"JG" wrote in message
...
"Donal" wrote in message
...
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.

I think that you can get experience of different boats without renting.

If it was a straight choice between buying from the brochure and renting,
then I would agree that renting would make sense. However, there are loads
of people who need crew. They are willing to take people out sailing for no
more than a share of expenses.




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.

By the time you have narrowed your choice to two or three boats, the
performance will be very similiar. People who like Westerley, will also
look at Moody or Bowman. People who like a First will look at X-Boats and
Dehler. You shouldn't need to try very many boats.


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.

My opening comment was that *renting* would be an expensive way to choose a
boat. I don't think that I have contradicted myself. I only rented one
boat (a holiday in Greece) before I bought my own boat. All my crewing was
free apart from shared expenses - mooring fees, food and hire of liferafts.
These add up to about $15 a day. You cannot rent a boat for that sort of
money, even if you are sharing.



Regards


Donal
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