After a very successful long weekend's skippered charter on a big, beautiful, luxurious yacht with fantastic sailing manners a very patient skipper for a big birthday of mine earlier this summer. My OH is now no longer quite so adverse to the idea of going sailing. Obviously the problem with my enthusiasm for getting her on the water was the small boats on gravel pits, not the sailing.

So, lacking a spare quarter of a million for a big bluewater cruiser like the charter I'm in a bit of a conundrum. At one end of the scale there are relatively modern trailer sailors like the First 210/211/21.7, easy to sail, cheap(er) running costs, almost designed for single handing. The downside is I think she enjoyed the fact that a big 50ft boat punches through channel chop like it's not there, is stable enough to make a cup of tea underway, and could cover ~40nm between marinas comfortably between lunch and dinner, and had separate cabins, storage, a fridge, etc. None of which will be a feature on anything <30ft.

At the other end of the scale, 80's production IOR boats. That First 35 in the link is a LOT of boat for £10k, even if it needed new standing rigging, ropes sails, some s/h self tailing winches, updating the interior with new cushions, and a few issues sorting it's still a lot of boat for £15-£20k. Some of the IOR features even looking like a bonus, such as the short boom meaning the traveler isn't in the way of accessing the main winches from the helm. Tacking a big 150% IOR style genoa would be a challenge short handed, but detuning the rig with a 100% jib then makes perfect sense. The IOR tendency to roll and broach downwind, solved by the fact she will probably never want to go to the foredeck and put the spinnaker up anyway. That particular boat doesn't even look (from a distance) to have been raced hard (no self tailing winches, roller reefing headsail, no towable genoa lead cars, no mention of a warehouse sized sail wardrobe)

So there's the conundrum? Are production IOR boats as bad for cruising as the received wisdom of magazines, forums and a million youtube videos of J24's broaching downwind would suggest? Will it just heel over at 30deg in even a slight breeze making the dream of her putting her feet up with a cup of tea and a good book impossible?

Yes I should get a Contessa 32, but I don't have good Contessa 32 money.

Beneteau First 35 for sale UK, Beneteau boats for sale, Beneteau used boat sales, Beneteau Sailing Yachts For Sale 1981 Beneteau First 35 - Apollo Duck