GeorgeC1 said:
I have looked at the SABA 50 quite a bit the last week. With a couple partners it might be a interesting boat to have in charter. There are some worts. The first is the pics shown are for the owners version with 4 cabins. At over a million dollars you will need the 6 cabin charter version. Reselling the charter version could be a issue. The 4 cabin owners version I don't think can generate enough revenue to pay its way. Still if a guaranteed income could be worked out on the owners version it could be a interesting concept to think about!
The other wort for me is terrible water access for diving and other water sports. I suspect that's a bigger issue for me then some but we all have to have our wants!
Again when comparing a cat to a monohull price should be the factor. You can purchase a 500k new monohull with a owners cabin as good as the SABA50 and 3 more doubles giving the same cabin space. Sq footage in the salon would be similar but you give up cockpit space and the tramps in the mono.
George
What new boat can you buy that is charter ready for $500k that has an owner space remotely comparable to this Saba? Yes you can get a 4 cabin mono but the other three cabins are going to be a fraction of the space unless there is some new manufacturer that I'm not aware of. The cabins on the Saba could be even larger but they did an excellent job providing storage. Working for CYOA for many years and having been on every Fountaine Pajot cat from 36'-50' plus cats from Gemini, Lagoon, Leopard, Voyage, Catana and Gunboat, I don't gush about boats. I had read the reviews on the Saba, read the Boat of the Year article in Sail magazine, and saw this hull #2 on the dock at CYOA. My first impression was it seemed like a nice boat. Once I got the sails up and started moving up the Channel from Norman to North Sound I realized that this cat is actually pretty fast in fairly light winds. The charter guests invited many "new friends" on board to tour her when we anchored. The typical response was "WOW". The fact that I easily hit double digits upwind and held 8kts pointing at about 40 degrees apparent tells me this boat sails too!! I don't know anything about the finances of theoretically "making a boat work in charter". I do know that people that truly enjoy sailing will enjoy this boat. The people that really like independence will love it too. With 8 on board we never ran out of water or ice thanks to the watermaker and ice maker. My one and only time of gushing about a boat on this forum is now over. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />
