Considering a floating caravan

[jakew009]

Originally Posted by butty

I changed from a rib, an Island Rib 7,5 meter to a beneteau Ombrine 800, stay aboard all the time, even with a baby, I am now Looking to go slightly larger to 9.25 meters, love the floating caravan, not at all damp or small and not at all like sleeping in a tent, you just have to pick the right boat for you, my beneteau which is a 2005 Hull is quite good, not sure about the newer ones. I would struggle to go back to the rib now as we have got use to being on a bigger boat with loads of space and a screen..

That sounds more promising. Do you find you go out in better / worse / about the same conditions as you did in the rib?

[jakew009]

Originally Posted by beamishken

We have cruised extensively in the 3 different cruisers we did several holiday trips including a holiday starting from largs & sailing to inverness via crinnan and caledonian canals in a 24ft single engine boat with 2 of us & 3 kids over 2 weeks. After selling that boat and buying a 29ft twin engined boat we kept in hartlepool after a few months on the east coastwe moved it to the west coast (largs) via the forth & clyde. We then enjoyed many trips around the west coast & northern ireland over about 5 years keeping it at largs as a holiday home. We then decided we liked the west coast so much we relocated to north Ayrshire & bought our current 37 ft boat we've done some fairly lengthy trips including isle of man a few times & southern & northern Ireland.
Cruisers open up so many new things that you wouldn't do in a rib. Re the alleged poor seakeeping from our point of view its pleasure not endurance we look for, if its rough we find something to do onshore to entertain the kids. Its totaly not like camping even 5 of us in a 4 berth boat was fine over 2 weeks away. The kids were small then, around 1, 3 & 6yo. We've also done a month away in the bigger boats
Ribs are great & we enjoy ours but we also enjoy the cruiser too
Drop me a pm if you want a chat I'll send you my no

Thanks, really helpful. I will drop you a pm. No kids so just the 2 of us.

When you stay on board do you use the shower etc or is it more a matter of just sleeping on board and basing yourself near somewhere with facilities?

[Fender]

Originally Posted by jakew009

How badly?
My thinking is it’s not normally the sea that stops us, it’s the threat of a shower of rain.

Chatting to a mate who owns a boat yard and mentioned the Beneteau/jeanneau style boat an he pulled a face, he said the ride and sea keeping were poor, much better choices on the water ( Axopar / Botnia targa etc or a good RIB for a start ). There's a couple in the yard we use, I guess they tick certain boxes and may I suggest are fair weather boats - if that's what your after then go for it

[paulbrown22]

Originally Posted by jakew009

When you stay on board do you use the shower etc or is it more a matter of just sleeping on board and basing yourself near somewhere with facilities?

I think that really depends on what you both enjoy, and what facilities the boat has! We do a two or three week trip most years on our cruising boat (admittedly a sailing yacht), and we love finding hidden little places away from the marinas whenever possible, and spend the majority of nights at anchor, or on mooring buoys in some of the little harbours in e.g. the West Country or Brittany, using all the onboard facilities, and have a dinghy to get ashore to explore. This is maybe slightly larger as a 40' blue water sailing yacht, but we really enjoy living/cooking/sleeping aboard. Having said that, many people we know simply hop marina to marina and restaurant to restaurant, or just berth in one marina and stay there for 1-2 weeks, and really do just use it as a floating caravan!

We might use a marina a couple of times in the 2-3 weeks, to help with a big food shopping trip, or sometimes if there aren't really any other options in that particular location, or perhaps tied in with a refuelling, or if there's a load of bad weather/rain forecast and we'd prefer to have easier access ashore. We have a pretty good solar setup and battery bank though, so to be honest even in marinas don't bother with shore power, and can happily run the boat with fridges, nav gear, computers, lights, heating, etc. without any issues.

Having just had our first baby I'm actually having similar thoughts regarding my RIB, and much as I love it would maybe consider swapping it for something like a Botnia Targa or a Windy, both of which have very good seakeeping, and offer some accommodation/overnight potential.

[Fenlander]

My feelings mirror Paul above really.

I was lucky for near on forty years of my life to have parents who owned or had the use of liveaboard seagoing craft starting out at 18ft and eventually up to 50ft plus then as dad aged moving onto several types of rivercraft.

I was never so keen on the river but had some of the best times on the seagoing liveaboards. Once they were big enough to have toilet/washroom, hob, oven, fridge etc and ideally berths enough for those aboard without converting the seating they were great to travel about on visiting around the UK, Channel Isles and France.

We used a mixture of moorings and marina pontoons but were always self sufficient aboard apart from shopping when the corned beef hash and tinned new potatoes ran out.

