I would dearly love some advice or experiences in considering buying a 1990 Moody 376 as against a 2000 Beneteau Oceanis 40 CC.
I like them both and I much prefer a centre cockpit for the aft cabin benefits as I intend to live aboard for prolonged periods. I've been told that the Moody is stronger built and heavier, but the Beneteau looks beautiful with teak everywhere on the deck. It is however £30,000 dearer than the Moody. Both have in-mast mainsail which I've no experience of, but I guess makes sail handling a bit easier.
The one thing I'm not keen on about the Beneteau is its spade rudder. Just looking at when ashore it looks very vulnerable though I realize the majority of modern boats are so equipped.
Hi Mike. This is a bit of a chalk and cheese choice! If you are looking at a boat to live aboard, there is a temptation to make accommodation the first priority, and to be seduced by a glamourous aft cabin! Don't forget there is also the question of sailing performance. Have you sailed either of the two boats? They will respond very differently in a seaway. Which would you feel most comfortable/safe in, in bad weather?
In-mast mainsail furling is very user friendly, and makes sail handling easy, but comes at quite a cost in terms of perfroamance under sail. If sailing performance is a priority, I would look for a boat with a conventionally reefed mainsail.
Most people would agree that the Moody will be more strongly built. One reason the British production marques like Moody all fell by the wayside was because they were unable to compete on price with French producers like Beneteau. There were all kinds of reasons for this!
As you say, most modern production boats have spade rudders, and there are few failures. But when failures do occur, the consequences can be serious.
As far as choosing between these two boats is concerned, I think it is very much a question of which suits your own priorities. Are you looking at sailing across oceans - or coast hopping? Which has the best thought out stowage (I don't know these two boats in great detail, but one reason some of the newer boats appear so spacious is because less of the accommodation is devoted to locker space than was the traditionally the case)?
My prejudices would favour the Moody, but I do recognise that everybody's sailing priorities are different. The two boats are so different, and the price is so different, that I wonder whether something halfway between the two (maybe with a price half way between as well!) might suit you better.
I looked at your question but not being a sailing man I didn't really feel qualified to comment. However my gut feeling was telling me Moody every time.
I also know several motor boat users in my marina who have boats with "beautiful teak decking" The trouble is that it seems to detatch itself and fall apart when it is about ten years old then costs mega bucks to replace.
I believe Camper & Nicholson also built quality boats but I'm sure that the other sailing people will be able to name more.
If I can add my pennyworth - try to get to sail them both on similar days with at least a decent breeze. If you can charter one then I would. My feeling about modern boats and I own one (42DS 2006) is that they are great on space and light but they are very light and slam a lot in heavy seas. If you can try both out in heavy seas then the boat that made that less uncomfortable and felt safer would get my vote for long distance cruising. As for in-mast sails - mine is and we competed in round the island race and were overhauling boats with racing sails so I don't think that it will make much difference to your type of sailing but if it works well then it will make life easier for you. It is certainly true to say that quality of joinery down below has been paired back in recent years on all production boats and grp is thinner however Moody's were not always above criticism in that area. Any way a 2000 Beneteau is probably better than one built today.
Many thanks to each of you for what are clearly well considered views.
I was most impressed with the Moody when I first had a look at it, only the mass of teak on the Beneteau made me have a second look. There again, beauty as they say, is only skin deep.
30 grand difference in the price is an issue, so a good Moody will do me fine.
The first point of reference, needs to be for you to determine why you are buying a boat, where you are going to use it, what sort of sailing, with whom, etc etc.
Only with that clear in your mind (and preferably on paper) can you start analysing exactly which sort of boat fits the bill.
Most boats are bought on emotion, the guy imagines himself and his trusty wife /mate gently sailing over a calm sunny sea to a beautiful beach where they enjoy a sundowner and supper sitting in the cockpit in shirsleeves.
The reality is that one's wife will go to sea twice, hate every second of it, refuse to come again except for a few day sails in calm weather, you will have a boat that you escape to (like a garden shed) but rarely use, etc etc etc Eventually either the boat or the wife wins. Remember wives don't like other women in our lives (& I'm sure that's why boats are she (s)), so it rather helps to consider what you are going to do when where etc with the other half first!
Try and keep the emotion out of the buying process.
