How to Buy a Sail Boat

How to Buy a Sail Boat

Buying any boat is a big investment. For most, you plan on having it for a number of years, using it as often as possible and you want it to be friendly to you and your pocketbook. The saying that a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into does not have to be a true statement, but it can be.

The first two questions you need to answer are size and type of sailboat. The size of boat sets a lot of limits on many things. Where it is kept, where it can sail (depth and height constraints), what equipment is needed on board, will it be trailered or stay in the water, will it need bottom paint, will it need a dinghy or tender. These are a few questions that need to be considered before you buy.

There are different types of sailboats. You can get a sloop, a schooner, a cutter, a ketch, a yawl, a cat boat and they all have different sailing rigs and sailing characteristics. These determine where the boat can sail and how easy it can be sailed and if a crew is needed. 

My own opinion, that is the result of many years of owning boats, is smaller is better than bigger. Here are my reasons for this. First and foremost is that a smaller boat is just as much fun to sail as a larger boat. A smaller boat is easy to get ready to sail, needs less equipment on board, requires less maintenance, and can go where other bigger boats cannot. You are not constrained by depth or height. If it is quick and easy you will sail it more often.

I saw an article about what a yacht costs to maintain. The article said that it can cost up to $1000 a foot in maintenance for a large boat with all the neat stuff you want or need on a big boat. You have to haul larger boats out to do a lot of work on them…many marinas will not let you do much of anything on your boat in the marina. It is now hard to find a boat yard that will let you work on your own boat when it is hauled out. For legal reasons they cannot let you do your own work in their yard.

I like to do a lot of my own work on my boat and with a boat that can easily trailered, I can take it to where I can work on it myself. I can also take it different places to sail. 

Where you are going to be sailing may help you pick the best type of boat you get. Wind conditions, depth of water, bridges and power lines over the water, and locks all are things to consider.  Docking and marina facilities, fuel stations and pump out locations may also be of importance and need to be considered.

Because of the tight economic times there are many good deals on used boats. If you go the used boat route find out as much about the boat as possible, do a test sail with them if possible, and check the boat from stem to stern looking at everything. Wiggle cleats, use a spoon to tap panels, look in storage lockers and any place you can look.  You can discover most problems on your own without paying someone to do a boat survey.  If you like what you see, note the problems you find and give the list to the person that you have do a boat survey. He may look at the list and say with these problems it may not be a good buy.  It gives the surveyor a few things to specifically look at when he does the survey and it tells him you already have looked closely at the boat and he will give the boat a closer look then he might have. It is smart to get a boat survey done before you buy a boat of any size. 

As noted above there are many types of sailboat rigs. Probably the most popular is the sloop rig. The sloop with a Marconi sail is an efficient, easy to sail boat and they come in all sizes. They can have dagger boards, center-boards, drop keels, and fixed keels and can be shallow or deep draft. Most people picture a sloop when they think of a personal sailboat.

A small sloop can be handled by one person; can have different size jibs for different wind conditions and the different hull designs can let them be shallow or deep draft. A small 20’ to 25’ boat can be easily trailered, is large enough to sleep 4, is big enough to do coastal sailing and they can be fitted out with good navigation instruments and comfort features. They are too small to live on board for any length of time with any comfort.

You can do some serious sailing in this size boat when they are fitted out right, but for the most part these are day sailor and small trip boats. The biggest advantage to this size boat is that it takes little to get it ready to go out and they are fun to sail. If it is quick and easy you will use it more.

I have a 21’ sloop that takes me about 15 minutes to have it ready to leave the dock. One person can sail it and it is large enough for 6 people to sail in it safely. It is great in a very light breeze, but it can handle a 25 to 30 knot wind. The boat has a drop keel and the keel can be raised so it can go over water that is only 24” deep. Two people can lower the mast to get under a bridge if needed. The boat is small enough to be able sail on the river we live on. The boat tacks well so the river is no major problem to sail on. A larger boat would have a problem with that.  The boat can have a 3 or 5 horse out board on it for getting it on and off the dock, but we use a small electric trolling motor. The trolling motor is less weight and there is no need for gas on the boat. For long trips the out board can be put on.  

Because the 21’ boat is easy to get ready and go we use the boat often. Our 37’ boat takes a lot more work to get her ready to go out and we have to motor to open water to be able to sail her. She is not convenient to take out so she stays docked a lot. You will not sail the boat if it is not convenient to do so.

Motor sailors are sailboats that are popular. They often motor better than they sail…they are power boats with sails.  My feeling is you buy a sailboat to sail and a motor boat to motor. A motor on a sailboat is for motoring only when you cannot sail…IE docking, going through locks and such. 8-)

After you have picked the size of boat you want, you have a choice of the type you want. Look at the common type sailboat that is used in the area you will be sailing in. There may be a reason for that type of boat in that area. Ask sailors in the area what they suggest and why. You may quickly find why some types of boats are not popular there.

A sloop, a schooner, a cutter, a ketch, a yawl, and a cat are all types of sailing rigs you can pick from. A single mast vessel like a sloop and a cat can be sailed by one person, but a two or more masted vessel like a schooner, cutter, ketch or yawl will, as a rule of thumb, need a crew.  

A cat boat and a sloop are the two most common one mast sailboats. The cat boat has the mast in the bow of the boat and has one large main sail. A sloop has the mast about 1/3 the way back and has two sails, a headsail before the mast and a main sail behind the mast.

The most common sailboats with more than one mast are schooners, cutters, ketches and yawls. These boats can have multiple sail configurations and they require more than one person to sail. They each have their own sailing characteristics and many were originally designed for a specific use.

