Regular readers will know that we are very fond of Madrone. She’s exceptionally strongly built, sails really well considering her displacement, and features some of the best interior joinery we’ve ever seen aboard a boat. She’s well-mannered at sea, never punishing us for the myriad mistakes we’ve made in sail handling. And, we’re a bit sentimental about her, as she’s also carried us safely a long way, through some weather and wave conditions that we’d prefer to never experience again. We have never seen another 43′ boat, even new ones, that we would trade for Madrone.
That said, she is “only” 43′ in length, and we live aboard full time. With all of our personal belongings for everyday living, plus all of our gear for sailing, plus all of our tools, spare parts, and repair items, every available storage space on board is completely full. We still manage to keep the living spaces clear and mostly uncluttered, but the lockers and the bilges are all packed full.
So for several years, we’ve been considering the pluses and minuses of a larger boat. On the plus side, we’d have significantly more room – the rule of thumb is that for every 10′ of boat length, the interior space of the boat roughly doubles in volume (because as the length of the boat increases, so does its width, or beam). We’d also be able to sail faster – the top speed of a cruising sailboat is directly proportional to its waterline length – and somewhat more comfortably, as a bigger boat is heavier so it will pitch and roll a bit more slowly than a smaller boat. On the negative side, a bigger boat is more expensive and time-consuming to maintain, it’s harder to find spots at a dock, and, probably worst of all, it wouldn’t be Madrone.
After a lot of considering, and many trips to look at many other boats, and a lot of hand-wringing and general indecisiveness, we finally decided it was time to make the plunge. So now we have a new boat, a Hallberg-Rassy 54 built in 2010. We’ve named her Oso – “bear” in Spanish.
Madrone has now been handed off to new caretakers, and we’re sure they will lavish her with as much or even more pampering than she received from us. And we’ve restarted the same process we went through when we first bought Madrone – worrying about every new noise we hear, investigating all of the systems aboard (and there are plenty), and learning how to sail the boat.
Our plan is to continue this blog (although at some point the web address might change) so that we can keep sharing the places we visit and some of the experiences we have. So the next few posts will be all about the transition from Madrone to Oso so that we can continue our trip. And we hope that you’ll continue with us!