As regards "strongly built", this is a rather typical British attitude to anything not British. I haven't heard of any Beneteaus sinking or falling apart, in fact they are beautifully engineered to a very high standard with a collosal amount of French Govt money invested in designing and engineering them properly. As with all boats they are designed for a purpose and a price. If Moodys were so wonderful, why don't they build them anymore?? I guess the answer is they were over built (and consequently too expensive to build) - hestitate to say engineered, as I doubt if much finite element analysis or load analysis went into the design - not updated and set in time rather than being up to date. With the modern high volume (numbers built) type of boat, you get something that is well sorted out, minimum number of bodges in the fit-out etc etc.
Now whether the two boats you are considering here are comparable in terms of fitting your profile of an ideal boat is another story, but as I said earlier, you need to decide what the boat is going to be used for etc, but please don't get carried away on the strongly built issue, putting in loads of chopped strand mat and too much resin may make a boat feel solid, but it certainly doesn't make it any stronger!
PS thoroughly endorse what has been said about teak decks on GRP boats - a completely stupid and rather phoney idea. From a practical point of view a disaster and thet will require huge refit jobs every dozen years. From the aesthetic perspective, it is rather like those 1960's Morris Minor Travellers with timber nailed on the outside, really NAFF!!! In the same vein it would be just as appropriate to have your aluminium mast covered in wood veneer to make it look wooden!
In defence of dead trees everywhere, may I add my tuppence halfpenny worth to say that teak laid decks are popular for good reason. My previous boat had GRP/Treadmaster whereas I now have teak everywhere and I now which is nicer.
Wood needs more maintenance but the case is not stacked totally in favour of GRP as a practical deck covering. Drop a spanner or a winch handle on a GRP deck and it can mark the surface permanently - on teak, no harm done as the wood absorbs far more impact (and noise). My last plastic deck suffered little star gel coat fractures in various places subject to wear or load - very difficult to repair and unsightly.
Apart from looking better in my opinion, a good teak deck is far superior as a tactile material. If you want to to spend any time walking in bare feet or sitting on the deck , teak is lovely - GRP/Treadmaster is horrible, either too slippery or too rough. My own little tootsies love to toddle along my timber in the sun and if wet no matter, they can still get a safe grip on the wood. Teak is lovely and warm for bikini clad bottoms to lounge on in the sun if your crew can oblige in that respect. Perhaps the Ed. could arrange for some sea nymphs to do a comparative lounging test - I am sure wood will be good every time.
David, I think you've been unfair to both wives and teak! There are lots of wives who enjoy sailing just as much as their husbands. And I have a suspicion that the reason that many wives are put off is because of the way some husbands behave as soon as they take command of a yacht! Often perhaps because they are not entirely confident themselves, they do an awful lot of shouting and screaming. You too often hear conversations along the line of (real example):
"No, no, I said put it through the fairlead, you stupid woman!"
"Well, tell me what a fairlead is, you stupid man!"
And no wonder they decide they would sooner stay at home and do the gardening than spend the weekends being bossed around, made to feel inadequate, and treated as galley slaves into the bargain. There is also the "husband teaching the wife to drive" syndrome. But treated with proper respect, and if things are properly explained, a lot of women, even initially reluctant wives, become great sailors.
As for teak, I can only endorse Robin's comments: it's much more tactile than plastic, much less likely to cause "yachtie bottie", offers a good grip, wet or dry, and is altogether more attractive than Treadmaster. Of course, there is teak and teak. On some of the production boats the veneer is very thin, and too much scrubbing and treatments to restore "as new" colour can wear it away very quickly.
However, if you are careful with the stuff, and it is properly laid in the first place, it can last a very long time. Ours is six years old now, and still looks set to last indefinitely - certainly a lot more than ten years. However, we clean it (gently) only to get green off land don't use any colour restorers etc. We like the silvery weathered look. And plenty of salt water (eg sea miles) seems to be the secret to stopping it going green.
To be fair 'twas I who made the pop at teak decks although only a little one but... I thought it looked great once and in some ways still do but I've seen too much of it falling apart and detaching its self to actually want it any more. The other potential problem is how it's attached to the boat; if it is a thin veneer, it can be epoxy glued on but eventually seems to start detatching its self. The carpenter in our marina seems to do well out of replaceing it.
If it uses thicker planks (1/2") or more); it is likely to be screwed and plugged (as well as an adhesive of course) but this can be potentially worse as most decks are balsa or foam cored. Before the teak went on, there was a perfectly sealed and waterproof GRP deck and then someone drills forty thousand holes through the top layer, into the core. Starting to get worried yet? When this type of deck covering starts to age and plugs start falling out etc there is a potential path for rain water to enter the core and if that happens it would make the expense of replacing the teak look like small change.
