Please talk me out of buying this racing boat

[NickCQ]

Huntsman said:

NickCQ said:

So you have £3-4k of marina costs before you've even started, then add insurance, maintenance, lift outs, a new kite for when you screw up

I think you'd struggle to put a 29ft boat in a marina on the Hamble for £3-4k, more like £6 with MDL.

You are right - those numbers come from putting 8m / 26' through for a J80 but it would step up accordingly. The 'small boat' rates at Haslar are OK, but I know the on-shore area there pretty well and it's not great, plus the drive down the West side of Portsmouth harbour is annoying.

Without wishing to sound like a PH director cliche, the strongest constraint at the moment is time and hassle rather than cost, so I don't mind paying up a bit.

Edited by NickCQ on Thursday 2nd March 13:12

[ecsrobin]

NickCQ said:

Huntsman said:

NickCQ said:

So you have £3-4k of marina costs before you've even started, then add insurance, maintenance, lift outs, a new kite for when you screw up

I think you'd struggle to put a 29ft boat in a marina on the Hamble for £3-4k, more like £6 with MDL.

You are right - those numbers come from putting 8m / 26' through for a J80 but it would step up accordingly. The 'small boat' rates at Haslar are OK, but I know the on-shore area there pretty well and it's not great, plus the drive down the West side of Portsmouth harbour is annoying.

Without wishing to sound like a PH director cliche, the strongest constraint at the moment is time and hassle rather than cost, so I don't mind paying up a bit.

Edited by NickCQ on Thursday 2nd March 13:12

I'm crew on a 65ft yacht based in hamble. For the cost of a nearly new clio RS you get to park the boat for a year! And that's without lifting the boat out for winter maintenance.

But you're well aware of this already.

You need a marina that's accessible in a sensible time from where you live. However having done a bit of sailing out of port Solent, whilst convenient you have a long motor to get out the sailing. I hate driving into gosport but the time spent driving there is saved by the shorter departure into the Solent.

[Cheburator mk2]

ecsrobin said:

I'm crew on a 65ft yacht based in hamble. For the cost of a nearly new clio RS you get to park the boat for a year! And that's without lifting the boat out for winter maintenance.

But you're well aware of this already.

You need a marina that's accessible in a sensible time from where you live. However having done a bit of sailing out of port Solent, whilst convenient you have a long motor to get out the sailing. I hate driving into gosport but the time spent driving there is saved by the shorter departure into the Solent.

I race two handed out of Haslar. Yes, Gosport is not that great, and the drive from the M27 takes the shine off a good journey out of SE London. However - we have the best chandlery on the South Coast on our door step - You Boat - as well as Endeavour Quay and Gosport Boat Yard for serious work. Kemp look after my sails and are very quick with their turnaround. Having Sea Lift 2 in the marina is great too - I can always get a clean bottom before a race (Oerrr!) for not a lot. Portsmouth and the delightful Old Town are a £2 ferry ride away.

Gee, I sound like I am on the payroll at Dean & Reddyhoff... (I am not!)

Btw, it just popped into my mailbox, apparently they have taken over Deacon's - so now we get the benefits of free visitor nights on the Hamble too...

[ecsrobin]

Cheburator mk2 said:

I race two handed out of Haslar. Yes, Gosport is not that great, and the drive from the M27 takes the shine off a good journey out of SE London. However - we have the best chandlery on the South Coast on our door step - You Boat - as well as Endeavour Quay and Gosport Boat Yard for serious work. Kemp look after my sails and are very quick with their turnaround. Having Sea Lift 2 in the marina is great too - I can always get a clean bottom before a race (Oerrr!) for not a lot. Portsmouth and the delightful Old Town are a £2 ferry ride away.

Gee, I sound like I am on the payroll at Dean & Reddyhoff... (I am not!)

Btw, it just popped into my mailbox, apparently they have taken over Deacon's - so now we get the benefits of free visitor nights on the Hamble too...

I had the pleasure of hand polishing the hull of this small yacht at endeavour quay last year:

[NickCQ]

Cheburator mk2 said:

I race two handed out of Haslar. Yes, Gosport is not that great, and the drive from the M27 takes the shine off a good journey out of SE London. However - we have the best chandlery on the South Coast on our door step - You Boat - as well as Endeavour Quay and Gosport Boat Yard for serious work. Kemp look after my sails and are very quick with their turnaround. Having Sea Lift 2 in the marina is great too - I can always get a clean bottom before a race (Oerrr!) for not a lot. Portsmouth and the delightful Old Town are a £2 ferry ride away.

Gee, I sound like I am on the payroll at Dean & Reddyhoff... (I am not!)

