Best boat maker for liveaboard cruising

[Suijin]

You need to start getting yourself on various boats and poking around them. As a live aboard there are some requirements that differ from the needs of a weekend cruiser. The following list is purely for example only:

- A comfortable place to sit and read or whatever. Interestingly a lot of boats don’t have that.

- A nav station or other spot that you can comfortably use as a desk. No back cushion? Not so great after an hour or so.

- A useable head. Can you sit on it comfortably? An uncomfortable/cramped one gets old using it day in and day out.

Start looking at boats for sale and poking around in them, visualizing how you’ll send spend your time. You’ll start to get a feel for the subtle differences that will make a difference in liveability.

You’ll also start to get a sense of the range of care given to boats on the market and be able to spot one that had been well maintained.

[2big2small]

Originally Posted by Lencro

Just an idea (pretty much what I would go for):
1984 Amel Sharki Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

Please don’t take it personal Lencro but let’s look at everything that’s wrong with this Amel Sharki as an illustration of which criteria to look for.

1. From a safety perspective there’s one big no-no and that is that the companionway is ofset to starboard. Companionways have to be centered. If this Amel suffers a knockdown to starboard it will start shipping water in much sooner than if it had a centered companionway.

2. Closed stern. You definitely want a stern with a good bathing platform and easy access to the cockpit. This way you can easily get aboard from your tender with your hands full of groceries.

3. 2 masts, 3 sails instead of a sloop (1 mast, 2 sails) therefore more work to set your sails when sailing, more maintenance, more top-heavy and therefore more rolly underway and at anchor, less sail surface unless you go taller which means more heeling, etc.

4. Just a hawsepipe and no self bailing chain locker with good access through a big hatch on deck. I’m not totally sure this is the case, can’t really make it out from the pictures but this is something you find all too often on older boats and it is a huge pain and unsafe. In big seas you ship water in through the hawsepipe, straight into the bilge or on the worst boats straigt into the mattress of the V-berth. While for regular use the chain piles up and gets stuck under the winch and then you have to go inside to sort things out from the access door at the end of the V-berth. And of course all the seawater, mud, and seaweed that comes up with the chain goes straight into the bilge or your mattress too...

5. It looks like it has those old fashioned foam filled ceiling panels. These soak up humidity and mold until someday they flop down and dangle from your ceiling like the big clumsy mess they are.

6. Tiny galley.

7. Galley is oriented in such a way that the person working in it has its back to the social happenings of the saloon, instead of facing it and being part of it.

8. Tiny, cramped head

9. Head is made of many panels with seems between them and lots of nooks and crannies, instead of one seemless single mold that can be hosed down. This means all kinds of nastiness can get lodged in the seems and quickly become malodorous. This is an exceptional PITA after you had to disassemble the head when it was still full of excrement which of course went everywhere.

10. No dedicated indoors shower space. If you’re going to live aboard you’ll be happy to shower inside when it gets colder, without splashing your toilet and sink and cabinets and making a general mess.

11. It doesn’t seem like the cockpit is big enough for lounging fully stretched out let alone sprawling out, but I might be wrong.

[sandrunner]

Originally Posted by 2big2small

You can do it for your budget. Beneteau Oceanis 361 (or 373)
You can get these in 2 or 3 cabin layouts that are excellent for liveavoard. If you want a really great galley then choose the 361 in the 2 cabin layout. I owned a 361 and sailed it 20k miles, twice across the Atlantic. It’s very fast and comfortable but not as sturdy as you’d hope for intensive sailing so you need to find one that has only be lightly used and then resell them while they have still some life in them to a relaxed weekend sailor.

Hrmm, let me know when you find a lightly used 361 or 373 for 46k ...

[double u]

'd be interesting to see % of all rtw-boats ever are: full keel:fin & skeg:fin & spade...
I'm open for guesses...

[2big2small]

Originally Posted by sandrunner

Hrmm, let me know when you find a lightly used 361 or 373 for 46k ...

There are some and there have been for the past 5 yrs or so but I’m not currently looking. They’d be in the Med, and with the low Pound possibly in the UK too.

[NevisDog]

Originally Posted by PDScott

... Here is a good site that lists the makes the author believes are truly Blue Water boats...
Mahina Expeditions - Selecting A Boat for Offshore Cruising

Excellent, well-researched list of cruising boats. This list would have saved me a year or so of researching and building my own list, which was surprisingly similar.

[Dulls]

It is not any safer because lines are lead to the cot pit. Deck work of some type is needed to put a reef in on most boats(I say most), even if it is to hook the main in. The reason yards dont make long keel boats is that the market demands big interiors for minimum amount of material. Long keel boats do not fit into that category. Ropes to cot pits are just market driven and sell the punter more gear. Materials are like steak, more steak more cost and less profit to the yard. People like big volume boats. All other aspects are secondary.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by double u

'd be interesting to see % of all rtw-boats ever are: full keel:fin & skeg:fin & spade...
I'm open for guesses...

Most full keel boats are getting pretty long in the tooth, so I’d suspect you would find fewer and fewer each year, but it’s due to age and not keel design.
With modern forecasting and especially communications, weather routing etc. the requirements for modern cruising are different, and with modern navigation (GPS) the buyers are a whole different breed as well.

[Paul J. Nolan]

Much internet advice is drivel, and this thread is no exception. Most people new to sailing think bigger is better. This is wrong-headed; smaller is almost always better, which is fortunate for you because you don't have the budget for a large boat. In my opinion the Contessa 32 is the boat for you. Start by going to the class association's website. You should also read everything you can. I suggest everything ever written by Eric Hiscock, Peter Tangvald, Donald Street, Hal Roth, Lin and/or Larry Pardy,. You will enjoy Trekka Around the World by John Guzzwell. In addition Adlard Coles' Heavy Weather Sailing and a book called Total Loss (the author's name now escapes me) will give you something to think about. And get a Laser and learn how to sail. Good luck.