Hardy Motorsailer |
Still thinking about motorsailers and wondering if a Colvin
Watson may be a bit too aspirational for my pocket. Lower down the price scale
there is a pretty good looking 20 footer called a Hardy Motorsailer. I had a
good look around one in the drying harbour in Jersey last year. As a
sheltered-water weekender she could offer a great deal of fun with the power to
get you home if the wind turns against you. The accommodation is much better
than you would expect of a sailing boat of the same size but these boats are
small and relatively light so I’d think twice about extended open sea cruising in
one. Not on my list therefore.
I suppose one consideration with a motorsailer is whether
you are buying a motorboat with some sailing capacity or a sailing boat with a
larger than average engine. Traditional thinking is that you can’t have your
cake and eat it a motorsailer is good at one thing or another but not both.
But, now for another idea. As you move towards bigger and
more modern boats, maybe the traditional concept of a motorsailer begins to
‘blur’. Engines have become progressively lighter and more powerful and this
has allowed many manufacturers to pack a lot more power into increasingly smaller
spaces. So the old idea is gone. A sailing yacht auxiliary engine is no longer
merely used to get into and out of harbour. These days many sailing craft carry
power units that would put a traditional motorsailer to shame. Take the
Westerly Centaur for example, designed in the 1960s and described as a ‘gentleman’s
yacht’, an out an out sailing boat. Despite the description, she carried a
beefy 25hp inboard diesel as standard. In effect, she was (and is) a
motorsailer in every sense of the word. So, maybe I can have my cake and eat it.
Hardy
Motorsailers: Can vary
enormously some have inboard engines – many have outboards.
LOA
20’
Draft
2’6”
Engine
– often a largish outboard such as a Honda 50
Price
- £10,000 - £15,000 depending on age and configuration
Seaward
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