MacGregorSailors.com

Watkins 36 center Cockpit with 4.5 draft and walktru to aft cabin. A offshore cruiser in the $30-40 K range for a good one.
The 33 Watkins(4ft. draft) is also a great boat for bluewater cruiseing and more important coastal cruiseing in Florida and Bahamas. Both have narrow beams but good bluewater sailers, ck ballest ratio/ 50% +.
Both boats have high freeboard but so do most of the boats today.
Costs for hauling for boats more than 35ft. with wide beams are costly .
Dave

Sumner wrote:

dvideohd wrote:Big questions.... Affordable? Endeavour 40 - center cockpit would be a good go... old enough to afford - and with rear bearth - something to stay out there with... Sum has the right of it on cost...

Yep if we would of had about twice what we did to spend the center cockpit 40.....


Sum

Looking at the Watkins 27 Pilothouse revives and idea I had to convert the slide hatch into a pilothouse on my 26M. Like a 222 poptop, except "no pop, all top". The idea would be to add 18" of interior cabin space right where you stand up most.

I live in San Diego where high winds are rare and me sailing in high winds is even more rare. The idea is pretty simple--Replace the existing slide hatch with a fiberglass and Lexan shell over the existing hatch slides. Its simpler to just integrate a single fiberglass assembly and take the stock hatch off entirely. The mod can be reverted to stock at any time by simply replacing it with the original slide hatch.

The boom would just clear the top (with the boom-kicker guaranteeing that). When trailering, the mast barely clears it and it might make sense to integrate a mast/boom cradle atop it.

Ideally this would be nothing more than a removable shell that can just replace the slide hatch. The companionway hatch would then be extended to the top of pilothouse shell, perhaps as an outward-opening double-door.

Would you pay $1000 for one if it worked exactly as advertised and looked "integrated"? If I get ten buyers I can convince a local glass shop to do the plug for it.

precision 23 or a santana 23, a C22, or maybe a j24.

once you move to a keel boat, the choices are vast. a c30 is a good boat for the money. but if you're going to have a slipped boat, I'd go into the 35' range.

mastreb wrote:Either a Hake Yachts Seaward 26RK ($56K) http://www.seawardyachts.com/26rk.html

I didn't like the interior layout on them.. seemed too small for the price.

quality on the other hand was top notch.

Cat boats would also be a decent choice. marshall cat...
http://www.marshallcat.com/html/marshall_22.html

re: large center cockpit boats....

the dirty little secret is they are wet boats.... in rough sea conditions.
a big and strong dodger is required equipt...

This is my all-time favorite. The CSY 44 Pilothouse Ketch. The 44 also came in walk-through and walk-over versions, but the pilothouse is my favorite. It's also the rarest of the 44's.

good boats, build like a tank, and shallow draft.

built for the BVI charter industry... so it had to be tough!

mrbillfll wrote:good boats, build like a tank, and shallow draft.

built for the BVI charter industry... so it had to be tough!

That's exactly right. IMO, they're overbuilt, which is probably why CSY only lasted a few years (cost too much to make those boats). Used ones aren't expensive, either. I almost pulled the trigger on one a few years back, but couldn't justify a boat like that in the Great Lakes, although I did see a walk-through version in Buffalo a few years ago. Also couldn't put the time together to bring it up here - not by a long shot. Oh well.

they were also recommended to me by a broker... but a little larger than I'd want....

something in the 33-39' would probably be easier (and cheaper) for single or double handing.

I still think the cat boats are nice for their size... big little boats, like the mac.

If I had the choice, I'll be looking at the Gemini 105Mc

Obelix

This boat from across the pond is kind of interesting.

http://www.ezyboat.com

That's really interesting! I had sketched out a design similar to that over ten years ago for a rowing shell, because they're so long...but it wasn't going to fold in the middle, it was going to fold at the two ends, leaving the center section in one piece... Amazing!

look (google) for 'nesting dingy'... I saw plans for a stitch and glue version... but that looks much more robust.

Not much into racing sailboats, but once took a ride on a Transpac 52.



From Newport with a full-time crew to Hawaii in just 6 days 19 hours under sail. Entering through Oahu harbor at 30kts brings about some head-turning mouth-dropping looks from other sailors.

The Transpac 52 has a hydraulic canting keel that is microcontroller intuitive. Brings about previously unthinkable speeds.

Bad part is the maintainence. Costly and frequent. Not a boat for a care-free guy. A playtoy for a show-off maybe

If it requires power to operate, it's not a sailboat. What happens when your canted keel gets stuck or the microprocessor fails? Instant overturn.

I don't see what the difference between a microprocessor controlled canted keel and quad 200 hp outboards is. I've got an idea for an inherent canted-keel like technology that I'll post in another thread.