1) A metal hull. If we really want to sail the Northwest Passage, we want a metal hull. Aluminum if we can get it.
2) An insulated hull.
3) Total length 39-42 feet. A little bigger if we had to.
4) Three sleeping cabins. One for us, one for the boys, and one for the survival suits/cockpit cushions/bikes/sails/deck awnings and everything else. Or alternately, two cabins and some very serious additional storage space.
5) A cutter rig. Or a sloop that we can convert to a cutter. Or a ketch, if we had to.
6) A skeg-hung rudder. Or even (god forbid) a keel-hung rudder. But not a spade rudder.
7) A well-maintained boat, with good sails and standing and running rigging.
8) A u-shaped galley.
9) Big water tanks.
10) A hard dodger (optional!).
11) A specific set of bells and whistles: windvane, radar, a good autopilot, an over-sized windlass, over-sized anchors and chain, solar panels, life raft, folding propellor, wind generator, ham/SSB radio, steps on the mast, cruising spinnaker. As many of these as possible.
12) 195 cm of headroom.
13) In our budget!
It doesn't seem like an unreasonable list. But though we've seen many boats with eight or nine of these items, we've never seen one with ten or more.
Some serious compromises seem inevitable.
3 comments:
reminds me of the rolling stones...
rumor has it you may be coming to southeast alaska or maybe your presence has already been made?? to work with Franz?
we would love to see you if it works and franz for that matter since we have been playing phone and email tag for quite some time.
it would be great for you to come check out our "boat" down in the harbor in Juneau!! hugs to the rose and the boys
Jen and Clint
ah! lovely!
Not an unreasonable set of criteria (all depends on the budget I guess anyway!), but that is a fair amount of specific stuff. For what it's worth, we found it challenging to find a cruising boat with three sleeping cabins that was still under 50', so 39-42' for the same sounds pretty optimistic to me! On the other hand, we really wanted three cabins *for sleeping* (us, our daughters, and our son divided between them) and not storage so that was a bit more inflexible for us in terms of layout.
If you find one in Sydney you want to check out in person, there's a bunk for you to come crash on Totem! We're leaving New Cal shortly and expect to be in Sydney for some chunk of coming months...
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