About those wind farms, EBM getting it right, and speaking of slow motion train wrecks…
I’ve always thought that the most bang for the buck in cruising boats fits into a 27-foot envelope. Smaller is too small for most and bigger starts to expand the budget more than most VolksCruisers want to spend.
A 27-foot cruising boat falls into, what may be the best sweet spot you’re going to find.
Here are a bevy of 27-footers that will get you safely anywhere you want to go in a modicum of comfort providing you have a reasonable amount of common sense.
Actually there are a lot more 27-foot contenders but this is just a quick look at what makes the 27-foot envelope so attractive for folks wanting to cruise on a miserly budget.
For starters, all of the boats on the list can be found for less than $10K. In fact, most for a whole lot less than $10K.
Even better, a refit or rehab of a 27-foot cruising boat is going to cost a lot less than say an Islander 36.
I know it’s super obvious but the costs of cruising a 27-foot boat is a fraction of what you’d have to spend with a bigger boat. Granted you can resort to all sorts of inspired creative frugality on a bigger boat to make ends meet but that’s a lot of work and right up close to crazy making. Face it, most bigger boats don’t pass the sanity clause.
Or do the math… A 27-foot sailboat at a nearby marina would pay $81 a day while our Islander 36 would have to pay $108. Now, obviously, no VolksCruiser is ever going to stay in a marina unless in an emergency but shit does happen. Same goes for haulouts, bottom paint and anchor fees. Bigger is going to cost you more.
Over the next few posts I’ll be looking at the boats on the list and why they make sense.
I have noticed the sneaky bar stewards in many marinas have started to charge a minimum 8m rate, which usually covers 8-10m. Hard pill to swallow to build a 7.95m boat to get cheap marina berthing and end up paying the same as a 10m.
Obviously Vegas are common as muck up here in Scandi-land, and cheap.
In looking for a better price for a haulout in the Caribbean I noticed a couple of boatyards charging the 34 foot rate as a minimum. Frelling greedheads!
I remember the time boats like the long keel Halcyon 27 were a 15k boat. One on a well known auction site for 4k. A bit wet, but no worse than a Folkboat or Contessa 26. And they are great upwind, cant say that about many boats sailing from the Canarys back to the UK, uphill all the way.