Top Sailboats for Cruising Couples: Find the Perfect Boat for Your Next Adventure - Ep 216 - Lady K

this episode is brought to you by the Kings John and Mad Max this week's news patrons guys I know there are a lot of people out there buying boats right now for kind of different reasons and in my Consulting and my travels and talking to other Sailors the biggest demographic right now seems to be couples and I mean soon to be retired maybe or retiring early or just pulling the plug on normal life this dream of sailing the tropics and living a completely different style of life than all of our friends is more alive than I've ever seen it a lot of people are taking the plunge sell the house or rent it out buy a boat outfit it the way you want it and spend a few years just really enjoying life in all the beauty the world has to offer so it just makes sense that we do this episode if it's just you and your spouse and maybe the occasional kid or guest or something like that what should you be looking for in a sailboat this week on everything you need to know the perfect sailboat for the cruising couple [Music] [Music] now before we look at boats today there's a few things to consider if it's just going to be the two of you most of the time then it can't be like a super yacht or anything the size has to be manageable for two people especially when you're docking or anchoring and we've all seen if you've ever been near a sailboat dock or an Anchorage there's that couple where one's behind the wheel while the other one's up at the deck swatting on a mooring ball with a boat hook and they're both yelling at each other because they can't hear each other 50 feet away from each other so the boat has to be manageable and when you've spent years together you might think that you can handle anything you've been through pretty much everything but once you stuff those two people in a tiny fiberglass tube for months on end you'll quickly find out a lot about yourselves so we need a boat with some comfort of course but maybe some separate spaces where the two of you can have your own Hobbies or quiet time maybe one of you wants to go up and read a book behind a closed door where it's nice and quiet and it's just you we need that also you're not going to be spending the rest of your lives on board maybe it's just going to be a few years so we can't really spend half a million dollars and then come home broke so the boat needs to be reasonably priced and as much of a good value as it can be to buy a boat which is never a good value but at least we need something that has some value to it this week's list is stuff that's for sale right now I mean we all have dreamboats that we can come up with on this but has to be for sale right now you can call the broker today and book an appointment to go and see it and we'll do it in the order of cheapest to most expensive so stay tuned to the end because the last boat is quite a catch and it's probably not what you're expecting I knew there was a cat most of today's boats are much newer but to be a little bit more budget friendly on our cheapest boat we do need to look at something a bit older but as rock solid as they come this is a Bruce Roberts Seamaster 45 and to say that it's well equipped for the task at hand would be quite an understatement this 25 000 pound ocean boat is a monster in the world cruising community and these were designed specifically to go to Sea for weeks on end with safety as sort of the number one priority which this Center cockpit lends itself well to if you haven't considered a center cockpit yet you really should it gives you a nice stable cockpit with high walls it's very hard to fall out of and it makes a great extra room in the boat when you drop a full enclosure over it it also gives this owner room to on the back deck where they added a huge stainless Arch to make room for solar panels and wind generator and dinghy davits all the things they've already put on here I said this book was well outfitted this boat has a wide and flat open forward deck all the space you can ask for if you're going to go up front in the morning and do yoga and if you have to go up front at Sea you won't be tripping over everything this is very well laid out on Deck you also get a hard Bimini above the cockpit to keep you out of the weather and of course a place for more solar panels which this owner has already done these owners have already outfitted it with a big rockna up on the bow spread so you should be able to sleep at night even when the wind picks up and the boat's swinging around like a maniac these owners have been cruising on this boat for years and now that they're finally ready to move back to land this boat is going to make a great Cruiser for someone else to come and sort of just pick up where they left off everything's already been thought of they've already done everything it even has a brand new air conditioning system and it already has almost 700 watts of solar which works but panel technology has gotten so much better since they did this solar that if you replaced every one of these panels right now with newer models that are the same size you'd be a lot closer to 1500 watts more than double the power without actually having to redesign the whole system everything's already in place and you can probably sell the old panels for a little bit of your money back inside this boat gets a very beautiful finish with that classic wood and classic fixtures and the space to really live on this thing even when you have guests on board invading your personal space you get a full Galley style Galley on the way aft to the stateroom in the back with lots of room for a couple to live in there with storage and a TV mount up in the corner for entertainment down the other side you get a sea berth that actually doubles as a workbench and if you've ever lived on a boat you know how nice it would be to have an actual workbench up front of course you get a Pullman style berth for the guests and you get lots and lots of storage up there I think the big downside to this particular boat this one we're looking at right now is that the diesel in it is nearing end of life it has some 5200 hours on it now by the looks of it the diesel and the boat I would expect that it's been very well taken care of but even with religious oil changes and perfect maintenance a diesel is supposed to be rebuilt or replaced between five and six thousand hours so this one is right there even if it's not immediately in need of replacement you're going to have to soon now they're asking 89 grand for this very very blue water cruiser and with how well equipped she is she may be worth every penny of that but if I were trying to look at it I might poke them a little bit about the engine you'd have to assume that assume that in the first two to