   

Pick the size and type of sailboat that fits your need. If it is not easy and convenient to use, you will not use it. If you buy too much boat it will sit and not be used, and that is hard on the boat and it is expensive to maintain.

The links here will give you a little more info on the different type of boats.

Schooners are Unique Sailing Vessels

Schooner are unique and have an interesting vocabulary that goes with them. There are a lot of sea terms that go with sailboats but some are specific to schooners.  A schooner is a vessel of two or more masts and the sailing setup is called a Fore-and-aft rig. The plane of the sails is basically on the center line and it is usually a Gaff rigged design. The origin of the design is not certain, but some say the origin of the rig was British. The American schooner rig is different from the British rig in that it usually has no top sails.

The American schooner rig without topsails and no topmasts is called a Bald-headed rig. A Knockabout fishing schooner and pleasure boat rig is a schooner that has no bowsprit or only a very short one. The Grand Banks Schooners were of this type, and the typical Knockabout was characterized as being a husky boat.  A Tern Schooner is a three-masted schooner that was built in New England or Nova Scotia.

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This illustration of a Philip Bolger design light schooner shows the basic schooner design: The big gaff  mainsail extends over the stern; a gaff foresail in the middle of the boat; and a jib head-sail that extends over the bowsprit.

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The Schooner is a good, fast down-wind sailing boat. The advantage of a Gaff rig over a Marconi try-sail rig is the Gaff rig lets you put more sail up on a shorter mast. The Gaff rig is also more maneuverable than a square rigger. A disadvantage is that it doubles the handling lines for the sails.

A schooner does not sail in to the wind as well as a Marconi rigged sloop. Because the two masts each have their own center of effort on the boat, the boat does not want to turn through the eye of the wind as a sloop will.  When we first started sailing our schooner, we found that when we tried to tack she would get to the eye of the wind and stop, the bow would not cross the eye of the wind. Then, the boat would start moving backwards.  We had to swing the tiller the opposite way so the stern would come around and then the jib and foresail would catch the wind and we would again start to sail forward. All headway and forward motion would be lost. Until we found a method of tacking that worked, we had some exciting turns and looked like fools on the water.

We found that if we let the foresail luff as we started the tack, and back winded the jib when we got to the eye of the wind, the jib would pull the bow through the eye of the wind. At the same time, if the main is pulled in and the tiller is turned hard this causes the stern to come around. If done right, she will come around smartly. We are still perfecting the technique. 8-) Our schooner can be a real cranky.

A schooner is an easy boat to get a lot of sail area on. The foresail and the main sail are gaff rigged sails. A Gaff rig sail is a sail that has 4 sides and has a boom on the bottom and a gaff or upper spar on the top side of the sail to keep it out. The front or leading edge of the sail is along the mast. This lets you have more sail area on a short mast. The main sail or rear sail on a schooner often has a sail that extends past the stern of the boat on a very long boom. This also gives more sail aria for the boat.

Most schooners have a bowsprit on the front of the boat that extends the front of the boat out. This bowsprit lets a larger head-sail (a sail carried forward) like a jib to be put on the boat to get more sail on the boat. A jib boom can be added to the bottom of the jib sail and the boom can be tethered on the front end of the bowsprit thus letting you have an even larger jib sail. 

A staysail (a sail, usually triangular and set on a centerline stay) can be added to the rear mast or if there are three masts, the back two masts can each have a staysail. These are like having jib sails between the masts. A Golliwobbler is sail that is an extra-large staysail used by the Dutch to take advantage of very light winds and name comes from the Dutch word for “grotesque”. 

Top sails can also be added to the top of the foresail and main sail, and these are 3 sided sails with a spar on two sides to hold them open. They can extend a sail higher than the mast of the vessel and they fill the space above the main sails and the mast and add even more sail aria to the boat. 

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This illustration from John Leather's The Gaff Rig shows how a top-sail can be added to the space above the gaff-sail. Some schooners put a top mast on the regular mast to let more sail be lofted. Each time you add a sail you add one or more lines to deal with.

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Because a schooner is a light breeze boat it is said that they can sail in an Irish Hurricane or Paddy’s Gale (flat calm). When the wind picked up a gaff rigged sail can be Irish Reefed (the peak or outside corner of the gaff rigged sail can be lowered to dump air from the sails quickly.  Lazy jacks (lines on each side of a sail that keeps the sail somewhat bundled when the sail is scandalized or dropped quickly) are often used on the foresail and mainsail to help control all the sail when they are lowered. A topping lift line is often needed to help hold the boom up off the deck and make it easier to hoist the sail. A Mich board (a boom crutch) is also used to keep the boom in place when the sail is down. The lazy jacks, topping lift and Mich board helps keep the boom and sails under control. 

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 Lazzyjacks are lines that are one each side of the sail that hold the sail more or less on the boom when the sail is dropped. Illustration from J. Leather's The Gaff Rig. 

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Schooners have lines all over and they need be kept track of. You need numerous cleats, belaying pins, jam cleats and whatever to tie lines off and coil and hang lines up to keep them out of the way. The more sails you have the more lines you have and the more cleats you need. Chandlery’s love schooner owners just for the line and cleat sales the get from us. *-)

Our schooner is a schooner rigged day-sailor we built. We wanted a schooner that we could sail on the river where we live and we needed a small boat.  This little 18 footer flies in a 3 to 5 knot wind and it is a real head turner. Few sail on the river and a schooner under sail on the river gets every ones attention when they see her. The boat has has 22 cleats and 4 jam-cleats and we could use more.

  Just add water...A 18' schooner rigged day sailor that we sail on the Caloosahatchee River.

There are a lot of sea terms that are related to schooners and sailboats. Schooners seem to have more than most other boats. Schooners and the vocabulary you can use with them make them as colorful as they are attractive under sail.