Something different

basically i want a boat for under £500. I'm a high level sailor looking for something challenging to sail. I'm prepared to do plenty of work on the boat to get it up to racing scratch. I dont mind whether its a double or single hander as i already have a full time crew for my scorpion. I'm interested in something a bit different, maybe a national 12, Moth, would really like a cherub but cant seem to find any at a decent price, any suggestions would be great

Edited by stuarthop

To get a decent boat high performance boat (Cherub, Int Moth) etc. for under £500 you will have to build it yourself. I have a couple of friends who have done this and it is a lot of man hours. So, assuming you have the boat building skills you need to get the materials and get cracking ASAP if you want to sail the boat this season!!!

If you don't mind handicap racing (and you won't be competitive for £500 in any of the classes you mentioned, apart from possibly inland) why not get a faded one design class boat? I've got a ToY, which I'll be rebuilding this summer, which has sliding seat and plenty of falling over potential! There are plenty of other classes where you can pick up a bargain - there was one of Elvstrom's Trapez dinghies on ebay recently, for instance. There is usually an "ebay watch" found on the CVRDA forum, where people point out boats which have come up on various websites.

i would recomend a contender if you want a singlehander, as you should get a reasonable one for that (i payed 300 for mine, with 3 sails and no damage), and it is quite challenging.

National 12's are a nice boat as long as your crew isn't to big (i have problems getting past the kicker), and i don't know any boat which can out point them, so they do well on small inland clubs.

i am 12 stone and don't have to many problems in the contender, and the previous owner was 8 stone (though he did have a cut down fireball main for really windy days)