I went to the Sydney International Boat Show this year, and it got me thinking about boats. Sometime in the future I can see Alison and I living aboard again. I consider this a different thing to cruising in that few major passages would be involved.

The next cruise we plan on taking will be a circumnavigation, and we have decided to keep our current boat, True Blue. She is 32 feet long on deck, has a 10.5 foot beam, and is long on storage but a bit short on room. The Allied Seawind II was marketed with the slogan ‘She will go ‘round the world if you will’, and it is true. The first fibreglass boat ever to circumnavigate was a Seawind. Along with a dozen or so other traditional bluewater boats the Allied is considered a modern classic for this purpose. Why? Because they are tough, heave-to well, can steer themselves, are safe in a storm, can bounce off rocks for days and be attacked by whales and live, and are about the right size for a cruising couple who live a simple life. You can buy one for about $40K US. They hardly ever get blisters, and our boat has none. They were built heavy and well with oversized fittings. They have pretty lines, and a classic Herreschoff style shear and bow shape. Despite their low freeboard they are surprisingly dry. You can haul the small sails up or down by hand without heading into the wind or needing complicated batt-cars. We took her for a sail on Saturday, and I looked around the surprisingly spacious cabin.
“I’d live on this”, I said.

And we did for two years before we sailed her to Australia. But as a live-aboard yacht that might never make a longer passage than a hop over to New Guinea, the manageable size, heavy weather capabilities, simplicity and maintainability of a boat like this become less important. If you are only out for four months before returning to work then a thousand dollar repair bill is still not pleasant, but it might not mean the end of the cruise. For this use my eye wandered hungrily over the Tayana 48 at the show.
I should never have taken Alison with me. The boat had a washer/dryer. One cabin was set up as an office. It was fun to watch the saleswoman’s reaction when Al stuck her head in the engine room and exclaimed “you can get to the stuffing box!” Of course it did cost $800K Australian…
“I’d live on this”, she said.

So we went home and looked on Boatpoint, where there were 42-50 foot boats for the cost of a crappy studio apartment in Sydney.
Some requirements don’t go away though. The more coastal cruising you do, the more likely you are to hit something. It pays to have a solid hull that won’t get a hole in it or get water in the core, and a rudder that is tough enough to resist a grounding. The ground tackle needed is still the same, and big boats drag more often due to the higher forces involved. The boat should still make your heart sing because you will be fixing it so often you need to love it.
So now I have wiped the drool from my chin I think I know what we will do. We will keep Bluey and fix her up over the next eight years, then go and sail her around the world. I will put in a little nav station, which was the one thing I really missed. When we get back we will look at it again. We will be in our fifties then. Who knows what we will do?