I thought you already had one like that, the Starwind 19?


Scout wrote:
Wellllll, the single-hand part is true. "Charged-With-Gold" was easy enough
to sail solo. But comfort wasn't a strong point, sleeping was uncomfortably
tight and there was not much room for provisions, and as Bart described a
few weeks back, sailing for more than a few hours with mixed company is
awkward at best.

Yeah it's more like camping, except you don't have to actually carry
stuff on your back and no snakes. We went on a dozen or so week-long
cruises on our 19-footer, it wasn't like being on the QE2 but with
careful prep it was a lot of fun...

I did sail "Charged" off the Jersey shore from time to time, but I never
felt all that comfortable with a swing keel in ocean water. It was ok to
dart outsidefor a few hours but I wouldn't want to sail to Nantucket with
her.

It's what you're comfortable with. We sailed the water ballasted boat
offshore, longest distance would have been about 35 miles. Not a boat to
take from Cape May to Nantucket, though. And I did back down from taking
it through inlets with solid breakers. The Starwind, with a real
ballast keel, would be a bit more capable... a South African boat that's
not dissimilar has circumnavigated.

I like small boats a lot, they're far less work & money than a big boat.
OTOH when you're bringing other people along, a little more elbow room
is the greatest luxury.


What size & price range do you have in mind?

26' - 32' or thereabouts. Price range would be as little as I can get away
with. I'm going to the boat show to get a feel for different boats, I'm
quite sure I won't be buying a new boat there. At least I'll have a feel for
what I want when I hit the used market.

That Sabre is worth taking a look at. They're good boats, well built,
upper range of performance for their size & accomodation, hold their
value well. But there's a lot of boats out there. AFAIK the Gulf 32 is
rather pricey but there are some other pilothouse boats worth looking
at. Another option is a center cockpit with a hard dodger... for that
matter, you can put a hard dodger on an aft-cockpit boat...

Fresh Breezes- Doug King