New member--where to start?

[Jughead135]

This site seems like a great resource, so I just registered. I'm not yet a sailboat owner, I'm seeking to avoid as many mistakes as possible while I rectify that!

Is there a section of this site more appropriate for me to ask newbie questions?


I've owned powerboats (runabouts, up to my current 27' bowrider) for years, but never a sailboat. I have experience bareboat chartering up to about 45' monohulls. We're at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri--it's now time!! Looking for a small keelboat, probably 28' would be the outer limits (and lower 20s more like it). Trailerable a plus--not because I'll be hauling it anywhere, but to make it easy to haul/launch without a full-service marina. (Will seldom do so, but having the capability will be nice.)

I've got my eye on an O'Day 240; I'm going to see it in a few days. I have no idea what I don't know on the subject, but I'm sure it's legion. Any pointers on where I can ask a lot of (probably stupid) questions will be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

Welcome to the site. Likely the best place to reach the most people of all skill levels is under "Ask all Sailors". You will get the best response by asking only one or two questions at a time otherwise it's too onerous to reply to a list of ten or more questions.

 

[dlochner]

What @Ralph Johnstone said.

The quality of your question will have a direct bearing on the usefulness of the answers you receive. A question like "My engine won't start. What's wrong with it?" Will unleash a torrent of well meaning answers that will be filled lots of "Well, if does xxxx, then maybe its this yyyy." Which in the end will be confusing and not lead to a solution. So well formed questions will yield useful and well formed answers.

Good photos are often a real plus. New boat shoppers often ask questions like "there are cracks in the gelcoat. Should I be concerned?" Without photos of the cracks showing both the cracks close up and where they are on the boat, the best you'll get is "Maybe, depends." Probably not the answer you wanted.

So, welcome ask away, there are no dumb questions, just poorly constructed questions.

 

[kappykaplan]

Likely the best place to reach the most people of all skill levels is under "Ask all Sailors".

 

[clublunasea]

I have a 1984 Hunter 34 and am thinking of dropping the mast and both painting the mast and replacing the 20 year old rigging.
Thoughts and expected costs

 

[Dave]

I have a 1984 Hunter 34 and am thinking of dropping the mast and both painting the mast and replacing the 20 year old rigging.
Thoughts and expected costs

@clublunasea Great questions.

Can you repost this question in a new thread? Mixing topics in a thread is really confusing and distracts from the thread. Your questions deserve their own space.

Thanks.

 

[rgranger]

Thoughts and expected costs

 

[rgranger]

I'm not yet a sailboat owner, I'm seeking to avoid as many mistakes as possible while I rectify that!

My advice would be to do a deep internal dive on how you believe you will use your boat. Getting the right boat is about matching the design trade-offs with how you will use the boat. Once you know that, you can refine your questions and get some really good (FIRST HAND) advice from people who have already made the mistakes you are trying to avoid.

Some questions you may want to answer

1. Will you want to camp out on the boat or just day sail? If camping, will it be one of the main uses or just now and again? If sleeping out on the boat is important then you want to look at a pocket cruiser. If you get to a yes on this quesiton, then we can start to dig into all of the creature comfort trade-offs you will have to choose from.
2. Related to question #1, how many friends will you regularly want to take out on the boat. If it is more than 3 or 4 then you probably DON'T want to maximize the pocket cruiser values in your purchase and instead focus on the cockpit comforts and/or deck accoutrements.
3. Will you want to join in regattas on a competative level? If so then you have an entirely different set of questions to answer and there are a lot of experienced racers on this forum.
4. How shoal (or deep) is your sailing waters? When my kids were young we spent a lot of time in the North Carolina outer banks so.... a SHOAL draft was a primary feature of all of my (later) sailboats. I learned that the hard way in my early days.
5. How much do you enjoy fussing with the physics of making a boat sail well? This will influence the sail plan you choose. For example, a cat boat is ideal for people who don't want to mess with the sails that often but if you enjoy tweaking the sail plan to get that extra tenth of a knot speed, then a marconi rig with a selection of head sails and/or spinnaker might be more fun for you.
6. What sort of aux power are you comfortable with? In otherwords, do you want a diesel or an outboard? Are you interested in electric propulsion (a bigger can of worm set of questions).

Last bit of advice for now.... if you decide to go with a trailer sailboat.... don't get to enamoured with the looks of the boat. You can clean a dirty boat. You can sand and varnish wood... but if you start replacing the trailer, sails and outboard ... you get into real money. Don't neglect to evaluate the quality of those ancillary items.

 

[Tally Ho]

This site seems like a great resource, so I just registered. I'm not yet a sailboat owner, I'm seeking to avoid as many mistakes as possible while I rectify that!

Is there a section of this site more appropriate for me to ask newbie questions?


I've owned powerboats (runabouts, up to my current 27' bowrider) for years, but never a sailboat. I have experience bareboat chartering up to about 45' monohulls. We're at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri--it's now time!! Looking for a small keelboat, probably 28' would be the outer limits (and lower 20s more like it). Trailerable a plus--not because I'll be hauling it anywhere, but to make it easy to haul/launch without a full-service marina. (Will seldom do so, but having the capability will be nice.)

I've got my eye on an O'Day 240; I'm going to see it in a few days. I have no idea what I don't know on the subject, but I'm sure it's legion. Any pointers on where I can ask a lot of (probably stupid) questions will be greatly appreciated!!

As others have said, good to start with how do you plan to use your boat…

You want a small(er) boat…under 28 feet. Maybe trailerable.

I thought about a MacGregor 26M when I first started thinking about a sailboat…but I was on Lake Michigan, and wasn’t sure a 26-foot, lightly built, water-ballast boat would be ideal…so I went for a sailboat on one. Really didnt like setting it up at the boat ramp, and then taking down the mast at the end of the sail (Owner kept the boat at his house).

She didn’t sail particularly well in choppy waves on Lake Michigan, and she didn’t motor that well (she would not get up on a plane like I thought it would). I learned a lot on that sail… for me, I wanted a traditional 30-ish footer with a fixed keel and some ballast. I did NOT want a trailerable boat at all. And I wanted a dependable diesel engine for make Michigan.

I ended up buying a 28-foot Hunter with a Yanmar diesel inboard. Great starting boat for me. I later sold it and bought a 32-foot O’Day 322 that I still have today.

So, think about what you want and how you plan to use your boat. Inland lakes are a bit more forgiving than Lake Michigan, so your needs will be different.

Greg