Btw, it just popped into my mailbox, apparently they have taken over Deacon's - so now we get the benefits of free visitor nights on the Hamble too...

Someone described Gosport to me as '50% polyester, 50% Gore-Tex', which is cruel but accurate.
That's interesting re. Deacon's, that would be a nice addition to the package.

[IforB]

NickCQ said:

IforB said:

As for budgeting £10k a year for it, then that is a painful sum unless you have that as easily disposable cash. I run a 5.5m RIB, an RS400 and our MG Spring 25 for significantly less than that a year. If you are on the south coast, then your mooring fees alone may dwarf my annual budget, but that is the joy if being in the wilds of North Essex!

It's a big number, to be sure. But my plan was this - for the first year at least I'd keep it in a convenient marina (nearest to me are Chichester or Hamble ... ouch). That has two benefits - (i) initial maintenance backlog is probably easier to deal with, especially as I learn the boat; and (ii) if I don't get enough use out of it in a convenient marina slip, I'm never going to use it if it's a long dinghy ride away, so I should face facts and sell up.

So you have £3-4k of marina costs before you've even started, then add insurance, maintenance, lift outs, a new kite for when you screw up, etc etc

IforB said:

Of course, you might be as rich as 98% of PH thinks it is and therefore as a powerfully built company director, running costs for any yacht is just a mere bagatelle to be ignored!

Haha, I wish.
What was it that JPMorgan said? If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.

That's a particularly accurate comment about sailing, but the reality is that few of us can afford it really, but we do it anyway!

I'd be hopeful that a kite should las more than a season, but assuming you'll break stuff is very sensible, so when you don't it's a win. When you do it doesn't hurt that badly!

That's sensible to have it in a marina to start with. You never know how often you'll use something and it does need to be easy to start getting into it.

We're lucky to have a couple of launches that run you out to your mooring, which is invaluable and worth the membership fee for the yacht club on it's own.

[NickCQ]

OK. Thanks for advice all. If anyone is interested, I ended up buying a J/70 - will update PH as the season progresses.
The factors that swayed my decision were a lively one-design scene, moderate capital cost, cheapish sails and low maintenance costs / hassle, easy self-launch dry-sailing from Hamble Point and the right boat turning up at the right time at the right price.

Now just need to think of a name (this one is unimaginatively called #263)...

[ecsrobin]

NickCQ said:

OK. Thanks for advice all. If anyone is interested, I ended up buying a J/70 - will update PH as the season progresses.
The factors that swayed my decision were a lively one-design scene, moderate capital cost, cheapish sails and low maintenance costs / hassle, easy self-launch dry-sailing from Hamble Point and the right boat turning up at the right time at the right price.

Now just need to think of a name (this one is unimaginatively called #263)...

Where will you install the wine rack on a J/70?

[NickCQ]

ecsrobin said:

NickCQ said:

OK. Thanks for advice all. If anyone is interested, I ended up buying a J/70 - will update PH as the season progresses.
The factors that swayed my decision were a lively one-design scene, moderate capital cost, cheapish sails and low maintenance costs / hassle, easy self-launch dry-sailing from Hamble Point and the right boat turning up at the right time at the right price.

Now just need to think of a name (this one is unimaginatively called #263)...

Where will you install the wine rack on a J/70?

Nice and low, on the centreline opposite the outboard to keep a 50:50 Port / Starboard weight distribution - means I should carry about 15kg on board at all times for optimal performance!

[hidetheelephants]

IforB said:

No problem. I used to have a Sonata and I still miss it terribly. Class racing is always so much more fun than handicap as well. They are very basic boats, but that is part of the joy, running costs really aren't much more than the average dinghy. I reckon we got away with about 2-3k a year including mooring, insurance, lift out and storage, antifoul, repairs and the occasional spangly go faster bits. There's a keen market for them too, so they tend not to lose any money unless you abuse it badly. We raced at least once a week during season and did multiple events every year, so we gave it a kicking and it never let us down.

I think they are brilliant first time racing yachts. You can race with stuff all experience and have fun, but to get to the front of the fleet, you generally have to know what you are doing, so there's great scope for development.

They also have the added bonus of being easily manageable by 3 and 2 at a real pinch (though in any sort of breeze, you want to have plenty of beef on the rail to keep it powered up and pointing) whereas when you get a bit bigger, you often find your racing schedule dictated by crew availability. The more people you need, the bigger a headache it is and when you are new to it all, it helps enormously to have a stable crew complement who know how eachother thinks. Just grabbing any person off the yachtclub lawn is fine when you know your onions, but if you are still learning some people back away from this.

