On 23 Oct 2004 14:13:02 -0700, (Rickard) wrote:

I recently sailed a Swan 45 on a regatta. She was a true pleasure to
sail but expensive and not a very good cruising yacht. Another nice
boat is the Sweden Yacht 45 but that one is also really expensive. Do
you have any experience of other nice boats in that size?

A new well-equipped Swan 45 costs $1.25-million, is not intended
primarily to be a "cruising yacht" and, if used for its primary
purpose of most Swan 45 purchasers - competitve racing - is also
comparably expensive to maintain (e.g., just check out the prices for
high-performance racing sails needed to be competitive).

Among other "nice" less expensive than Swans but very competive racers
that might be mentioned are the Beneteau 47.7 and new-ish 44.7 models,
and an increasingly popular "nice boat" mostly for cruising is the
Beneteau 423, re. which you can get further information at:

http://www.beneteauusa.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Beneteau423/

However, apart from the obvious reality that there isn't any
one-size-fits-all "best" boat (there are lots and lots of "nice" boats
besides Swans and the Beneteaus), don't be surprised if this thread
very quickly degenerates into uniformatively juvenile flaming.