What sailboat would you recommend? 50k budget

[Spider0804]

I would just buy a boat off a respected bluewater list for as cheap as you can find, that is decent while meeting your needs, and does not have a nightmare report from the surveyor...GET A SURVEY!

There are plenty of people who spend more on a fancy propeller than a frugal couples yearly spending budget so you will get a lot of flack for those numbers but people do it all the time, those are the people out there actually sailing and not sitting around being a dreamer.

Other people will tell you that you NEED radar, a water maker, a giant freezer, 3 autopilots, and tons of other stuff to be on the ocean...but again people have been and currently are sailing just fine without all of that and prefer the simpler and cheaper path.

A good easily viewable example would be the boat on the YouTube channel "Sailing Uma" which was bought for $5000, they put a lot of work into it yes, they bought it knowing that they were saving money doing their own work.

Just remember to keep a chunk of your funds for fixing whatever is broken / breaks.

To me the smaller the boat the better as the cost of haul out, storage, winches, rigging, bottom paint.....basically everything will cost an amount proportional to the size of your boat.

Westsail 32's for example have had lots of circumnavigations and are super seaworthy despite being so short, and there are many currently for sale within your budget.

Mahina Expeditions - Selecting A Boat for Offshore Cruising
https://atomvoyages.com/planning/goo...oats-list.html
Bluewaterboats.org - Sailboat reviews for offshore sailing

[ShipOfFools]

Originally Posted by Spider0804

I would just buy a boat off a respected bluewater list for as cheap as you can find, that is decent while meeting your needs, and does not have a nightmare report from the surveyor...GET A SURVEY!

There are plenty of people who spend more on a fancy propeller than a frugal couples yearly spending budget so you will get a lot of flack for those numbers but people do it all the time, those are the people out there actually sailing and not sitting around being a dreamer.

Other people will tell you that you NEED radar, a water maker, a giant freezer, 3 autopilots, and tons of other stuff to be on the ocean...but again people have been and currently are sailing just fine without all of that and prefer the simpler and cheaper path.

A good easily viewable example would be the boat on the YouTube channel "Sailing Uma" which was bought for $5000, they put a lot of work into it yes, they bought it knowing that they were saving money doing their own work.

Just remember to keep a chunk of your funds for fixing whatever is broken / breaks.

To me the smaller the boat the better as the cost of haul out, storage, winches, rigging, bottom paint.....basically everything will cost an amount proportional to the size of your boat.

Westsail 32's for example have had lots of circumnavigations and are super seaworthy despite being so short, and there are many currently for sale within your budget.

Mahina Expeditions - Selecting A Boat for Offshore Cruising
https://atomvoyages.com/planning/goo...oats-list.html
Bluewaterboats.org - Sailboat reviews for offshore sailing

Thanks a lot, yea im aware that a boat is a depreciating asset like a car for example....or even a mobile home. $5000 would definitely give me a lot of room to play with in terms of expenses.

For me i guess id pick and choose what i want to have in terms of amenities.
Perhaps if you like you can tag a price to these items....
im torn on length... perhaps as low as 25 and as high as 40 feet
two cabins... idea is to have one private cabin, and rent out other, nice to hv..just an idea but i can make some money by renting like airbnb
radar would be a plus as im a very safety conscious person, how much $?
Depth finder... must have, i dont want to run aground
chart plotter... must have
Fish finder.... nice to have
fishing poles... nice to have
dingy + engine... already have this...
backup outboard engine? nice to have in case main engine doesnt work?
set of backup sails? is this necessary?
autopilot? probably dont need, but consider on price.
Ac... this is a must have...
heat... this is a must have...year round live aboard
boat dock with shore power... not sure on this... could use solar instead?
solar panels.. nice to have for trips
deep cycle battery how many amp h do i need?
refrigerator... nice to have but not sure necessary
some type of cell internet connection
wireless service, can this be global?
heated wetsuit just in case i go overboard... i am very safety conscious
emergency locator beacon... must have, i may even get 2 just in case
CB radio
life jackets....
tethers
other safety items?
composting toilet or something else? whatever is cleaner
what else?

[Spider0804]

For the two cabin idea you have to be pretty realistic about living with people you do not know, there will be some dude that hops on the boat with an ego bigger than a yacht telling you how to run it, or just people who do you not like, chances are you will attract crew who want to hop aboard to go where you are going as well instead of the air bnb type. Those types are going to hop on a large boat with lots of amenities and treat the life like a dream vacation.

