What Boat?

It would cost you at least £10K a year to run a Mumm 30 the Solent though, if you want to be remotely competitive. I speak from experience (with a smaller OD keelboat).

Also, the Solent fleet seems to have died. For example, no class racing in the Hamble Winter Series any more, so the 3 remaining Mumm 30s have gone racing 40 footers in IRC1, where they will be stuffed on handicap.

So possibly not such a bargain.

Damp Freddie, I've slept 7 in a S/33 many times. You are just soft. If you can't fit the crew's kit in, they've brought too much kit.

Regarding the fragmented OD market, I think it has always been thus. The difference perhaps at the moment is that the vast majority of OD action in the Solent is in the sportsboat "White fleet". There isn't really an equivalent of the S/38s of ten years ago, while the X332s aren't strictly an OD. Some of this is to do with the move away from offshore to short inshore W/Ls. Why would you want to find 8 crew to race a big heavy boat around tiny W/L courses, when you could do it on a sportsboat with half the crew at a fraction of the cost? Hence you see people with a Swan for cruising and a sportsboat for racing, when 10 years ago they might have had an OD cruiser/racer.