Suitable Make and Model for Around the World Voyage

[savoir]

Your first decision on a cruiser is size. The best way to do that is charter something in your selected size for a 3 day weekend or whatever to see how it feels. Any brand of boat will do for that. The basic idea is to buy the biggest boat your wife can sail alone at 3am while you are below sleeping. Plenty of other sailors say that 40ft is a great size (and buy one) so why not follow their lead and make that your start point. Here is a pretty nice 40 in the HR series. I agree they are expensive but looking at these helps you set your upper limits.

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...g_id=29384&url=

The designer you mentioned I guess is Bob Perry who posts here now and then. His cruising designs are sleeker than most and tend to sail a little faster. Here is one that I have always liked and which would be OK to race.

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...g_id=76997&url=

If you want a separate race boat, think about something small and simple around 25 ft like one of these. Cheap to buy, easy to crew and fun to sail.

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...ng_id=6944&url=

[DirtyDave]

Savoir, Thanks for your input and i have kicked around a J 125 to fool around with but the 80 looks fun as well. This is why I am here. The HR looks nice. As you said yes we will be sailing a number of boats during our training West and East coast. Thank You Much.

[svBeBe]

We owned a Beneteau for 5 years. In 2005, we bought a slightly used 2003 Amel Super Maramu 53'.

Huge difference. Beneteaus are made for price and sailing fun. Amels are made for a couple to sail around the world. There are probably 1000 differences, most are important.

You can buy a new Amel 54 for $1.2 million. You can buy a very good used 53' Super Maramu, the 54's predecessor for 0.5 million.

We are more than half way around and if I won the lottery, I would not change the boat.

Best,

Bill
s/v BeBe, Amel 53
Currently Cochin, India

[DirtyDave]

OK here we go from 47 to you only need 40 now up to 53 weee its a roller coaster just told my wife to put her hands up i think we are at the top. Dont get me wrong folks i will take in all of your input and weigh it accordingly also we will be sailing a number of different size boats cuz as we all know size matters. As well as handeling, endurance,safety, and longevety. lets not forget resale. On that note I am signing off. Thank you folks. I want to sleep with a friendly.

[savoir]

That's why your first decision must be on size. Go sail a few boats and see how you feel about their size. Try chartering a 40ft anything for a weekend and decide how you felt about the size - too big or too small ? Maybe charter a 38 or a 44 or whatever and think about its size. Blowing a few k on short charters is much better than 500k on a boat you hate, or even worse one that the admiral hates.

Then you set your budget. Then you make a short list of brands. Then the serious shopping starts. The whole thing might well take a year.

[barnakiel]

HR are fine boats. I like the old ones more than the new ones (biased). However, they are pricey. Probably too pricey. You will probably find just as well built and well sailing boats for way less money. HR may be a good yardstick but if you buy one some of you what will pay will be the price other people's dreams. Same applies to Hinckley, Morris, Oyster, etc..

I always side with HR (Najad, Malo, etc.) but would buy one only if some sort of super deal cropped up. This far I have not came across such a deal. But I have seen good bargains on Valiants, Rivals, Sagas, older S&Ss, Panoceanics, to name a few. Hard to beat a quality s/h US / UK boat these days.

Scandinavian and Dutch boats (e.g. Koopmans, Zaal, etc.) can be very good but due to the structure of wealth in those countries it is hard to find a cheap quality boat there.

b.

[donradcliffe]

We rafted up with a Bene 473 in Puerto Rico last year, and I said to myself "Yes, that's a boat I could fall in love with and take around the world." It's one of the few boats I would trade for my current Bene first 456, which I HAVE taken around the world, and still love as a beautiful, powerful, sweet-sailing boat.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by svBeBe

You can buy a new Amel 54 for $1.2 million. You can buy a very good used 53' Super Maramu, the 54's predecessor for 0.5 million.

We are more than half way around and if I won the lottery, I would not change the boat.

Quite an endorsement and in line with what I have heard about this design.

The OP could do worse than to list the desirable design elements in the Amel boats and see if other production boats possess them or can be reasonably modified to possess them. Everyone's list would be different in this regard, of course. As an example, in our refitting, we consider conservation of water and a lowered dependence on electricity to be desirable for passage-making/living on the hook. So I am "retanking" for water, and will have separate taps in head and galley for pressure water, and separately plumbing foot pumped water for "regular" use. Same with hot water. We will make it as a by-product of running the engine, and that will be "wash day". For getting hot water for dishes, a black bag in the sunshine works wonders. If I really need to, I can of course "steep" six gallons of water from inverter power, so we don't plan to be complete Luddites, but we will generally prefer the simple, the manual and the non-electrical to other means of supplying amenities.

Others, of course, have different priorities or game plans for cruising.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by savoir

That's why your first decision must be on size. Go sail a few boats and see how you feel about their size.

A budget way to do this is to try to target boats you generally like, and then to go racing on them as crew. A stripped-out "race ready" version of typical production cruisers will be common at many YCs, and while this won't tell you much about the comforts of a particular cruising design, it will be educational on the sailing characteristics of a particular model in (hopefully) heavy weather.

Some boats can be ruled out immediately because they pound to weather...fine for a three-hour round the buoys, but extremely tiresome to contemplate in a two-handed cruiser for 12 day passages.

Chartering, of course, works too, but if you go with another couple more interested in boozing at anchor, they may not share your enthusiasm for bashing the boat around in big seas in an effort to see if it points well.

[roverhi]

One of the biggest problems with a cruising boat is weight gain. You just seem to keep adding things and accumulating and pretty soon you are raising the waterline. It's less of a problem with bigger/heavier displacement designs but still there. If you really really want to be race competitive, you are either going to be spending the day before a race offloading the junk or be extremely anal about what you bring aboard in the first place. In this day and age of super high tech lightweight flyers, there just doesn't seem to be any middle ground for a true racer/cruiser because of the weight issue.

[hanschristian38]

Originally Posted by Jack Tar

HansChristian

Ditto - Hans Christian

[simonEdwards]

You have a substantial budget by the sound of it, why are you looking at Beneteaus?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by simonEdwards

You have a substantial budget by the sound of it, why are you looking at Beneteaus?

Why not... are they not capable.....

[simonEdwards]

I deliver a lot of Beneteaus, with relatively few problems, however they are light and most have broad flat sections fwd that can pound and slam going to weather....