Generally how crewing goes is people apply to be crew and you exchange documents and some messages to get a feel for the person, if they are local go have a beer and watch how they treat the staff...tells you how they see you. Transit crew will help with the boat and watches and generally make life easier for you, leaving you and the boat alone at anchor to enjoy the location.

A smaller boat is not going to have 2 cabs either unless it is some center cockpit setup with a aft cabin leading in from the outside like an atlantic clipper, could be alright for two sets of people especially with the divided cabins letting people have their own space, the wide beds of cabins are absolutely useless on the ocean, you want to be able to divide them with lee cloths to stop from flopping around when sailing.

Must haves for me....a heated wetsuit is not one of them to me, if you go overboard without a tether or epirb on you in the middle of an ocean, the reality of it is that you are dead and no one will know you went overboard until your boat hits a cargo ship or sails onto a beach and by then you are shark food...some people have epirb watches that are always on them just incase that happens.

Air conditioning uses an incredible amount of power that you will not really realize until you watch it drain the batteries and pretty much no amount of solar you fit on a smaller boat will run it, expect to catch the batteries up regularly by running the engine.

Also know that if you buy a 240 watt solar panel you will get nowhere near that, the rating is under ideal conditions with the sun directly over the panel.

How big of a battery bank you need is completely up to your energy usage, people vary wildly with how much they use.

Heating is easy, there are many fuels and types of burners available.

You can put a mount on the transom to use your dinghy outboard as an emergency outboard in a real pinch but chances are with the engine out you will sail to wherever and get towed in.

Must haves:
A basic toolkit with sockets, wrenches, allen wrenches, pliers, electrical tape, etc.
Depth finder
GPS / Chart plotter...basically two ways of confirming your location.
Dinghy
Lots of spare line
Solar panels
Epirb
Liferaft
Life jacket
Bail out bag
Radar reflector
AIS beacon
Spare water that is not in a tank incase of contamination or bad water from shore.
Sail patch kit / heavy needle and thread
Some form of long range communication be it a sat-phone or a long range radio.
Some form of receiving weather reports, even if it is just calling on a sat-phone and having someone tell you what the next few days look like.

Whatever you get make sure it is seaworthy before you set out.
If the seacocks are iffy at all...replace them, look at them from the outside when you close them to make sure they are actually closed, give them a yank when on the hard to see if they snap right off from the metal getting thin over the years, you will yank on them in an emergency and that is not the time to snap one off.
Is the keel firmly attached?
Is the rudder firmly attached and the steering setup in good condition?
Is the standing rigging solid and less than 10 years old?
Is the running rigging in good condition without a bunch of frayed lines?
Is the engine and transmission in good running order with spare filters for oil / fuel and spare oil onboard, a spare water pump impeller would not hurt either.
Do you have a plan for reducing sail and heaving to when you get caught out in a storm?

Hope this helps.

[Spider0804]

For the going overboard I should have said if you are singlehanding, if you have crew they can obviously throw you a floatation device and come pick you up but I am assuming this is talking about falling off the boat with no crew and with no means to signal or communicate besides waving at a cargo ship that is 10 miles off. Even with crew though it is possible to fall off while they are sleeping and disappear.

[MicHughV]

I built my first boat. A 38' steel ketch. Why ? I didn't have much money, just big dreams.
Buying a boat, any boat, was out of the question for me, but I had time. It took 3 years to build what little I could afford. I'm giving you real life experience here.
I had so little money, I could not afford to put a diesel engine in the boat.
I could not afford much of anything. My boat had a vhf radio and little else. No electronics of any kind. My fridge was an " ice-box" my stove was a two burner kerosene.
A/C...ha ha....dream on.
Epirb, likewise...when I say no electronics, I mean no electronics.
I had oil lamps inside the boat. I had electric lights too, but I had no way of charging the batteries offshore.
I read your list of " need to have things" and I shudder and laugh.
I made it all work though, little as I had, I set off. It was not easy, having no engine, I had to sail everywhere...and I mean everywhere..My dink was a 6' plywood pram that I had to row everywhere. The wind was my friend. Without wind, I could not go anywhere. I didn't care, how much or how little the wind blew, as long as it blew. Besides moving me, it was also my a/c.
Chasing after ice, became a "cruising destination.
You get the picture ??? I did it, but it was not easy. A lot of times I made it by the skin of my teeth. I had lady luck on my side, more times I could count.

