What's the Best Sailing Yacht?

There isn’t much better than getting out and sailing the world’s oceans on a well-founded sailboat.

But which brand of boat should you get to fulfil this dream, with so many choices available?

With all their logos and flags, boat manufacturers would like you to think that buying and owning a boat is like buying and owning a car. I’m going to explain why it’s not, and how you should approach buying a boat.

Big car manufacturers can make hundreds of thousands of cars every year, and have the scale to make, or provide detailed specifications to third party manufacturers for most parts of the car.
Much of the manufacturing process is highly automated, so there is a high degree of consistency amongst cars that came off the production line days or even months apart. They also have local dealerships and service centres which are a big part of the ownership experience. In other words, they are largely responsible for all aspects of the success or failure of any particular car.

Even the biggest boat manufacturers only make hundreds of boats each year, much of the work is done by hand. They are also very reliant on third party manufacturers for pretty much everything that isn’t the hull. Pretty much everything that makes these boats function reliably comes from a third party, and not the boat manufacturer.

If anything fails you don’t go back to the boat manufacturer, you go to a local boatyard which will be reimbursed by the manufacturer if it’s a warranty job. The same boatyard will serve all manufacturers. They will also repair all the attached components, so there’s very little reliance on the original manufacturer.

In many ways, buying a boat is much more like buying a house than a car – you look at the layout, how well the previous owner has cared for it, and what equipment is installed. You look for the best fit for your lifestyle and how you plan to use it, regardless of the builder, and you should do the same for a boat.

Now that I’ve said the manufacturer doesn’t matter, there are a few areas where it really does, but not for the reasons you’d expect.

Owners of boats from larger production runs tend to form amazing support communities, where you can ask any question about your boat, and somebody else has likely encountered that problem and solved it. For example, there are more than 1,000 Catalina 42s and a very robust owner support network, which can help you solve pretty much any problem imaginable. On the other hand, you may find yourself feeling isolated and somewhat struggling with various issues on one-off custom builds, or smaller production runs, even if they are technically better built.

Boats with larger production runs also tend to be much easier to sell, because there is a larger market looking for them, in large part because people feel more confident in having something to compare to when buying. One-offs and smaller production boats can sit on the market for months or years because buyers tend to be afraid of them. But they really shouldn’t if they approached buying a yacht more like a house than a car.

So if you’re asking which brand of sailing yacht is best, you’re essentially asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is “What layout is best for how I intend to use the boat, and which makes and models of yachts meet that criteria. An even more important question might be “What kinds of installed equipment do I need?” and the answer to this has much more to do with the previous owner than the manufacturer.

Disclaimer:
This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment.
There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose.
There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing.
The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew.
Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of.

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