Nordhavn alternatives

[danderer]

Your area of cruising and/or observations may be different.

Fair 'nuf.

 

[La Sirena]

I concur completely. Wonder if Selene will ever hand out distance Burgee’s.

I'll pile on. My objective is to move aboard with my wife and explore interesting places by boat. I needed range, a safe, seaworthy boat, and comfortable living accomodations. I settled on displacement boats with a strong preference to single diesels with get home capability. When I started looking I was dead set on Nordhavns. They have a good reputation, good resale value, and an active owner's group. But when I looked at the boats, every model is almost completely different. Many are very tall with lots of windage. Many had lots of stairs to climb to move around the boat. Most had a very small flybridge that had to be entered from outside the boat (not from the pilot house). Most didn't have a full, or nearly full covered cockpit, and the cockpits were generally small. Nordhavns have very impressive and well designed engine rooms though. I looked at Kady Krogens, but for the length, the engine rooms were crawl around only, and the lazarette was small. Not big enough for us to comfortably live aboard full time.

We looked at some Selenes, and loved the layout. Very well designed in my opinion. Easy to move around inside and out, spacious, lots of storage, and the engine room was acceptable with easy access, but I have to stoop to move around in it. Selenes get good marks for seaworthiness from owners and delivery captains as well. We live in Southern CA, but ended up buying a Selene 57 in Virginia and have been very happy with it so far. I just moved aboard and am getting to know the systems on the boat and taking it out for short cruises. I think the boat is a good compromise between simplicity and reliability/comfort. Our plan is to cruise up/down the East Coast, cruise the Caribbean, and eventually through the Panama Canal to the West Coast up to Alaska.

Good luck with your boat search. Don't overthink it or get analysis paralysis. At some point you have to jump in.