Look at a Nordic 40 or 44. Another Perry design.


Maxprop wrote:
I remember when those boats first hit the market, and they looked great.
Unfortunately they seem rather rare. None anywhere around here, and not too
many on Yachtworld.com either.

Probably true. I saw a listing for a centerboard Nordic 40 a while back,
a critter I had no idea existed. My wife loved the Nordic and so I
showed her. She's still mad at me about suggesting a New York 40
centerboard model....


.... The Baltics are among our first choices for a
replacement to our current boat.

That'd be a good call IMHO.


The quality of the Sagas is excellent

Not my impression of them. Have you looked carefully in all the nooks &
crannies?


Not really. A friend has an '02 Saga 43, and on the surface it looks like a
quality machine, but we didn't actually did into the boat. It is very fast,
however, and handles wonderfully in a trailing sea.

I bilge-crawled intensively through two different ones at two boat
shows, and came away unimpressed. They seem to cut a lot of corners in
hidden places.

I have not sailed the boat in a following sea but the hull shape seems
likely to do that. As for fast, that's relative. Certainly they're a
hell of a lot faster than the crab-crushers they seem to be replacing in
many people's idealogy.

As I mentioned earlier, they're all too new for us to consider. I'm not
willing to take the whopping first several years' depreciation on any boat,
so we're not considering anything newer than roughly eight years old. No
Sagas in that category. I'd rather have a Swan or Baltic anyway. And I
just got a lead on a pristine Passport 40 today. We'll take a look at it
when the snow begins to melt, if it's still available.


Commendable approach. Not being in a hurry is wise when boat shopping.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King