Renting out a cabin is a non-starter, seriously, don't even consider it.

Here's my advice. $50k is not a bad budget, but you need to be thinking about a smaller boat. You can easily go cruising on a boat, 26' in size....maybe low 30's.
A 26-30 footer will have everything you want or need. you don't need 45' to go cruising. You don't need a lot of fancy electronics, you don't need a/c. You don't need a chart plotter, use paper charts, etc, etc, etc....

Trim your needs and expectations. I wrote a book about it all, pm me if you want to read it.
I want to see you do it.....that's awesome...but your needs far exceed your budget at this point in time. There is going to be a lot of stuff you can only learn by doing it...go small and succeed, then consider going big!

[Manateeman]

You are going to get advice from a lot of different sources on the forum. Click the posters name and go to the section “about me”.
The above poster has a lot of experience. A LOT. He’s giving you great advice.
I give advice when I have experience and expertise in the subject, not just an opinion. For example, people will suggest you can get extra income by renting out part of your boat or taking them for a ride...wrong. The minute “anything of value” is accepted, your guest, friend, roommate, whatever you call them...you become a owner and operator of a passenger vessel and you are required to be licensed and a member of a drug and alcohol testing program. A gift or donation does not get you around the law. Outside the USA, the requirements become far more complex. You don’t want to see the inside of the jails in some countries.
This idea you can find some old boat for a song and live cheap on it...pure fantasy. Hit another vessel, loose power and end up on someone’s property or a beach or a reef or fuel spill, even sinking! and you might loose ever dollar you have just trying to keep out of jail. Don’t think insurance will prevent this from happening. I saw two young girls loose their boat and get deported after they hit a reef. They got rescued by a very wealthy person who paid a large sum. God forbid any accident involves injury to a person.
Even if you avoid criminal liability, you can be sued in a civil action. Anyone can hire experts to prove you embarked on a “manifestly unsafe voyage” and should be held responsible. It’s not about truth, it’s about money...you don’t want to go into an admiralty proceeding looking like you went to sea on the cheap.
Please read my original post again and understand why the above poster took the time to give you the benefit of his experience.
Happy trails to you.
Captain Mark and the manatee gang

[Sail Sojourn]

I would buy a boat in the Mediterranean but if not buy an Alberg37.

[Sofa King Fishy]

Originally Posted by chrisr

respectfully : i think you need to add a '1" in front of your budget figure

cheers,

I’ll second that. I’m in a similar situation but in the US. I had an ‘all in’ budget of $150k, found a decent boat (42’) in great shape, outfitted for live aboard cruising (GenSet, HVAC, Watermaker, Solar, Dink, outboard)...purchased for $120k, and have spent almost $40k in maintenance & upgrades over the first 2 years. She still needs standing rigging replaced & updated AIS chart plotter, not to mention the Fridge/Freezer compressors are now 20 years old...if your budget is $50k and it’s not a ‘project boat’, that’s a toughie.

[j.g.evans]

I would not be afraid of a fixer upper boat if you are handy. [All boats, even new boats, are fixer uppers.] What ever you find interesting I would investigate it on a boat owners web site. I have written honest reviews of my own boats.
A caution about size. I just sold a Hunter 40.5 which was extremely well though out and sailed well. But, it had a big main and required an electric winch to put up. I had to use a mast step to reach high enough to cover it on the boom. All went OK since my wife could be at the helm when conditions became nasty.
I now have a 1981 C&C 36 which I have fixed up. This is probably a better size for single handing. It has all new electronics due to a lightning strike. I have varnished the seasoned teak interior and used table top resin to coat a new teak and holly floor. The boat now looks new for little cost. I did all the work myself and know the boat thoroughly. This knowledge is the valuable part of a fixer upper.
Re Size: I know 2 women that single hand 40' boats, but, I recommend something in the 35-40' range. Look for a mast height less than 63-64' for the US Inter Coastal and a draft less than 5' for many places like the
Bahamas.
Go for it. The cruising lifestyle is great.
Jim

[cooper1991]

You will be blown over by a wave of negativity on here. Coincidentally, I'm looking for the same boat as you (minus accommodation for 6) and asked a similar question and got depressed by those who have made bad choices and feel stung and those who have expensive boats and look down on the peasants who don't have six figures in their current account

I suggest you join Facebook Group Single Handed Sailing or indeed any other single handed groups, or groups like FB Sailing on a Shoestring. These are not sliver bullet solutions but will accelerate your knowledge and start to reveal a group of 10-20 boat designs suitable for your purposes. You can then use a site called sailboatdata.com to evaluate key ratios which again is no single solution but helps you focus on boat designs/sizes/ratios that will fit your needs.

