"Donal" wrote in message
...

"Scout" wrote in message
...
I know it's futile to seek consensus as to a make of boat. But, I'm
seriously considering renting for a variety of designs before buying. Has
anyone else rented a sailboat. Pros and cons? Good locations around the
Chesapeake? The closest place to my old sailing grounds is in Jersey.

Renting would be a very expensive way to choose a boat, unless you have
already narrowed your choice down to two or three.

Why would you say that? It seems to me that it's far cheaper to rent a dozen
or two dozen different boats, rather than buy a boat you end up not liking
because of something you'd discover if you had rented it first.

If you have narrowed your choice, then you shouldn't really need to test
sail all of them - because their performance will all be similiar. At
that
point, the important thing will be the layout of the boat - which you can
judge as soon as you step aboard. It's a bit like buying a house - you
have
some basic requirements (no. of bedrooms, garden, parking, etc), but
after
that you know the right house as soon as you walk into it.

Similar is not the same. There is enough difference between manufacturers
that it's worth sailing the boats to find out.


It sounds to me like you don't have enough experience of different boats
to
know what you want. If that is the case, then I think that you should
join
a sailing club where members offer crewing positions to non-boat owning
members. Do such clubs exist where you live?

I crewed on many different boats(24ft Westerly Centaur, First 42, Etap 29
&
34, Moody 34) before I was ready to buy. The crewing experience taught
me
about my sailing preferences. I wanted as much performance as I could get
in a family cruiser. When I came to choose my boat I only had about three
boats to choose from. In the end, I only needed to test sail one boat.

Doesn't this contradict what you said at the top? You tried a bunch of
boats, narrowed the search to a few, then made a choice.