The most asked question to this blog is…
What’s the perfect/best VolksCruiser?
So, here’s the answer… It doesn’t exist and it never will.
Sadly, words like “perfect” and “best” are more a selling point rather than a real thing and if you’re going to be doing the VolksCruiser thing successfully, you’ll have to lose the boat show hyperbole and buzzwords and replace them with a whole new set like…
Functional, efficient, durable, sustainable, repairable, hackable, affordable, useful, simple…
Obviously a different mindset and an alternative way of thinking about a sailboat these days.
The fact is that the designs and build of most production boats are actually pretty good or, at least, most problems are known and can be easily fixed. A Hunter will take you to the same places safely as a Westsail, Bristol Channel Cutter, Swan, or Beneteau. Sure Hunters have some issues, but so do Westsails, Bristol Channel Cutters, Swans, or Beneteaus.
All boats have issues, it’s a given.
Of course, the advantage of older (spelled cheaper) boats is that all of those issues are known and, if they haven’t been dealt with already, you can easily fix them and the knowledge on how to do it is easily sourced. Not so much with new boats because new boats have the added disadvantage of having issues that are also S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E-S. Just ask the crew of “Be Good Too” (a $395K+ Alpa 42h) how much fun surprises can be when sailing further from shore than they can comfortably swim. Kinda makes that old flexihull Hunter sound kind of nice…