All the craft were displacement bar one so speeds modest but no need to rush when you have all your living needs around you.

My only word of caution is the obvious one... never underestimate the liability of a moored or pontooned craft when the weather turns very nasty or record tides are predicted... nor the inevitable need for on the water or haul out repairs. Easier though for those like the OP who live near the sea... we were always a 75ml plus trip to the seagoing boats.

[butty]

To be honest, I would take the rib out in all sorts and I am not that keen on go head to wind in 25kts in the cruiser.....

But if it has to be done we will do it, the great thing is once at your destination you can stay much longer, even days, whereas in the rib that was not a possibility...

[jakew009]

On a somewhat related note, does anyone have an opinion of petrol outboards vs diesel inboards?

From reading about others fuel burns, it seems that the actual fuel burn per mile at any given speed and is quite similar with modern outboards vs shaft drive diesel.

Red diesel is no longer legal for pleasure craft I think? So the cost per litre is about the same.

So then it comes down to availability of petrol vs diesel, the maintenance cost and the pros / cons to each (more space inside, harder to store a tender etc).

Thoughts?

[paulbrown22]

Definitely nothing like as advantageous in terms of fuel cost anymore as it once was to have a diesel pleasure boat, and it's still changing (for the worse).

The vast majority of diesel available at the quayside in the UK currently will still be red-marked, but as a leisure (non-commercial) user you sign to get it at a split rate, typically 60/40 (i.e. you pay full tax on 60% of it for propulsion, and reduced tax on the remaining 40% as it's considered to be for heating/electricity generation). If you are considering taking the boat into the EU for holidays, there can be various challenges there having red diesel in your tank, especially in Belgium, given it is illegal in the EU, but they are somewhat inconsistent/variable in their approach to UK boats, where red diesel is the only real option available on the water. Although personally having cruised our sailing yacht extensively in north and south Brittany over many years, we've never had any issues there.

In the current situation, dockside diesel is definitely (in Poole at least) a lot cheaper than dockside petrol, and often diesel is far more widely available, especially in smaller harbours. If you're filling up on the forecourt, in Poole at the moment the garage price for diesel is much the same as the 60/40 split available on the water, maybe a few pence cheaper in the garage, but petrol significantly cheaper on the forecourt. We always make sure we fill up the sailing yacht when passing through Guernsey, as diesel is about 70p/l there!

I've had both outboard and diesel RIB's, but haven't (yet) had outboard engines on a heavier cruiser. I still love my diesel RIB (even with the outdrive, which makes the overall package quite maintenance intensive), and think the diesels are slightly better suited to heavier boats. Given the current dockside petrol/diesel prices, in fuel alone I still think quite a bit cheaper to run the diesel boat especially if you're doing reasonable distances, but the maintenance of the typical diesel/outdrive offsets that a bit. If you're using forecourt prices for both fuels, less of a difference. A shaft drive diesel eliminates the complications/expense of the sterndrive leg, and certainly on a slightly larger cruiser (32-40') I think would still be my choice given the availability/cost of petrol dockside, and the potential to have a diesel genset onboard, potentially diesel-fired Wallas hob/oven, and maybe slightly safer to have large volumes of diesel onboard rather than petrol. But in the 25-30' range of cruisers, outboards are making more and more sense, especially as the marine diesel rules/prices keep getting worse!

[beamishken]

Our 3 cruisers fuel consumption have been
24ft 4 berth cruiser just shy of 3tonne with single mercruiser 250hp diesel roughly 5-6mpg.
29 ft searay Sundancer twin 300hp mercruiser diesels roughly 5.5 tonne roughly 3mpg
Current regal 3760 (37ft) roughly 8 tonne twin yanmar 6lp 315s roughly 1.5mpg
All were running bravo 3 drives cruising in high 20kts but not being thrashed.
Add roughly 25% to fuel burn if running shafts & more again if jet drive
Only advantage of diesel soon is added safety & better availability. currently we can still use red which I'd imagine will dwindle on for another few years despite the deadline as theres no moves afoot to facilitate boats filling up. I think [emoji1696]there may be a u turn after brexit on the red diesel situation

[willk]

Originally Posted by beamishken

...there may be a u turn after brexit on the red diesel situation

Well in fairness it WAS one of the promises after: Nuclear Fusion, Zero Immigration and The Empire Strikes Back...

[beamishken]

Originally Posted by willk

Well in fairness it WAS one of the promises after: Nuclear Fusion, Zero Immigration and The Empire Strikes Back...