I am currently about to finish my UK RYA day skipper practical course and hope to buy in Malaysia after the New Year (covid permitting). I have 3-4 boats identified but Malaysia is closed. My objective is to sail for 3 years from Malaysia or UK round the world to Philippines by November 2023 and am not really looking to get a whole lot of cash back in the end so for me a steel boat is preferable, as it will tick off the safety and comfort ratios, but not necessary speed and maneuvrability.

Hope this helps. Don't be discouraged. Your boat is out there waiting for you.

[Happ]

I may have an answer that might work. First you must realize you have beer money and you are at a high priced Martini Bar. If you search YouTube and find Sailing Uma start at the beginning. It is how to young people fresh out of Architectural School bought a Pearson 36 for $5k. Spent a year working on it to make it useable. They go into detail about every project they did. After the first year they cast off the lines and sail south from FL and go as far as Columbia. They then headed north. Over the next 4 years they continued to stop and upgrade their boat. They are now in Norway after crossing the ocean.

My point is this will give you an idea of what you are looking at as far as the work you will need to do in a fixer upper. Do you have a year to work on it. Can you live with older gear until your budget allows more upgrading.

To give you an idea of price you can find a stripped down 1999 Beneteau 373 for around $89K ask. I’m not sure I would want to cross an ocean in one but they are fine for coastal cruising. At anchor you may find the lighter weight boats will allow the sound from water slapping against the hull to be rather annoying. You can find 1990’s Island Packets 35’s $50-$75k range. If you can find a fixer upper you might get buy for less. Keep in mind what you save buying means you have to spend to bring it up to the level you want it. The bigger the boat the more everything costs. Hit the 39’ to 40’ range and you are looking at high priced equipment.

You will need to understand that you won’t get a fancy equipped boat. It may not even have a roller Furler for the head sail. Something you can add which will cost plus a sail. Electronics can be reasonably inexpensive if you stay with an iPad. Just don’t let it slip overboard.

Your program also depends on what your skills are. Are you thinking paint and changing some hoses. Or are you capable of epoxy and fiberglass work? Boats are in their own world as the marine environment can be very aggressive.

Good luck. If you’ve got the skills, time, patience and organization it can be done. However it is a very it is a very tall mountain to climb.

[aledins]

I have a Bayfield 36 for sale on that price range. 1989. Absolute bulletproof boat. Have single-handed it no problem and winds up to 30 kn. Old-school full keel boat. PM me if interested.

[Paul Annapolis]

Hmmm...another one of these? Let's see 30' to 45', between 20k to 50k and outboard or inboard motor with plenty of gas......let's throw his one out to the general sailing public for hundreds and hundreds of opinions and just go from there! I suggest that you enjoy the winter by reading every appropriate book you can find, perusing Yachtworld for hours upon end to start to begin to understand the market and the variety and then narrow your choices to a manageable set of criteria then I would be happy to provide some qualified advice. I would venture a guess that many others share my perspective. Yes we all have to start somewhere but can you try to get to first base before asking us all how to get to home plate please? By the way, those of us who are suggesting a very specific boat for you...I would say ignore that well meaning advice. With all respect, your thread post suggests that you are not far enough along to know if that boat is right for you or not. The vast variety and differences between boats are so complicated with so many features that it really takes a lot of homework (and experience) to know why one boat is good and another is not--it will come down to YOU, but I daresay you are not ready for that without a lot more research and experience. Focus. Narrow....main criteria....

[ovidiunelu]

Endeavour Cruising Sailboats and Yachts For Sale
I bout a 43 last year for 50k and lived on over the summer.
I still need to add a fridge and washer so my wife could be happy too.

[Crash1972]

I happen to own a Niagara Nautilus Pilothouse. It is built on a C&C hull, 2 steering stations, sleeps 6. A previous owner went to South America and back. Look at Yachtworld to find one, No you can' have mine!