Hunter knew what they were doing when they designed them, honestly I am virtually talking myself into tracking my old one down and buying it back! She was a particularly quick boat even with me driving it. It had an unusual (for a Sonata) tapering mast which meant in a blow you could depower it more easily and still hold it, whereas others would have to constantly dump.

There are plenty of other boats out there for relatively small money compared to the Corby too, which whilst a lovely boat is something that you'd really want to be sailing every weekend to get the most out of. Especially with not just that investment, but also the running costs involved.

For example, 3DL's are very expensive and tend not to last that well either. Great when they are new, but after a season they lose their edge. So running costs on it might be somewhat higher too.

Is it time to launch yet? I'm getting withdrawl symptoms just typing this! Roll on summer!

Edited by IforB on Tuesday 28th February 21:38

If you want a Sonata, I can introduce you to my brother who has a Sonata he no longer needs and has been trying to flog for a couple of years now; it's got to the stage he's selling a trailer and a set of racing sails and throwing in a free boat to go with them. There's nowt wrong with it, he's just moved on to Sigma 33 racing as it's more civilised and less like camping on water.

Edited by hidetheelephants on Sunday 2nd April 05:09

[IforB]

hidetheelephants said:

If you want a Sonata, I can introduce you to my brother who has a Sonata he no longer needs and has been trying to flog for a couple of years now; it's got to the stage he's selling a trailer and a set of racing sails and throwing in a free boat to go with them. There's nowt wrong with it, he's just moved on to Sigma 33 racing as it's more civilised and less like camping on water.

Edited by hidetheelephants on Sunday 2nd April 05:09

I think if I turned up with another boat, I'd ended up 6ft under with the coroner's report stating "death by wife."

Where is he advertising it? We got ours sold through the Sonata association website and word of mouth. It was a well known boat having won a few nationals in it's time (before we had it!) so that seemed to help.

[rossb]

NickCQ said:

OK. Thanks for advice all. If anyone is interested, I ended up buying a J/70 - will update PH as the season progresses.
The factors that swayed my decision were a lively one-design scene, moderate capital cost, cheapish sails and low maintenance costs / hassle, easy self-launch dry-sailing from Hamble Point and the right boat turning up at the right time at the right price.

Now just need to think of a name (this one is unimaginatively called #263)...

How are you getting on? I am likely to pull the pin on a j/80 subject to survey next week - for more or less the reasons you mention above - although i will dry sail from hayling. Is the J meeting your thrill expectations to sail? Am doing a test sail on weekend - can't wait!

[NickCQ]

rossb said:

NickCQ said:

OK. Thanks for advice all. If anyone is interested, I ended up buying a J/70 - will update PH as the season progresses.
The factors that swayed my decision were a lively one-design scene, moderate capital cost, cheapish sails and low maintenance costs / hassle, easy self-launch dry-sailing from Hamble Point and the right boat turning up at the right time at the right price.

Now just need to think of a name (this one is unimaginatively called #263)...

How are you getting on? I am likely to pull the pin on a j/80 subject to survey next week - for more or less the reasons you mention above - although i will dry sail from hayling. Is the J meeting your thrill expectations to sail? Am doing a test sail on weekend - can't wait!

I'm loving it. Time constraints are as expected, but it's a fun boat to sail whether racing or just going out for a day sail with friends / family. Seems to combine the best bits of a dinghy (very responsive to helm and trimming) and a yacht (not too wet, stable and won't capsize). Don't know whether this goes for the J/80 as well but the spinnaker is also manageable with only 2 or 3.

[rossb]

NickCQ said:

I'm loving it. Time constraints are as expected, but it's a fun boat to sail whether racing or just going out for a day sail with friends / family. Seems to combine the best bits of a dinghy (very responsive to helm and trimming) and a yacht (not too wet, stable and won't capsize). Don't know whether this goes for the J/80 as well but the spinnaker is also manageable with only 2 or 3.

Great - just what i want to hear - looking forward to weekend - thanks for response

[NickCQ]

rossb said:

NickCQ said:

I'm loving it. Time constraints are as expected, but it's a fun boat to sail whether racing or just going out for a day sail with friends / family. Seems to combine the best bits of a dinghy (very responsive to helm and trimming) and a yacht (not too wet, stable and won't capsize). Don't know whether this goes for the J/80 as well but the spinnaker is also manageable with only 2 or 3.

Great - just what i want to hear - looking forward to weekend - thanks for response

Hope it goes well! The best advice I received on the whole process is that the market for boats is a always buyer's market, especially as the season drags on - so push for the best deal you can.