Sailboats We Love

We have been looking at and reading about sailboats for over a year now. From all of our research, we have narrowed it down to several blue water boats: Fantasia 35, WestSail 32, Tayana 37, and Hans Christian 33T.

Fantasia 35: Lost our Hearts to Viking

We love love love the Fantasia 35. Like all the boats we are considering, it is a beefy, full-keel, solid bluewater sailboat. It has a center cockpit- this means you stay drier on the water; having the cockpit more forward on the boat leaves room in the back for a roomy aft cabin. It also boasts a feature we’ve not seen on any other boats we have looked at – a small utility/storage/work room.

We gave our hearts to Viking earlier this year – a beautiful, CHEAP (as far as Fantasias go) F35 for sale in Oxnard, California. We talked like she was our boat and we just needed to go scoop her up come September. But, alas, she was sold last month. She is on the Left Coast and we are planning on starting our adventure on the Right- so we tell ourselves it was just not meant to be, us and Viking.





Westsail 32: The Wet Snail

The Westail 32 is the smallest of all the boats we are considering at the moment. AKA “The Wet Snail”, Westsails are slow (because they are a super heavy displacement boat at 20,000 pounds) and wet- aft cockpit. So, we will get wherever we want to go safely but it may take a while (no big deal for us) and we might get wet along the way (well, we are surrounded by water, aren’t we?). There seem to be more W32s out there at a more affordable range than the Fantasias so we may have better luck with these boats in our search come September.

We were looking forward to checking out Gitana Del Mar (Sea Gypsy – love the name) when we go home to Detroit this April/May but she was sold earlier this year. Sigh.



The Tayana 37

Is the biggest of the boats we love right now. Tayanas have an aft cockpit, roomy v-berth, a quarterberth, u-shaped kitchen; lots of storage. A downside (in many peoples’ opinions) is that many of them are made with a lot of teak (teak = maintenance). I don’t think that’s necessarily a negative for us – we will have all the time in the world to take care of our boat, so teak TLC sessions are not a dealbreaker.





The Hans Christian 33T: layout, layout layout

I think if Stephane were to have his way and price were not an issue, we’d be sailing one of these babies. A unique feature of the HC-33T is the Pullman Berth- a bed situated on the side of your sleeping quarters and gives you standing room on the other side (see pic). In some HC-33Ts, there is also a cut-out at the foot of the bed (think if we are both sleeping in the berth and I have to get up at night- I go through the hole not over Stephane). These boats also have a double berth starboard-aft where most boats have either nothing or a single berth. The very roomy head is forward towards the bow of the boat.



 

We know our boat is out there just waiting for us! What’s her name? What kind is she? Where is she? Will she keep us safe? What kind of amazing adventures are in store for us with her?