I must admit that I still fancy a teak sole in my cockpit one day but the more I think about it, the more it would have to be 1" thick planks straight onto the joists.
By the way, I would be able to provide warm places for bikini clad bottoms to lounge but wouldn't dream of wasting such lovely things on wooden decks!
Apologies to the fairer sex that sail of course, but I think everyone knows what I meant!
I find the best deck material is GRP with non-slip deck-paint (don't forget to mix in the pumice as the paint manufacturers have decided to charge extra and supply separately this vital ingedient), it also has the advantage that for a couple of hours with a paint brush, the boat looks brand new!
But I'll come back to the aesthetics, why have a nice modern GRP deck that doesn't leak and then cover it with little pieces of wood and 1/2 a ton of sikaflex. I realise its all very fashionable at the moment, but it is a very strange practice indeed. Even worse when one finds as a lot of people have found that the teak deck has been screwed down so water ingresses down the screws into the balsa or foam sandwich in the deck laminate - a nightmare to cure. Also teak decvks take an age to dry out, so even long after tacking or tieing-up, one gets a damp bum from sitting on them, whereas with paint or plain GRP, a minute or so and the decks are dry.
so the moody is as some people say overbuilt but it has stood the test of time howmany sea miles between the 2 if we in england over built it was probably we knew a thing or 3 about hull form sea going ability comfortable offshore sailing as you say ECT,ECT.old does not mean dated not in this idiom it stands for experience which i thinhk the british might just have after all where was the over build 200 years ago with no technology and all the 100% input from the country give advice in 10 years yime when your vessel is that old then try to sell it technology can some times be a bad thing as we know a computer never leaens from its expirience unlike us see you all soon keep up the discours
Moody built some great boats but they were far from the soft riding deep 'V' traditional form and I have known them to slam really hard in certain conditions.
Similarly, Beneteau went through a stage of building the rudder stock out of GRP, this can only have been to save money as there can be no other advantage. I have heard of more than one of these wringing under stress and not transfering the helm action fully to the rudder. (try getting a stick of celery and twistig each end in opposite directions and you will see the effect I am talking about)
I sail from the nort east of England and have been sailing for more than 50 years, (owned various yachts/boats for 41 year) and, for the past two years have been a very satisfied owners of a Moody 376 built in 1990.
This is my second Moody, the previous being a new Moody Eclypse (also inmast reefing) which, because she was a new design, we were constantly having people shading their eyes to peer through the cabin windows commenting on how beautiful she was. Appart from that I was very happy with everything about her, including her seaworthyness; we were at one time stuck out in the north sea for five days unable to enter harbour because of extremely heavy weather. On another, we won the North Sea Race.
Perhaps I am biased but I wouldn't contemplate purchasing a yacht without inmast reefing ever again having competed in various races; Cowes several times, the North Sea Race etc., and have overhauled boats with racing sails so feel pretty sure it won't make much difference to your type of sailing. A few years ago I was very fortunate to have been invited by a world-wide company, to be helmsman for a weeks racing at Cowes onboard a BT Challenge racing yacht - standing at the wheel watching the crew straining away reefing etc put me off forever!
A year later, I chartered a yacht to take friends for a weeks racing at Cowes and even the youngest said they enjoyed inmast reefing much better.
Teak does indeed look beautiful everywhere on the deck, BUT, only if you are prepared to REALLY look after it AND be prepared for a hefty bill approx every dozen years or so!
To conclude: a very nice chap in the next berth to me purchase a Beneteau (I think it is about 38ft)at the Boat Show last year and he tells me he likes my aft cabin much better than his! To be quite honest I like the Moody's interior much better than the Beneteau's as I find it much too Glossy, more like a Gipsy Caravan!
If there is some way of contacting me through MainSail I would be delighted for you to visit for a trial before you purchase!
As someone who has lived with wood in my old mahogany and oak plus canvas covered wood deck boat for almost 20 years including a beautiful hollow mast until it became unglued-just love my new plastic (all be it old)boat-non slip treadmark with just enough teak where it looks nice!
Wood and plastic dont mix easily and when you have to screw one to the other always becomes a problem sooner or later even if only a rubbing strake.
