or two - or are you talking passage making? Round the world? Just across the pond to the US?

All of the above scenarios could be different boats

[tuvia47]

Hi
I think that a Bavaria 40' 2008/9 is in your budget & will be comfortable for the 5 of you.

[BalideMAS]

Hi,
Thanks for your replies. We are starting in the Med, living on board and sailing and move across the world whenever we feel we are ready for it. We have not time limit: it could be 6 months, 2 years, who knows! Thats why we though we wanted a sturdy boat and were under the impression that Bavarias, Jeannus, Bennetau's and all the "typical" charter boats were not? Excuse my ignorance if they are!!

[BalideMAS]

Originally Posted by carstenb

Tere are tons of threads on this forum that have turned this question inside out and outside in. There is no "right" answer. You are five persons. Depending on your lifestyle, you can buy anything from a 30 footer up to XXX feet (XXX= BIG). None here can tell you.

You budget is probably low, when 5 persons are considered. Were it me (an my lifestyle) I would say minimum 40 feet, better 45 feet. Others will say differently.

Check out some of the other threads, you'll find that you need to quantify you question a hell of a lot, before you get qualified answers.

One major question: When you say long term sailing, do you mean living aboard and sailing in the MED or similar for a year or two - or are you talking passage making? Round the world? Just across the pond to the US?

All of the above scenarios could be different boats

Hi! Thanks for your comment, as I am new to all these (including the forums!) I did reply to your questions on the gerenal page instead of quoting you

[savoir]

A 39 footer with 5 aboard will get very small very fast. Boats shrink in proportion with the time you spend aboard.

[BalideMAS]

Very valid and strong point! We have found quite a few boats (40 to 45 feet) within budget but wonder if they will be sturdy enough? i.e Dufours? any one in particular you would recommend me to avoid?

[Adelie]

5 people means 4 good or excellent seaberths, 1 for each offwatch person, plus a place for the on watch person to sit without bumping a sleeper. Excellent would be a pilot berth, very good would be a quarter berth, good would be a settee that has to be converted every night. Berths in an aft cabin would also be good, the motion at the end of the boat could keep it from being very good. A dinette would not make a good seaberth because of the amount of work required to convert twice daily.

Keep in mind that with kids their berths need to be permanent, they need at least that much stability and personal space, so they need to get a quarter berth, pilot berth or aft cabin berth. A settee or dinette that converts will not be good enough. Sharing a double berth would be a big stretch for them too unless it is big enough to subdivide in some substantial and permanent way.

For the adults in port you will get the forepeak. Underway you will be bunking in the main cabin, but you will also each be spending a lot of time on watch in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep and loneliness may become a problem. The problem of visitors aboard that stay late keeping the kids up probably will come up rarely.

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...url=&imc=pg-fs
SHARKI 39 (AMEL) sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
KIRK 36 (AMEL) sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
View Boat Photos - YachtWorld.com
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...url=&imc=pg-fs


Your complement of 5 includes 3 kids who initially would not be able to contribute much to normal sailing and will be a slight distraction in bad situations, one parent will have to periodically check on them, and no way are you going to let them on deck when things are bad so they can't contibute even marginally. So in essence you are double-handed or slightly less.

To that end boat handling should be as simple as possible. For sails you need a main with 3 reef points. A trysail would be nice if it is permanently set on it's own separate track. Roller furling for mains has not become reliable enough for serious sailing away from the developed world.

Roller furling for the headsail has become a lot more reliable in recent years but I am not necessarily advocating that. I personally would only be comfortable with a roller furling headsail if there was an inner forestay and running backstays for a staysail with hanked on sails. In addition to the extra sail area of the staysail and it's ability to carry a storm jib the extra rigging would provide redundant support for the upper reaches of the mast. The forestay could be installed with a removable fitting at the tack to allow more convenient tacking in confined areas where short tacking is necessary.

Short handed and cruising, spinnaker use is not very convenient or safe so most cruisers don't use them. Instead they tend to use CodeZero's or Drifters. A drifter is a lightweight, .5-1.5oz material, usually nylon, genoa (150-180%) set flying or with a small number of hanks on the headstay. If you have a roller furling headsail then either a drifter is precluded or it will need to have a tape luff to fit in the foil. The CodeZero is an asymetrical spinnaker cut very flat and usually set on a roller furler. It is flown from the bow or a short bowsprit. The CodeZero is significantly larger than a drifter but will not point nearly as high, whereas a drifter can be used up to close hauled, though it does not perform as well as the course nears a dead run. One of these is needed in order to enhance light wind progress or you will find yourself motoring a lot more.

To me the choice would depend on available money since the CodeZero costs a lot more than the drifter, perhaps twice as much. While they each have their strengths, the both perform acceptably over most points of sail.

You will want the boat to steer itself. To this end you will need a windvane or an autopilot or both. A windvane costs significantly more than an autopilot but is more reliable over the longterm. If you go the autopilot route, you will need to spend money to increase your battery and charging capacities in order to operate the autopilot so the cost difference many not be as big as it appears when you first look at the situation. The recommendation I like the best is to get a windvane and a small autopilot for use in very light winds and when motoring.

[savoir]

I suggest something in the 43 - 46 ft bracket with 3 sleeping cabins. Start by logging in to yachtworld.com and narrow your search further by selecting a purchase region or country.

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome to the forum of many opinions.
My suggestion is to take your farmily to as many marinas as possible and look at as many boats as possible and consider the living arrangements.
You'll be in port more than at sea. At sea takes less living room than while sailing and standing watches in my opinion. Consider what you will want to be living in while in port.
kind regards,

[carstenb]

At the moment, there are a couple of threads on "best blue water cruiing boat", and they are pretty viscious. No need for you to get involved.

Regarding charter boats or perhaps more rightly, mass production boats. My opinion is that virtually all of them will make it RTW. Some will have taken a major beating. Beneteaus and Jeaneau have had a lot of boats go RTW and seem to hold up well. The later model years Dufours also. Bavarias are good boats, but to my mind just not sturdy enough for several years of RTW (and yes, I have owned one myself so I do know a bit whereof I speak). Hansa seem ok, but again only the later model years.

Adelie gave a lot of good advice. Here's some of the best you'll get.

Buy and read Beth Leonards book, The Voyagers Handbook. It will tell you almost everything you want to know about cruising. If she doesn't discuss it i her book, you probably don't need to know it.