Choosing a new boat

When heading back to New Zealand, we were keen to get another boat - but it took us some time to choose one. Partly this was because we had arrears of house maintenance to catch up on, but mainly because we had to sort out the type of boat we wanted.

Boat wishlist

I was keen to gain experience with a bigger, faster, more sea-kindly and weatherly boat than Lillie, and I liked the traditional keeler shape.  Daphne was keen to get standing headroom and a loo that wasn't on full view (well OK, a curtain hid you from the calfs up!).  Both of these pushed us towards a 26'-30' keeler.  Although I love wood, I didn't want a boat that would need a lot of maintenance and definitely not a 'project' boat. I'd hoped to buy - or buy a half-share in - a friend's 10m keeler that wasn't getting enough use; although wood I knew had been well built and looked after.  Unfortunately I didn't tell him of my plans, and came back to find he'd already sold it...

'Sound, well equiped and a snip'!

Keeler: Herreshoff H28?

I liked the classic look of the H28. These were popular in NZ; as well as wooden ones, quite a lot had been made by Compass in fibreglass to a modified Herreshoff 28 design, with more room. They had a good reputation and were not too expensive - boat prices in New Zealand are low and falling. I was tempted by one like this, which had a lot of gear added for solo offshore sailing, which I felt would help Daphne and I with our limited experience.

East Coast nursery

But therein lay the rub. Disregarding (or despite) the fierce tides, currents, fogs, shoals and heavy shipping of the Thames Estuary and East Coast, we had found it a good place to sail a small yacht and to learn quickly. The many estuaries, inlets and rivers gave good shelter and quiet anchorages; we lived the marshland creeks for their birds, lovely sunsets, solitude and remoteness. Often we'd be the only boat within sight, and this in scant miles of towns and cities. Though when seeing a 4-5 knot current sluicing past when anchored for the night, you realise falling overboard there was more dangerous than when sailing!

Walton Backwaters

Mud banks eroding in the backwaters

We started off in Hamford Water. If you read Arthur Ransome as a child you know it as Secret Water. It was the perfect nursery for us, and we learnt about tides, shoals, currents, charts, buoys and withies as we explored. It helped if you liked mud! But with a bilge keeler that was happy to nestle into it if you slightly misjudged the depth, and generally good holding, mud had its good points. Exploring further, Harwich, the Orwell and the Crouch were within a short coastal trip; with the right tides you could go there and back easily in a day.  A little further still was the delightful River Debden, with a friendly harbour master giving phone advice about timing a crossing of it's ever changing bar.

Inhospitable coasts and cruising areas

The seas round Wellington are different. Wellington is a brilliant city to live in, and its large harbour (Wanganui a Tara) is great for day sails and racing 'round the cans'. Its sandy beaches and the beautiful beaches and estuaries of Porirua and the Kapiti coast are made for sailing dinghies, tinnies and kayaks. Across Cook Strait, the Marlborough Sounds are a large and brilliant cruising area, as is the Nelson Bays, Abel Tasman and Golden Bay.

But head east or west from Wellington heads and you find cliffs, rocks and steep shingle beaches. northwards there is no good really harbours before Napier on the east and (once past Mana) New Plymouth on the west. Both are long committing sails along dangerous coasts. And Napier is still a long way from the cruising areas of the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Islands.

Sailing west (not south) across Cook Strait is a delightful days' sail in good weather, provided you pay close attention to the tides and currents. In foul weather it is dangerous, demanding and to be strictly avoided. Wellington is not called 'Windy' for nothing, and gales are frequent. Many boats are kept in marinas in the Sounds to avoid sailing across the Strait frequently.

We'd love sailing a keeler in the Sounds, Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Islands. But the latter two were out of reach for us until we gained experience and had unlimited time, whilst keeping a keeler in Sounds would be expensive in marina and ferry costs and inconvenient in access.

A trailer-sailer?

So I looked again at trailer-sailers.  A TS could be trailed to Hauraki Gulf or the Bay of Islands, and would give us access to the many large and beautiful lakes from Taupo to round Rotorua. Boat park storage would be a lot less than a marina berth, and free if we bought a house with a flat garden. Taking a boat over on the Cook Strait ferry would be expensive, but once across we'd have the Sounds, the Abel Tasman and the large and lovely lakes of the south, and could store the boat there for a winter or two.

Support for this came from a friend at work, who said that they'd moved from owning an H28 to having a small trailer day boat and hiring larger boats for holidays - less hassle, cost and better boats.

A pair of stumbling blocks

A stumbling block here (a) was finding a boat that was "bigger, faster, more sea-kindly and weatherly boat than Lillie, with ... standing headroom and a loo that wasn't on full view". Another (b) was getting a suitable vehicle to pull it.  I loathe and detest SUVs - I'll write a rant about this sometime.  Utes are OK for people that need them, but not really suitable for us. But finding a boat big enough for (a) whilst being small enough to tow  (b) seemed a problem akin to squaring the circle.

A 20'-22' boat with a pop-top seemed possible, and could be towed with a 2.5 - 3l car if it had 4 wheel-drive - which we'd like for skiing anyway - and if the trailer was braked. Such trailers are rare in NZ, where the towing laws are somewhat loose.

Pop-tops got me looking again at Farr 6000s.  I'd been wary of this design because I distrusted the removable cabin rear panels, which seemed very unsafe and unBristol-fashion to me.   Plus I didn't like the futuristic wrap-around window style.

However, it had what appeared to be a strong owner group, a good sailing pedigree, and was quite affordable.  We looked at some local (not for sale) examples and then a good one came up on Trade Me (NZ's home grown e-Bay - better in some respects).

Lady Stardust sounded well-looked after, well equiped, good value and owned by a genuine guy. And red.  Plus the trailer was in good nick and had brakes fitted.  And it was currently pulled easily by the car I'd liked the look of from traipsing car-yards, an all-wheel-drive Subaru Outback.

Daphne and the wide open cabin/cockpit space

We decided it was worth a 300km each way drive, had a look and weren't even slightly put off by the cracked mast support...

Having committed to buy Lady, we now needed to buy an Outback asap.

More later...