How do you know when you find the right one? We decided to take that test, and we drove to Herrington Harbour North in Tracys Landing, MD to meet Roger from Free State Yachts.
When we pulled into the marina, we instantly saw the unmistakable hulls from multiple Hallberg-Rassy’s sitting in a parking lot. That is where we found Roger and “Maja”, a 2000 Hallberg-Rassy 39
This is where the search got very interesting. We walked around Maja and toured the hull. Not bad, in fact, it was in pretty good shape for a 20 year-old boat. The marina did a great job shining up the freeboard part of the hull as you can see in the bow view.
We climbed all over the boat, and we probably bored Roger with all of our technical questions. It was solid, and we think we found the right boat.
Here’s how we know if we found the right one:
- We made a list of items that were mandatory and nice to have
- We made a spreadsheet of all boats we have been researching containing all performance data (LOA, LWL, Sail Area, etc) for easy comparison.
- We took a lot of pictures of all boats that we toured.
- We watched closely the prices, years and condition of boats posted and those that were previously for sale.
- We watched a lot of YouTube videos of full-time cruisers sailing their boats. We watched how their boat’s design, condition and seaworthiness made a good fit for their individual personality, skill and knowledge. The usual channels include Delos, Calico Skies, La Vagabond, The Wynns, Zatara, Sam Holmes, Sailing Family, The O’Kelly’s, Beau and Brady, Sailing Doodles and Beau and Brady. One of my favorite channels is Captain Rick Moore — some of his videos are really long — especially the videos before, during and after Hurricanes Iota and Eta
- We watched a lot of YouTube videos of detailes related to sailing, sailboats, sailboat repair. We got very familiar with specifications, how things work, and what design features we liked.
We were attracted to highly-engineered boats, conservative sail plan, offshore rating, with a good owner network and reputation, and ability to sleep up to 6 people for up to a week. The Hallberg-Rassy 39 seems to fit these specifications well.
On our way home, I wrote an email to our broker who could not join us for this trip. I provided the following 3 lists:
- Things we absolutely loved about the boat. For us, it was the center cockpit and being able to remain in total command of the boat from the helm.
- Things we didn’t necessarily like about the boat, but we could live with. One example is the installation of white or off-white (“linen”) colored carpeting.
- Things that could potentially be showstoppers. Here’s an example of damage to the aft of the keel
| (Scoring 1=poor, 5=great) | Sabre 426 | Taswell 50 | Caliber 47 | HR 39 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Looks/styling in and out | 5 | 5 | 2 | 5 |
| Liveability for 2 adults and 2 kids | 2 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| Maintainability | 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| Kitchen space | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Safety at sea | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Condition in and out | 5 | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Strong owner following | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
We want to thank Roger from Free State Yachts for spending an hour or so with us on Maja. We had a great time, and we loved meeting his dog at the office.
Here’s how we started and ended the day. Thanks for reading, we will post any updates here next week.
The Loxodograph 