'77 h27 is exactly right for Admiral and me
In fact it's a great cruising boat! We would consider moving up when: - We can no longer get into the v-berth. - We see a real need to take more than 4 for an overnight. (Grandchildren may force this, but we would probably charter for the short time we would have with them!) Much classic and 70's literature describes 25 to 30 foot boats as ideal cruising platforms. I see much of the push toward length coming from sales value (let's see now, do we want a $90,000 31 foot sale, or a $240,000 41 foot sale?.) Because we charter a week a year, we have sailed boats of 30, 34, 35, 37, and 45 foot length for at least a week each. We liked the Catalina 30 the best. So our preference for our simple and commodious (for the two of us) 27 footer is well informed. We spent 8 weeks on her this last summer, and could have gone on indefinitely. We see the big issues of increasing length as: - higher acquisition cost. - higher maintenance and operating costs (a recent Good Old Boat article said these triple with each 10 foot more of length.) - higher stress on all running rigging makes it hard to haul in anything by hand. - difficulties maneuvering in close or shallow waters. - increasing complexity which drives cost, reduces reliability, and lengthens checklists for any cruising evolution (leaving the dock, anchoring, etc.) Certainly those who want big, and can pay for it are welcome to it. But I suspect that many end up uncomfortable with a boat that is just too big. In fact I know of several such cases. David Lady Lillie