five years even if you're taking really good care of that diesel it probably will need to be repowered or rebuilt maybe you could negotiate them down a little bit to 80 or maybe even 75 before the next boat if you like these episodes and you don't mind please consider subscribing to the channel and giving this video a thumbs up it's free for you and it would really mean the world to me of course on a list of cruising boats for couples we would be remiss if we didn't look at the crowd favorite and of course one of my personal favorite boats the Catalina 42 Mark II and I know some of your ears just perked up because you knew I was going to mention it [Music] and there's a reason that there's so many of these things sailing from the Bahamas to Grenada and back every single year there's actually a lot of reasons for it now these guys are asking 120 grand for this boat and that is actually a very good deal for one of these albeit this is an older year than most of them that you'll see on the market they started making them R2 in 1995 and they made them well into the 2000s so you can find a newer one but this 20 000 pound Cruiser is a good buy regardless especially if you can find the Shoal draft version and even more so the two cabin layout which this one is Catalina was able to pack so much into this boat that it quickly became the Jack of all trades in the cruising community and this owner extensively upgraded this boat with some interesting kit of course it's got brand new sales but they recently did a telescopic bow sprit for those of you that know anything about flying a Spinnaker that's going to be a very big selling feature for you Outback you'll also find that she's been outfitted with an engine hoist for the dinghy outboard as well as a full radar package though she is lacking davits but at this price point for a 42 Mark II some things will have to be left to you if you buy it like davits if you want those on the top sides this boat looks very well cared for running rigging standing rigging it all looks great and while I do suspect that she has been raced quite a lot everything is clean and in good order it doesn't look like it was put away dirty every Thursday night after a club race they even took to the expensive outfitting her with no less than four electric winches so sailing her is going to be extremely easy for the new owners especially if you're a couple that's getting up there in years you won't be grinding winch handles to get this thing trimmed these boats give you tons and tons of room in the cockpit and I personally spent many hours having Sundowners on this model of boat and believe me you are not cramped for space at all even if there's eight or ten of you back there and there's a good reason for all the sailing upgrades these folks did these boats stay extremely well I actually raced one down the Hudson and it was amazing I love the way this thing sails inside the Mark II doesn't disappoint either people fall in love with the cabin on these boats every time they see them you get this massive wraparound couch to port and on starboard you get a smaller seti but with a dedicated nav desk with its own comfortable chair so if you do have to get some work done underway you have somewhere comfortable to do it and the woodwork inside is fairly nice for a production style of boat you get lots of well thought out storage and Catalina opted to make the galley go down one side of the AFT section of the boat while on the other side you have the doors to the AFT head and the private aft stateroom The Galley here is nice and it's usually well appointed and very functional in these boats and more spacious honestly than these pictures would lead you to believe this particular boat is not all that well equipped or updated in the galley but again the Mark II usually goes for 180 to 200 grand for a really well equipped one so for this one coming in at 120 I would expect to be having to do some improvements after you buy it up front as a lot of people really like we get that Pullman birth layout which gives you lots of storage across from the bed for all your clothes and then in front you get a massive head ridiculously big with a shower usually where the v-birth would be so just absolutely amazing amount of space and these owners opted to put a TV in the Pullman which is nice and everything in here looks to be in reasonable condition for the price of this boat and of course you can close the door to this forward cabin which gives you tons of space in your own private bathroom so you get a very nice private place to be when you need some alone time if you want to kick back and read a book because you're mad at your spouse this is a perfect place to do it and this has saved more marriages than you can imagine and a huge separate shower I mean what more could you ask for up here in the back of course we get a second stateroom which is also private it has its own door and once you close that door you can relax in here and you have some storage and an opening hatch to let the sun and the air get in next door of course you get the day head which is smaller but still very functional the Catalina 42 Mark II will always be a staple in the cruising world as a comfortable easy to live with and relatively fast boat that definitely won't break the bank with cost of ownership because they did a great job actually putting these things together but there is another Catalina that you might consider if you need something a little bit heavier a bit more stately maybe a bit more Morgan before we get there Lady K sailing inspired to you by patrons people who give a couple of bucks and episodes to make these videos possible a big shout out to all the existing patrons that have gotten us this far week after week um if you get value out of these videos or you want to help out please consider becoming a patron when Catalina bought Morgan back in the day a lot of Morgan models sadly disappeared and that was terrible because Morgan was well known for making absolutely Rock Solid Caribbean sailboats but a few models lived on through that purchase process most notably probably the out Island series of boats but also this the Catalina Morgan 440 if the Catalina 42 we just looked at was a bit too light for your intended style of cruising then this is two feet longer and a whole 5 000 pounds heavier that's the Morgan in her DNA she also gets a five foot deep modified Fin and the rudder is hung off a skeg where it should be this boat was made in 2005 so it's a lot newer than the Catalina 42 we just looked at previously and instead of the normal coach top that one had this one is raised to become closer to a deck Saloon so you get massive Port lights to sort of liven up the interior everything about this particular boat was designed to make cruising safer and easier