Sara Clemence
Bigger Can Be Better, But...
Pretty but needs a crew of four.
A bigger boat means more space, stability and speed. "Sailboats today have the necessary horsepower to behave like a motorboat," says Mitchell Gibbons-Neff of Sparkman & Stephens. Long passages are far more comfortable on larger boats, and hydraulic systems and roller-furling sails have made it possible to handle boats with fewer people.
It doesn't make sense to build a custom boat that is less than 40 feet. "It's not anywhere near cost-effective," says Gibbons-Neff. "If you take the nicest production boat and try to make an equivalent custom boat, you'll spend at least twice as much." The cost of a 70-foot custom boat could be comparable to a high-end production boat.
But extra footage can also mean extra headaches. The Zingaro, a 114-foot luxury sailboat currently for sale at Sparkman & Stephens, requires a crew of four: a captain, engineer, mate and cook. The captain alone would be paid $90,000 per year, says Gibbons-Neff, and "a professional crew is harder to find than a good boat."
The larger a boat, the harder it can be to maintain and repair. Not all boatyards can handle large boats, so you may find yourself moving the boat around just to find a place that can accommodate it.
"You can have as much fun in a 15-footer as in a 45-footer," Gibbons-Neff says. For example, he volunteers that Sparkman & Stephens makes a 15-foot high-performance dinghy for $50,000.
Sailboat Buying Guide
1. Intro
2. Location
3. Brokers
4. Bigger can be better, but..
5. Pedigree Counts
6. Turning a Profit
7. Used? New? Custom? In-Between?
8. International Buying
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