shaun wrote:
Peter wrote:

snip

Back to the orig qestion - I think Shaun is looking for confirmation
because it appears he's already decided to buy the Hunter.

What the hell,Shaun. Pick the weather, you can coast-hop north without
probs in anything. The tidal currents north of Broome mean that almost
any sailboat is gonna have probs so how big an engine do you have and
what's the speed over ground fighting an 8 knot tidal current? From
Darwin it's an easy run west to Indonesia, Christmas Island, Cocos
group or over to the Chagos. Coming home is where I'd be a bit
concerned - the westerlies may not treat that tall rig & relatively
lightweight hull construction all that kindly, but what the hell - if
that's what you want, do it.

PDW - who lives south of 42 S

Yes i have decided that the hunter suits my life style and price range.
what i was looking for was a responce to the negative in terms of
constructive fault finding IE kingpost rots/holding tank known to be a
problem. plastic porthole/window surounds known to be leaky.
engine a pig to get to ECT.

IMO *every* commercial hull has crap engine access but perhaps I'm
biased.

As for the tall rig....i thought a reef was the solution to that.
Thats why i plan to have tripple reef points fitted, because she has a
lot of sail for the hull not because of foul weather (at least i hope
not) :-)
And as for north sailing
Exmouth is about as far north as i want to go and from mem the tides max
out at about 2 meters there...give or take :-)

Ah ok, that's not too bad. I used to do Darwin to Broome quite a bit
back in the 80's. Still remember trying to get into Shark Bay against
the tide one time. In the end we just gave up & went off to drink more
beer. 8 to 10 metres tide range tho.

South around to Albany & Esperance is nice. Might need a good engine to
get back again.

PDW