Looking for the Right Boat

[wild]

Looking for the right boat.

We're a family of 3 planning on circumnavigating and making a documentary film about the skills our children will need to thrive on a rapidly changing planet. We're headed out nine months from now. I sit up late at night and look at boats around 50 K that I think might be up to the task. We value separate quarters, as we plan to have guests. We're looking at something that will move in light air but not get tossed too much when it's on.

Do you like these boats?

The Hallberg Rassy Rasmus.
We like it because of the aft cabin, hard dodger, and reputation.

Down Easter 38
I'm wondering about the Down East 38. She doesn't look very fast, but she doesn't too slow, and she does have a lot of interior bunks. And, I like the pirate stylings.

Columbia 43 MK III
It looked really comfortable in the pictures with lots bunks. And, they look like they would perform pretty well. However, the free standing rudder didn't garner too much confidence.

Any recommendations? Aloha, Ryan

[skipmac]

Hi Ryan,

If you do a search of previous threads on this forum you will find dozens about picking the right boat and should find specific comments about the HR and the Columbia.

I personally like the HR but not sure you can find one in good shape for $50 K.

You might also want to look at this website. A lot of information about how to pick a boat for serious offshore sailing, including a list of boats the author considers designed and built to safely sail across an ocean.

Mahina Expedition - Offshore Cruising Instruction

[FSMike]

Ryan -
A friend and I delivered a Downeaster 38 from Jacksonville to New York and back several times. I love that boat. Not a light air rocketship, but very well built and comfortable at sea. We got in a Northeaster once and had sustained 30-40 kts for about 20 hours. The boat was under staysail with 2 reefs in the main on a very broad reach and she was flying, but still very controllable in the 8-10 foot seas. The autopilot couldn't cope though.
Careful design of the bimini/dodger had the cockpit well protected, but it could be difficult to get in and out of the cockpit to reef sails, etc.
They seem to hold their value well, probably because owners tend to keep them.
I think there were some owner finished hulls, so quality might vary.
Good luck to you.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by wild

Looking for the right boat.

We're a family of 3 planning on circumnavigating and making a documentary film about the skills our children will need to thrive on a rapidly changing planet.

Others will answer the boat question. My short answer is anything by HR will be pretty good.

But I am more interested in what you think is required of your children.

I tell people they need to make sure their children learn Mandarin, because this is going to be the Chinese century and it will be required like latin and then french and then english were.

They are also probably going to be the first generation to really have to deal with the disappearance of cheap oil. That's probably going to be a shocking transition for western society, but on a cruising boat is a good place to learn how.

Then they are going to have to deal with a changing diet - with the decline of fish stocks and the loss of cheap oil for water irrigation and fertilizer. Perhaps you should have a little sprouts and tomatoes farm on the boat.

[wild]

Sorry. I hit return as I was typing, it sent my email. Do you think if you'd of used a wind vane in 30 to 40 not winds, it would have been able to steer the boat, if the auto pilot was over powered. Do you think the Down East is too slow comparatively to sail for years around the world? From what we can figure out, it's personal preference. Light boats are faster, but get tossed more when it's rough. So, I guess we find a boat designed to sail well, that is still seaworthy...which is a personal call. Do you think the Down East is a slug? The Halberg Rassy looks like she would sail well, but is solid. They seem to strike that golden line, although we've read their slow too. I guess boats like Formasas must be too slow. We've heard when you sail around teh world, one spends between 20% and 40% of the time motoring. It would be nice to be on the 20% side. The Columbia 43 pretty fast and roomy, but I'm afraid of a free hanging rudder. Is that warrunted? Thank you all so much for your wisdom

[Chipg]

Ryan,

Sorry for taking this off topic, I'm in the production / broadcast media business. What type of production equiptment will you be using? It takes up a lot of space btw.

Feel free to PM me anytime, I might have some good tips for you.

Chip

[skipmac]

Hi Ryan,

Just to put the performance issue in perspective, the difference between a "fast" and "slow" boat is not huge. With a similar water line length you might see differences of +/- 1 knot, probably less. A slightly bigger issue might be the pointing ability where you might see a 10 degree difference which adds up over time and a long upwind sail. Bottom line, the right sails and trim for the boat the performance differences will be secondary to issues like quality, seaworthiness and comfort, at least in my book.

This of course assumes you are comparing different cruising designs and not including to a full blown race boat, cat or other very different type.

