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Old 11-10-2014, 06:53 AM   #17
caltexflanc
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City: North Carolina for now
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 6,348
Skipper Bob originally coined the phrase "Don't buy the biggest boat you can afford, buy the smallest boat you can be comfortable on" . I think that is one of the great truisms in boating. Now for us and what we were going to do with the boat, we ended up with the big fat Hatteras and never regretted it. But then our budget, initial cost and ongoing, was many tens of times larger than the OPs. I mean, our dinghy was more than 10k. We actually looked at some boats in the 60's to low 70 foot range. Too big. We had chartered many 46 and 49 Grand Banks Classics, too small for our mission. Our inner Goldilocks settled on the 56.

10 grand and a diesel? 36 feet? As Marin implies, that is going to be a very very expensive boat. A 25 foot gasser in that price range, for that matter, is also an expensive boat.

Of course, as I have said here many times, it depends most of all on what your standards are for seaworthiness, amenities, comfort and cosmetics. Then, it depends on what value you put on your time, and what work you are able to afford to do yourself to bring the boat to your standards and keep it there. Finally, what it costs to have professionals do the work you can't or don't like to do. The answer to all these questions lie solely with you, they are very personal and ultimately no one here can answer them for you.

Although there are a few things where I think Skipper Bob is dead wrong in his book "Cruising Comfortably on a Budget" (always "two anchors off the bow", "don't go cruising in New England", for example) it is chock full of practical advice.

Also, David Pascoe's "Mid Sized Power Boats". Put aside his biases, good and bad, about various makes of boat or Taiwan trawlers in general (but not his specific relevant issues with some of them), and focus on the excellent discussion on ergonomics, construction and systems. Ignore these factors at your peril!
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