How big is too big???

Easy ladies. We’re moving up from our 31’ Mainship. We really want 3 cabins and that means upper 40 foot range. Something like a Marina Trader 48’ from the 80’s. We live in Charlotte, NC and want to move the boat around FL, Bahamas, and up and down the east coast. Are there any limitations with a boat of that size? We can get into pretty much anywhere with our 31’ but it seems the larger boats slips are limited.

Other than the expense of larger boat, what are the other negatives of...a larger boat?

We have a MT 46 3 cabin and have really enjoyed it. A few things I would like but then again they would require a larger boat to fit them into

siestakey said:

We have a MT 46 3 cabin and have really enjoyed it. A few things I would like but then again they would require a larger boat to fit them into

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How do you like the 3 cabin over the more common 2?

Steve91T said:

How do you like the 3 cabin over the more common 2?

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The 2 cabins at least most of them I have seen are a bit shorter and considerably less beam. At the same time I like them also the 2 at our marina have lehmans and much smaller sundeck.

On longer hauls we use the bunk room for storage and pantry

the lower helm is never used on ours

Our sundeck is great for entertaining

I find Something in the mid 40 foot range to be the sweet spot. As you get shorter there is always something missing. As you go bigger it starts to be a handfull for two people to dock.

The bigger you get the harder dock space becomes and bigger the maintenance bills. But then there are some advantages to big as well.

Heh, to my surprise the LOA on my 47 Eastbay turns out to be 56' with the dinghy on the TNT platform. Which means the 55' fairway at our marina of the past 12 years won't suffice. I knew it might have been tight had we still had the factory platform but, ugh, shopping for another slip this close to the season starting gets spendy...

So I second the recommendation to go only as large as your normal plans/accommodations will handle.

When we got to just shy of 40 ft. LOA 14" 2" beam, we noticed that we started to exceed some, mostly smaller marinas, size limits. We also noticed the number of slips to accommodate larger boats starts to decrease. (It seems the sweet spot is 28 - 40 ft).

Most marina's can handle mid 40's without an issue. The question is, how many slips do they have that can accommodate and what is their availability. When we had a 30ft LOA, we could go anywhere and everyone had a free slip.

Honestly, I don't think this becomes a real challenge until 50+.

Also, I'm coming from the perspective of seasonal rental contracts, not a transient slip. We prefer to anchor, and we take a mooring if we have too. We only grab a transient slip for a night or two every few years if we can't get a mooring and REALLY want to visit the location.

The bigger the boat the more expensive everything seems to be. At 45' LOA there are times when it is hard to find a transient slip and slips are more expensive to rent and there are fewer available. I happen to own a 50' slip so that isn't an issue for my home dock. So for that reason alone, I'd suggest only going as large as needed to do the job.

As for handling, I've never found it to be much more difficult as I've gone up in size in sailboats, 24', 29', 36', and 40'. My current boat isn't really more difficult than any of those boats and it is a LOT bigger.

2 of us on 60.
Couldn't imagine living on anything smaller but could certainly see us in bigger if the right boat appeared.

Bigger boats cost more to dock and to haul and paint, but do they really cost more to run? Once you get a couple of big diesels, a pair of gensets and a slew of heads and air conditioners does it really cost more if they are in a 55' or a 65" hull?

Steve91T said:

Other than the expense of larger boat, what are the other negatives of...a larger boat?

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Focusing just on your question, not on preferred size or other.

The only real limitation in your cruising area is draft and 5' or less is preferable while 6' works with planning. I've heard the marina issue hundreds of times and it's just not a problem finding slips for boats under 60' and only slightly more difficult above.

Other negatives:
-Crew work. Whether you or others. There's more boat to wash down after a run at sea. At a certain point you may find (typically between 60 and 80') that you really need a crew person to take care of everything. Docking requires some more effort perhaps but really the key to docking is the helmsman. In some ways larger boats dock easier, but more effort perhaps for line handling.
-Slightly more things to break. However, for the most part you have the same type components as on a smaller boat. Only becomes more as you add a head or add a generator or watermaker. Thrusters. Stabilizers.
-Anchorages and mooring fields can be more challenging.

I think both spouses need to go out on a larger boat to get the feel and determine if it's too big for them. Sometimes it's psychologically too big and that is just as relevant as if there were solid reasons.

At some point, a boat may start to loose the feel of the sea for you. We wondered where that point was. For us it's a combination of size and speed.

We recently bought a 72ft Nordhavn and live on board full time (me, my wife and 6 year old son). We had a 56ft sailboat before this so it is a lot bigger and a lot to get used to. So far we’ve found that the only real difficulty (other than cost!) is the cleaning of both the interior and exterior. Maintenance, boat handling etc. are no problem but keeping the boat clean and polished is a major undertaking. We are having to accept that we will pay someone to clean/wax from time to time and just keep the boat washed down after passages. We haven’t had any trouble finding transient slips, although we anchor out 90% of the time.

Woodland Hills said:

Once you get a couple of big diesels, a pair of gensets and a slew of heads and air conditioners does it really cost more if they are in a 55' or a 65" hull?

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Some of us have single diesel, single genset (+ Solar) and no air conditioners

Boats seem to shrink over time

bayview said:

Boats seem to shrink over time

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And here I thought it was just my wife and I expanding over time.

We, a middle aged and not particularly adept couple lived on and cruised full time a 60' LOA, 18'2" beam Hatteras for a few years up and down the entire eastern seaboard. Finding marinas in any particular destination was never an issue, though we much preferred to anchor or take a mooring if practical. The only time I can recall our size preventing us from something was the 50' limit on moorings in Garrison Bight off Key West. So we anchored off Fleming Key.

