BlankThis discussion gets better with each post. While many of us offshore powerboat wannabes might like a Nordhavn or Selene, etc our finances just won't allow it and we have to lower our sights to either older powered vessels, sailboats, etc. However, regardless of the boat brand, good offshore vessels must have common characteristics which make them that way. I would be interested to have listees thoughts on the subject. Regards David Mellor [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of Blank Bkgrd.gif]

The three top items on my list for an ocean boat are: 1) RANGE > 3,000 miles i.e. adequate to reach any point on earth with reasonable routing adjustments. 2) Stabilizers of any kind, passive, active, compensating or whatever, without them life is to uncomfortable - sometimes. 3) Water supply - a water maker or >200 gallons of tankage or both. We can get along easily on 10 gallons a day or with rationing on 5, so that allows for 20 to 40 days of water. Other thoughts ? John Harris World Odd @ Sea

> However, regardless of the > boat brand, good offshore vessels must have common > characteristics which > make them that way. I'll be a little contrarian on this - and I'll confine my comments to non-ocean crossing (in my opinion, the game changes when you start crossing oceans). Especially up in your neck of the woods (British Columbia), there are boats that are more than capable but don't get discussed in forums like this (Sunfjord, for example). When Brian Saunders retired from Norhavn/PAE, he bought an older Ocean Alexander 40 with which to cruise. Brian once cruised a mid-sized alumininum motorsailor something like 50,000 miles all over the world before joining PAE. I know of other very knowledgeable offshore folks who select what we on this list would consider to be modest boats. Why? Honestly, I've never asked. But my guess would be there's a healthy dose of self assessment in the buying process: matching mechanical and seamanship skills with their intended itinerary, and fitting it into their wallet. I've noticed that as folks get more experience, they shed some of the whiz-bang gadgetry that seems so critical. Someone on this list recently mentioned meeting a couple aboard a John Alden sloop who'd had it for years - and still too solar showers on the foredeck instead of installing hot water. Seems a little harsh to my tastes, but I get their point. And anyone who's spent a hot, humid afternoon clearing a clogged head has wondered whether a bucket makes more sense. When coastal cruising, it's fairly easy to mitigate weather risk by being diligently traveling during good weather periods. Sure, you'll get knocked around from time to time - but not for days, and not with 20+ foot seas whipped by 50+ knot winds (again, I started this email by limiting the discussion to non-crossing journeys). Once you remove the requirement to survive the perfect storm, the boat selection process becomes more focused on day-to-day items like liveability, storage, ability to work on the mechanical systems, perhaps a place to sleep while underway which may be a simple as a decent settee in the salon. Is it perfect? Of course not - and folks like many Nordhavn owners who put thousands of hours a year underway may not find the compromised sleeping arrangements while underway acceptable. I don't know if I'm a good example anymore - I don't do much offshore work these days. But I'd worry more about whether the windows leak during heavy spray conditions (or rain) than whether they'd survive a direct hit from green water. I do like alternate propulsion from a peace-of-mind perspective, but I'm not the best mechanic so I worry about things like that. Probably a better solution than buying a wing-engine would be spending 6-months in a diesel-tech school with a bunch of kids out of high school and spending nights in my garage doing homework on an old salvaged Ford Lehman until I'm comfortable. This is an awfully long way to say I think it better to concentrate on seamanship skills (including weather skills) than equipment. At the end of the day, I'd rather be safely anchored on a leaky tub than surviving a perfect storm in a Brand-X tank-trawler. Peter