On self steering and autopilots. Unless a boat is very unbalanced or the sails not trimmed properly for the point of sail a good, heavy duty autopilot should be able to steer in all but the worst conditions. In fact I have read reports of cruisers using autopilots in full blown storms with no problem. Not personally familiar with the handling charateristics of the Downeast 38 but they do have a good reputation so would guess the problem reported by FSMike was due to the autopilot and not the boat. I would make the same comments for wind vane steering as well.

My personal preference is to go slightly on the performance side of cruising boats so if I had the money the HR would have been on my short list.

[Curmudgeon]

Well, my autohelm 4000 is virtually useless with a following sea in force 8 or better (I've never sailed in Force 10, but I'll extrapolate). The cross corrections cause the boat to wallow-- and I've got a 6.5 ton boat. I'd check out a windvane.

I like the Rasmus, and also like the French aft cabin boat from the same era, the Amel Kirk. The problem I see with 40' (or less) boats with the aft cabin, is that you have less space forward, and less lazarette space, so that the aft cabin becomes a storage bin. Also, both of these boats are usually rigged as ketches, which means that pointing ability will suffer.

If my budget were $50K, the first boat on my list would be a Tayana 37, which is a boat built to do exactly what you want to do: make ocean passages. At that price there is no perfect boat, but with the Tayana at least you will have plenty of company.

[Anzo]

I've got a Rasmus. By all accounts and by my experience a fine boat. Of course, I've put about 50k into her in addition to my purchase price. Having separate cabins (big one aft over the cockpit) does allow way more privacy than any quarter berth will, but keep in mind that it isn't very big for a 35 footer and has only a 10' beam. Picture it more a 30 footer with a garage. If you can find one with a rebuilt or replaced engine and reasonably recent electronics, I think you'll have a boat you can be proud of. HR made over 700 of them, though most seem to be in Europe. And make sure you find one with the hard dodger.

[FSMike]

Ryan -

Somehow or other over the years I've managed to avoid any experience with wind vanes so I can't speak to that question.

Skipmac may be correct that a better a/p could have handled the conditions. Also, it may well be that we purposely decided to actively helm the boat. It's been quite a few years, but I do recall the worst of the weather arriving quickly right at sundown. We probably turned off the a/p to see what we were getting into, and might have decided to drive through the night. I remember that it was dark as hell, and we may have felt more secure being able to respond quickly at the wheel if anything unusual happened.

As far as light air ability goes, the Downeaster suits me just fine as far as a cruising boat. I wouldn't let that hold me back. I don't have any first hand experience with the other two boats you mentioned, but I'm sure you can get some good info from other folks on this forum.

Whatever you choose, have fun!

[Chipg]

I have your email, you might want to delete it before the spam bots pick it up.

[wild]

A general question is, "what about free hanging rudders?" On the Columbia 43 the rudder just hangs off the bottom. It's not supported by the keel or the little extension that comes down, to which the rudder is bolted on, on some boats. And, my friend said to ask about rudder compartments. Do most boats have a rudder compartment? Does a Rassy Rasmus or Columbia MK III? My buddy seems to think a rudder compartment could save one from sinking.

[boggie]

hello everybody, i am also new here in thsi world, did the local skipper course and in a near future i want to be offshore(bluewater). Also like to buy a monohull, search for some of them, colecting opinions and but neraly people say: Scandinavian(Sweden, Denmark,Norway) and Finland you find the best ones. Germans are good to built cars but not boats ( eg :Bavaria , but seems this yard is starting to improving), French boats (Jenneau and Benneteau) are like the citröen cars, done in mass but you lose a lot of monney after a year.

What all of you think about it?

My preferences are: Hallberg-Rassy, Najad, Mallö, Nordshipp, Hanse, Dufour, Bavaria ( are the cheapest, but you know the cheapest gets expensive).

Catalina and Hyllas look's good...

I want to hear from you.

[Jack Tar]

Where are you looking at those boats for 50K. Thats a steal. Have you looked at a CT 41 .

[Fishman_Tx]

Originally Posted by wild

I guess boats like Formasas must be too slow..

Talk to Zeehag and a few others here about the Formosa or CTs. Per all I've read they are wonderful and not slow. Just high maintenance. There are several around to be had and really well priced, but you need to have a THOROUGH survey done. And don't listen to ALL the bad hype they get. Sure they're high maintenance, they have a lot of wood, but they perform well.

All these are in Hawaii within your price range:
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...dedSelected=-1

Here's a CT-41 in Hawaii:
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...g_id=74755&url=