Trawler Life

[yarokil]

New at CF.
Looking to purchase a trawler after 30 years' sailing and 5-year hiatus.
Cruising areas would be SoFla, Bahamas, Caribbean.
Will appreciate all considered recommendations.
Thanx,
Y

[boatman61]

Traitor....

[djmarchand]

Your desire to do the Carribean indicates something more than a coastal cruiser. Not that if you were real careful and waited for the right weather that you couldn't do it in something like a Mainship or Marine Trader, but if you want to go where a sailboat can go, then you need something with a bit of blue water capability.

Several possibilities in order of ascending price: Hatteras 42 LRC, Krogen 42, Selene 36+, Nordhavn 40+ and some new models that I can't remember their names.

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Traitor....

Hey! I resemble that.

[Hudson Force]

I'm still on the sailboat after forty years, but I see the appeal. I'm likely to favor something more like a semi-planning if I were to make the jump. ...not that I'd be pushing for big speed, but I like the Duffy's, the Willards and some that are more of the Lobster boat configuration. Afterall, if I make the switch it would not be for space, but for mobility, comfort and short easy passages.

[DMENG]

We are returning to cruising after a 12 year gap. Our 1972 40' Eagle Trawler is a great alternative to those pricey ones.

[Kettlewell]

With diesel edging up towards $5 per gallon I would look at fuel efficiency as one of my top priorities.

[doug86]

Do you have a purchase price range in mind?

Do you have a cruising distance range in mind?

Do you have a size range in mind?

Help us out a little here.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

With diesel edging up towards $5 per gallon I would look at fuel efficiency as one of my top priorities.

And at 1.59euro a Litre (Euro 1= $1.45) here I'd stay clear of Europe for sure....

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, yarokil.

[yarokil]

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR COMMENTS.
FROM WHAT I'VE READ SO FAR (NOT BEEN IN ONE YET), I LIKE THE GRAND BANKS.
WE WOULD NEED ACCOMODATIONS FOR THE OCASIONAL GRANDCHILDREN AND FRIENDS.
CRUISING RANGE IS UNLIMITED - WE STARTED SAILING IN THE CARIBBEAN, THEN THE BALTIC, DOWN INTO THE MED, AND A T.A. CROSSING (OVER MANY YEARS). AND A RETURN IS A POSSIBILITY.

[lorenzo b]

Get yourself a big old fishing boat, they are giving them away, and fix it up. With the $400,000 you save you can buy fuel for the next 50 years. You will have enough space to travel with your own circus. Oh yeah, and other boats will get out of your way when they see you coming.

[Kettlewell]

What's the fuel consumption on that 63-foot shrimp boat? I met a guy who was cruising on an old Navy tugboat. I think he carried a few thousand gallons of fuel.

[lorenzo b]

We burn a gallon a mile with a 8/71 DD doing 7 knots and carry 3000 gallons of fuel and 2000 in water

[u4ea32]

Yarokil, since you cruised before, you know that not much $$ is needed to purchase, but lots of $$$$$$$$ is needed to operate a boat.

Hence, I suggest you don't forget this lesson on your new search. The $$$$$$$$$$$ to operate is driven by the complexity of systems. Keep it simple, or pay for it over and over and over and...

In the past in the USA and oil exporting countries like Mexico, fuel burn was never much of an issue. Not so today.

The fuel burn is mostly related to speed: if your cruise speed in knots is less than the square root of the waterline length measured in feet, then almost anything will get 1nmpg, most get 1.5nmpg, a very few get 3 to 5 nmpg. If you want to get 10nmpg, you need to keep to the same slow speed, and you want to have essentially a sailboat shaped hull, with transom clear of the water, round bottom, single diesel.

Also note that the speed issue (the desire to run at 15 or 30 knots) is a red herring: people with boats that go that fast don't in fact use them. The marinas are filled with such boats on the most beautiful weekends of the year. Meanwhile, the distant anchorages are filled with boats that go quite slowly.

Today diesel is $5 to $10 a gallon nearly world-wide. Some places like Venezuela seem like they have cheap fuel, but just the extortion fees you need to pay triples the price to your tank (November 2010), and the fact you might be going way, way out of your way to a relatively lawless part of the world to get that fuel, makes the on-the-surface price perhaps not such a deal after all.

Peak oil was in 2008. The price of fuel is not going to go down, its almost certainly going to increase as the world-wide demand continues to increase while worldwide production is widely expected to decline by 30% over the next 20 years. Consider carefully the rapidly expanding world wide consumer population. China and India have ten times as many people as America... Hence in 10-20 years, a boat that gets only 5 nmpg may well be considered a worthless fuel pig, like most 1nmpg planing powerboats (like mine) are today.

Hence, I would suggest that you look for 10 nmpg or better vessels. For used vessels, that means a sailboat. For a new custom built power vessel, you can easily achieve 20nmpg, but no such yachts are on the market today.