Plenty of people sail all over the world in fiberglass boats, wooden
boats and steel boats, and have wonderful trips.

There are/is a school of thought that is focused on the steel or
aluminum boat as the "ideal" because it might survive an encounter with
a reef. The odds of testing that theory, if you are a careful sailor
should be fairly small, hence the success rate of other types of
construction.

What you do want is a boat built sturdily enough to take a fair amount
of abuse. In the Sydney/Hobart race that got hit hard, a couple of boats
essentially collapsed under the weight of waves breaking on board.
But that too should be an uncommon rather than a common occurrence. The
Hiscocks sailed thousands of miles in various boats, and claimed they
never hit a survival storm because of good planning. Dave Martin
circumnavigated in a reinforced Cal 25, starting a family on the way. He
and his wife Jaja cruised for years with infants in arms and toddlers.
Check out the Martin chronicles on SetSail.com:
http://www.setsail.com/s_logs/martin/martin.html

Check out the cruising logs at: http://cruisenews.net/index.php

All kinds of people, all kinds of boats and materials. The common
denominator? They all managed to take in the docklines and go......

Have fun,

Jonathan



wrote:
rhys wrote:

...
So that means a few things: I want a cutter-rigged
ketch. I want steel, stable and Perkins or similar
"big iron" diesel. I want a pilothouse or a hard
dodger, and preferably center cockpit.
...


So if I want to sail to Tahiti and South East Asia
one day (would it be a bad idea to get a fiberglass
boat (like a Tayana) or is this what most people do
anyway ?

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 23:29:22 -0400, Jonathan
wrote:

All kinds of people, all kinds of boats and materials. The common
denominator? They all managed to take in the docklines and go......

That in sum is the crucial point. I have my preferences, but if time
passes and all I can afford is something merely adequate, I won't
hesitate.

R.