Could be wrong but our govt never wanted to take the red off boats & got took to court by europe because they didnt, europe won hence the current situation. Its not an easy or popular thing to implement & given whats going on in the world just now they might, just might say f#€£ you europe we're out & we're not doing what you tell us anymore

[willk]

Originally Posted by beamishken

Could be wrong but our govt never wanted to take the red off boats & got took to court by europe because they didnt, europe won hence the current situation. Its not an easy or popular thing to implement & given whats going on in the world just now they might, just might say f#€£ you europe we're out & we're not doing what you tell us anymore

Yeah, we thought the exact same, so we told them we'd do it and then didn't bother our holes. Not sure if they've noticed yet...

We have very solid record of not taking too much shit from Overseas Authorities

[Peter_C]

Gas goes BOOM! Diesel doesn't as easily. So diesel is far safer. Especially if you are talking 100's of gallons, and inboard engines. Plus diesel stores better long term. Diesel fuel also has 15% more energy. For bigger boats diesel makes more sense.

In the US red diesel #2 is sold for non highway use, as it isn't "road taxed". So unless one is driving their boat down the road, it is irrelevant. Didn't know till now that other countries had banned it. Not a bad thing as the low sulfur fuels are far cleaner.

Cats are more stable to a point in rough seas. If anchored out, a cat is the way to go, as they barely roll with the waves. The one the OP posted above appears to be sold, but it looked like a nice boat with lots of room. I once booked a whale watching trip for my aging parents in Monterey Bay, California. I choose the cat for stability, and was glad as the mono hull next to us was rolling all over the place, yet we were stable. Cat for the win!

I grew up sailing a 10m Pearson mono hull on the San Francisco Bay, along with FJ's, Laser's, windsurfers, and kiteboards. Being driven by the wind is the coolest thing ever, next to white water kayaking. To each their own

[beamishken]

Willk are you saying you can still fill up on green? I thought the Irish govt already implemented the ban?

[willk]

Originally Posted by beamishken

Willk are you saying you can still fill up on green? I thought the Irish govt already implemented the ban?

Oh yes, of course they have...

[gtflash]

My friend has one. She towes it too. It’s a lot of boat for the size and looks amazing and the whole family love it. . The hull is very beamy with no real sharpness on the bow so I would doubt the ride is amazing but i can’t personally comment.

I too need a boat, that is not a rib. To keep the mrs happy. I think I would much rather prefer an older windy or scorpion cabin rib but women don’t understand ride, dead rise and why I sold my last beamy constant dead rise boat. Therefore a sink a hairdryer plug and a wine cooler might eventually win

[paulbrown22]

Agreed, I love the Scorpion cabin RIB's, and obviously superb sea keeping, but I still think that for the size and price accommodation/facilities are very limited and still somewhat basic.

I started looking at Botnia Targas which obviously have a superb reputation and ability for sea keeping too, but personally I think the pilot house design leaves quite a lot of open deck space that isn't particularly useful for me. But then earlier this year my RIB was berthed for a while between a Windy Scirocco 32 and a Windy Grand Mistral 37 Hardtop, which I'd always heard about but never really stopped to look at, and I started admiring them and thinking they seem to have a pretty good layout for what would be my intended usage with a very young family, and still pretty good sea keeping. I ended up beside the Windy 32 going out of Poole Harbour one day, admittedly a fairly calm day, and it was easily keeping up with me on the 9m Ribtec (although admittedly using a lot more diesel to do so!).

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by paulbrown22

Agreed, I love the Scorpion cabin RIB's, and obviously superb sea keeping, but I still think that for the size and price accommodation/facilities are very limited and still somewhat basic.

I started looking at Botnia Targas which obviously have a superb reputation and ability for sea keeping too, but personally I think the pilot house design leaves quite a lot of open deck space that isn't particularly useful for me. But then earlier this year my RIB was berthed for a while between a Windy Scirocco 32 and a Windy Grand Mistral 37 Hardtop, which I'd always heard about but never really stopped to look at, and I started admiring them and thinking they seem to have a pretty good layout for what would be my intended usage with a very young family, and still pretty good sea keeping. I ended up beside the Windy 32 going out of Poole Harbour one day, admittedly a fairly calm day, and it was easily keeping up with me on the 9m Ribtec (although admittedly using a lot more diesel to do so!).

The only boat that would get me out of RIBs is a Nordhavn, I can but dream[emoji849]

[36valley]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

The only boat that would get me out of RIBs is a Nordhavn, I can but dream[emoji849]

Shared Start Bay with a Levi Corsair today. That would definitely be high up on my dream list.

[willk]

Originally Posted by 36valley

with a Levi Corsair today.

Reminds me of....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8uiNlNq84