for the cruising couple especially if you're getting up there in your ears you get cool things like a door to walk through the transom you're not climbing over anything on this boat onto your sugar scoop and a comfy captain's chair at the home so you're not going to be sitting on fiberglass all day this one has already been equipped fairly well too it's got the dinghy davits it's got solar panels up there as well as a radar system and a wind generator that's gonna save you 10 grand right there someone has already done all the work here and they even have a rib hanging off the back with a 15 horse four-stroke on it these boats are absolute tanks and everything about them is overbuilt so grab your spouse because the interior pictures of this boat are going to be amazing albeit the broker took them in a fairly weird order and they're not the greatest starting up front we of course get a private State room v-birth that looks really comfy and has lots of storage the main Salon in this thing feels more like the main deck of a catamaran with the layout it's absolutely huge and the huge Windows let all the light in it almost feels like you're on a lagoon you get a big c-shaped seating area of course and then a c-shaped galley and they're sort of separated which is really cool across we get these sort of Captain's chairs that make a full bench and a dedicated nav desk with its own captain's chair I wonder if it's the same captain's chair we saw outside in the back of course another private stateroom and it's very large despite this being an aft cockpit boat I honestly wish this broker took more pictures of this because the Catalina Morgan 440 is one heck of a Caribbean Cruiser and if you can find one they don't turn out very often they're very well worth the look these guys are asking 140 Grand and to be honest that may be on the cheap side provided there's nothing wrong with this thing last but certainly not least if that Catalina Morgan wasn't one of my favorites then this next boat is it's much newer and a smidge smaller at just 40 feet and the more I look at this boat the more I sort of love it this is a beneteau from 2008 it's an ocnis 40. and before you get mad at me for being a little bit too Posh hear me out dare I say I think this boat is actually very pretty they started building this sort of luxury eighteen thousand pound Cruiser in 2008 and if they did so to be very comfortable and very good selling as an island Hopper and it was very successful this is a twin Helm which you may love or you may hate I'm neither here nor there I'll take it or leave it um and it's got that well-known beneteau sugar scoop and it's just huge and it makes life incredibly easy when you're trying to access the water to go snorkeling or get in and out of the dinghy the cockpit is massive too and super comfortable so you'll probably be the boat that's entertaining all the guests for Sundowners after a long day of Passage making Whoever has the biggest cockpit is usually the Entertainer this one sports a huge Dodger too that's aftermarket and massive Port lights down the sides as well as those Hull side port lights to light a little bit of light into the cabin and of course you get hatches everywhere and some nice wood trim lining the decks I really like this you also get a fairly powerful rig as beneteau is known to provide and of course an in-masked furling so using this boat with just you and your spouse will be super easy there's a reason so many of these were bought by the charter companies you can literally just jump on it and go it's also very simple inside is where I fall sort of more in love with this design the wood is Ikea of course but not super dark and also not super light it feels classy somehow in just the right color for the inside of a sailboat you also get the big c-shaped seti on one side and then a full bench on the other where you can let your brother-in-law sleep when he comes to visit you get a nicely laid out Galley and sort of a nav desk that I'm not a huge fan of I want to nav desk with a chair but look at the light coming into this boat gone are the days of living in a dark cave whenever you're inside the cabin of your sailboat it makes life so much better when you have all this light in the back you get a large sideways aft cabin and a very big head with a separate shower just behind the very well-kept Yanmar that's in a soundproofed engine room up front of course you get the standard v-birth for your guests with some classy looking shelving surrounding it I honestly really do love this boat and at 185 Grand it seems steep but remember this is a 2008 and it looks to be in really good shape the point of buying something like this other than it being a very easy to use and easy to live with boat is that it's so new and so production and I don't mean production in a bad way you'll be able to get wiring and plumbing diagrams for this boat and I'm sure very little has been changed since the day that it was made it'll be very easy to work on this boat and everything will be super clean and super predictable when you start digging into the wiring behind the panels a smaller simple boat like this will pay dividends when the inevitable happens as it does with any boat and stuff starts to break they say that cruising is working on boats in tropical places and from first-hand experience that is very very true but I'd much rather be working on this boat outfitting this boat and upgrading this boat than anything else on this list there's just something to be said for these newer very clean very simple bows I get asked a lot from people that are boat shopping for help so I dedicated a page over at ladyksailing.com where you can go to book an hour of my time I'm about a week and a half behind right now but I'm trying to get caught up if you need me it's ladyk sailing.com forward slash consults that's it for this week guys and gals if you want to chat with a bunch of really awesome Sailors don't hesitate to join the Lady K sailing Discord I'll leave a link in the description please also don't forget to like And subscribe to this video it's free for you and it would mean the world to me until next week keep the heavy side down but not too far down we'll see you [Music]

Channel: Lady K Sailing

Views: 113,706

Keywords: sailing, sailboat, cruising, yachting, boat life, nautical lifestyle, ocean sailing, sailing adventure, sailboat living, sailing tips, sailing gear, sailing skills, sailing destinations, sailboat maintenance, sailboat design, sailboat racing, sailboat tour, sailing culture, sailing community, sailboat technology, lady k sailing, sailing uma, sv delos, project atticus, buying a sailboat, sailboat buying, sailboat purchase, best sailboat, best bluewater sailboat

Id: tg27ANL0Woc

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2023