We love live on our C-310. We bought Smitty in the winter of 2010 and for the 2011 season were mainly weekend users with a couple of week long cruises. We are in our 30's and were moving up from a 24 foot sailboat. Towards the end of that first season we started extending the weekends to be there from Thursday to Monday. For the 2012 season, my Bride didn't work. We lived aboard from April through November that year. She would go home during the week and do laundry, mow the lawn, cleanup the house, etc. but we probably spent less than 5 nights at our house that entire season. For the 2013 season, my Bride was back to work. We again lived aboard from April through December but would go to our house every Monday to do laundry. We would be back to the boat by Tuesday most weeks.
Our house goes on the market today. We are hopping to sell it by May and then we will be full-time live aboards on the C310. We plan to stay in the Boston area for about 20 months while we continue to build the cruising kitty. This will include living aboard for a winter. In October of 2015 we plan to leave New England to do the ICW, jump to the Bahamas for the winter of 2015-2016. Come back to do the East Coast for summer of 2016. Then start down the Thorny Path to do the Caribbean and South America for 2016-2017. We will probably run out of money around then and will have to figure out what to do next.
Clothes has been the toughest part as the hanging locker isn't very big. My Bride is an accountant and has to dress "up scale business casual" (essentially business dress). I'm a geologist and wear mainly jeans and shorts to work with the occasional khakis and button-up shirt for meetings. We added a hook next to the mast post and my wife's clothes would hang there or in the car. My stuff was in two of the drawers under the front birth. We had a large duffle bag in the back birth for dirty close. This year I am adding a small clothes hanging rod in the back birth so that additional clothes can hang out of the way. (I'll post some photos when I am done.) If we were just cruising and didn't have to worry about work clothes, a rubbermade container for extra cloth storage in the back would work fine (will work fine once we finally leave).
We have no problem fitting food for 7-10 days. I am doing the paleo thing so that means lots of meat and fresh veggies. Right now we just use the fridge but we are thinking of adding some additional space. The ideas we are kicking around are either a spill over kit to turn the dry storage next to the fridge into additional refrigerated storage or a portable fridge/freezer unit that plugs into a 12 volt outlet. The main reason we are considering these is because we plan to cruise the Bahamas in the near future.
The storage under the settees is filled with tools and spare parts. We also did loose part of the port settee when I added a third battery there. We will also use the cabinet in the rear birth on the port side to store more spares when we go out cruising.
We use the back birth for additional storage. This year we ditch the cushions from the back in favor of an air mattress. A queen size air mattress fits the area pretty perfect and when not in use takes up much less space than the cushions. We keep what ever we store back there in rubbermade containers so we can take them out easily if we have guests. We also limit them to what we can stack up in front of the port settee.
The lazarette is kept for chemicals and stuff we don't want in the boat. Spare anchors and rhode, life jackets, cleaning chemicals, gas for the dink and room for fenders. We use the shelf above the holding tank for canvas storage: wheel cover, dodger window covers, mainsail cover, connector, bimini boot, etc.
I mounted the grill to the stern rail so its over the propane locker on the port side. It stays out all the time with a cover on it. We use the grill daily to cook. I got a second propane tank that is in the port locker that connects to the grill so we don't have to use the green cans anymore. It's nice to just stand on the open transom and cook.
Two big improvements for space we did last year were the folding wheel and removing the salon table. We found a folding wheel for $450 from Defender on clearance. It really opens the cockpit up. We removed the table pedestal. I had planned on putting up a new table that hung on the bulkhead to the forward birth. But we found a plastic TV tray works great. By not having the table taking up space it really opens up the salon. I bought a cockpit table from a C-350 for $50. I might have to do some fiberglass work to make it smaller but I may put that in the cockpit if I can get it to look right. The main purpose of that is to add a foot rest because the cockpit is so wide.
I redid a good portion of the electrical system (posts here and on my blog). That doubled my house bank capacity. I will likely change over from two 4Ds to four 6 volt golf cart batteries while we are out cruising. This will add more capacity and make it a better system. Solar panels and a Honda generator will come at some point too.
The last big upgrade before we head to the Bahamas will be a water maker. We generally go about 7 days on the 55-gallons while living aboard. I don't see the need to add additional tanks if we add a water maker instead. A decent 12 volt water maker will cost $3,500 and fit under the rear birth on the port side. We will carry three Gerry cans for gas, water and diesel. Those will likely be on deck.
We either tow the dink or store it on the bow. The outboard goes on the stern rail. We are in the process of buying a new dink. We are going for light weight so it can go on the bow even easier.
For the head stuff, we go about 7 days with the 16 gallon holding tank. We don't really use the boat to shower on. When in a marina, we use the marina facilities. When we are out at anchor, we use the hot water shower on the transom. My bride has showered aboard a couple of times. When we chartered in the BVIs we did the same thing. I don't really see the need to shower in the boat very often. I would like a little more space to sit on the head but it's manageable and I'm a big guy.
We are really comfortable with the size. The C310 is very easy to handle. She is very easy for the two of us to sail, dock, motor etc. It's also a very easy boat to maintain. There is very little outside wood. Mostly fiberglass and stainless steal on the outside. Most systems are easy to get to. Show me a boat with better engine access under 50 feet. Our goal is to spend time enjoying life. I don't want to be stopped from that by having to do endless maintenance on a larger boat.
She sails well. We have had her in some rough seas with no problems. Like all wide stern boats, she doesn't like quartering seas very much. We have been out in 35 kts with gusts to 45 kts. Double reef in the main and a small amount of headsail out. We have been in 8-12 foot breakers of the Vineyard in a small craft advisory. The boat handled fine. The motion did get a little fast at times but as long as you stayed up in the cockpit it was fine. We did limit our time down below to avoid getting sea sick. Personally I find she sails a little better than the C350. I think this might be due to the 310 having a higher relative displacement.
We find that we spend time in the cockpit with friends. We typically become the entertaining boat because of the size of the cockpit. We have had 10 people in the cockpit before. When we are down below that is typically limited to just us or one other couple. We have had 8 people below before but that would be the limit. It would be nice to have separate births with doors for more privacy when we have overnight guests but that would mean you would either loose the open feel or you would have to go bigger.
We know that there are sacrifices to going with a smaller boat. You can't carry as much stuff (something we are trying to get away from anyways). But there are also benefits. We won't have to spend as much of our time doing maintenance tasks as someone with a 40 footer. We also won't have to pay as much for slips in marinas while cruising or the occasional haul out.
If we were to go bigger the C350, C380 and C400 would be the tops on our list. We love the walk around center birth. I know it doesn't make the best sea birth. But you could always use the rear birth or the settee for that. We don't plan to do cruises that involve days on end at sea. We will likely limit ourselves to 24 hours. It will primarily only be the two of us plus we have a dog that we will bring. So the sea birth thing doesn't really matter to us. We do plan to spend a lot of time at anchor in tropical bays. The C310s main birth is big, comfortable and well ventilated.
If you have an specific questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Good luck with your decision and fair winds,
Jesse
) While it was tough to give up the 310, we have not looked back, extremely happy we made the jump.