How big is too big is strictly a personal decision, dependent on the ergonomics of the boat. I like the old saying from Skipper Bob: "Don't buy the biggest boat you can afford, buy the smallest boat YOU can be comfortable on." In our case it was the big fat Hatt (but not a 70 foot version of same), other folks we know were very happy on a 36' Krogen Manatees or Mainship 390's for the same purpose we had (though they did have land based homes to fall back on, we didn't).

Not only is length a factor for a berth, but its width. Have experienced too-narrow berths for my relatively fat (13-foot-wide, 35-foot long) monohull boat, because some marinas were thinking sailboats. Berths long enough but not wide enough: I prefer an outside berth over a "squeezed" berth.

When reserving a berth, believe it best that a minimal width be specified. Don't focus solely on length.

Boatwise? Since we don't liveaboard, I prefer a "two-can-sleep" boat with room for several not-overnight-guests. Able to readily single-handedly dock and disembark are also in my requirements.

My Coot's "big brother," the Coot 38, has larger volume and liveaboard accommodations such as washer/dryer, larger refrigerator, and so on.

My biggest pet peeve about larger boats is human nature of filling spaces.

3 more rooms of stuff that will end up all over the place in any sea and in general the boat not being cruise ready.

Other than that it's what you make it.

Mrwesson said:

My biggest pet peeve about larger boats is human nature of filling spaces.

3 more rooms of stuff that will end up all over the place in any sea and in general the boat not being cruise ready.

Other than that it's what you make it.

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There is no reason for stuff to end up all over the place in a small or large boat. It's called properly securing things.

what are the other negatives of...a larger boat?

Most of the time the cabins are EMPTY , just more to clean and pay dockage for.

Mere volume does not create comfort , good design does.

Ventilation , hand holds ,storage , ease of performing tasks is not created by mere volume.

Let's look at the positives.

Have 20 to 25 knots in a fairly exposed anchorage right now.
A few other boats are here with us under 50 ft and are rolling their ring out.
Apart from an occasional jolt as we change tack and reach the end of the chain we wouldn't know about it.
Still drinking merlot in tall glass ( I still have another 12 cases of wine in the old insulated cold room) and will sleep like the dead tonight on our king size bed, not some uncomfortable vberth.

For us mid 40'sx15' is minimum without an inside helm and full width interior. At that size you can have decent side deck and still have full width cabin.
Inside helms take up a lot of room so i would want 55' or so if that was a requirement.

In general, the size of one's wallet determines boat size and related operating costs. That said, there are many Downeast style boats that are less than 50 feet that can set you back $1.5 million when new. Wallet size in many cases can be readily determined by looking at the shoreside house adjacent to the dock berthing this "small" Hinckley or MJM.

Greetings, Mr. 91. I've found that the amount of "stuff" one accumulates on board is in direct proportion to the space one has until it reaches a point where one needs a bigger boat for even more stuff unless one is very strict as to what goes from the dock to that "just right space" for a...

As mentioned, handling and dockage soon become a non issue (up to a point) and expenses are what you are willing to spend depending on accessories and creature comforts.

BandB said:

There is no reason for stuff to end up all over the place in a small or large boat. It's called properly securing things.

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I agree but more things = more things to properly secure.

The reality I've personally seen is that people forget about something or get lazy the more things that exist in the space.

Story with little value as evidence of how large is too large.

Deb and I met a couple in St. Lucia who invited us to their boats for drinks. They had a 70 foot trawler. The boat was beautiful, the rooms reminded us of an upscale home in the suburbs. Dining room table sat six or eight.

When Deb and I got back to Bay Pelican we marveled at all we saw and how nice the 70 footer was.

Several days later we invited the same couple to Bay Pelican for drinks. We found out they were selling their boat because it was too large for them to handle alone. The wife complained about 1" dock lines and fenders almost her size. Husband about maintenance with five air conditioners, three heads, etc etc. The final straw for the husband was that they were unable to anchor in Hog Island (Grenada) or St. Pierre (Martinique) because of the length of the boat.

I believe they ended up with a 48/50 foot trawler.

There is a right size for every person. Neither large or small is perfect for everyone.

Mrwesson said:

I agree but more things = more things to properly secure.

The reality I've personally seen is that people forget about something or get lazy the more things that exist in the space.

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I've seen laziness on small boats and things flying everywhere. In fact, most larger boats I've seen have things very well secured as they're use to taking on rougher waters.

Regardless of size boat, we secure. Just seems so obvious that if you're going to be out playing in the ocean you must secure things. Latches, straps, covers, weight, glue.

BandB said:

I've seen laziness on small boats and things flying everywhere. In fact, most larger boats I've seen have things very well secured as they're use to taking on rougher waters.

Regardless of size boat, we secure. Just seems so obvious that if you're going to be out playing in the ocean you must secure things. Latches, straps, covers, weight, glue.

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Yea... Like THESE guys!

Even if you are not going out in the ocean secure everything. Wakes in the ICW can cause stuff to fly about.

On sail boats a lot of things get done after leaving the dock so make all preparations for going to sea before leaving the dock was the rule. I carry that over to power.

We were on a big cruise ship in the middle of the gulf of mexico when it we hit by a strong gust front in otherwise calm conditions. I guess it listed 20 or more degrees made worse by the crew turning sharply into the wind. Everything in the shops and galley flew off the shelves. Clearly this was an unusual event but even big ships need to be ready for the unexpected.