>As I sit here, it’s only a short time till Pandora is back in the water and, based on a post on the Yahoo, SAGA list serve, I thought it would be interesting to revisit the question of why we purchased a SAGA 43 several years ago. One of my first posts, back in 2007 addressed that very issue and I have listed our original assumptions below as well as the post from 2007 to see how these thoughts have stood up over the years.
When I initially called a boat broker about upgrading from our Tartan 37, my wife Brenda and I had a few key characteristics that our new boat absolutely had to have. Here they are.
- The design had to have a good pedigree, fairly fast and one that would perform well in a seaway.
- It had to have a good, comfortable main stateroom with a berth that wasn’t “pointy”.
- A shower that was fully enclosed and easy to dry off after a late afternoon or evening shower.
- Two heads would be nice so Brenda had a place one to her own when we were in port or had guests on board.
- I wanted a boat that didn’t have even one little piece of exterior wood that I’d have to varnish. I’d had plenty of that over the years with previous boats, including my Tartan 37 with her 90′ of teak toerail.
- An inverter that can handle a hairdryer like a champ.
- And, above all, the boat had to get where we needed to go in good style.
The SAGA 43 was conceived as performance cruiser, just what I was looking for. I wanted a boat with good pedigree that was also fast and comfortable, with more creature comforts than we had with our Tartan 37. We looked in Annapolis at what would eventually become our boat within a month, and now just one year ago at the Annapolis Show. We decided immediately that we wanted to purchase “Spirit” and put in a bid the next week. With delays on the seller ‘s side it wasn’t until February of this year that we finally closed on the boat and got started on the upgrades we planned to do prior to launching. We upgraded the electronics to include a Raymarine e-series radar plotter, new canvas and some additional weight in the keel. We knew that many of the earlier SAGAs were quite tender, a combination of their narrow beam and a bit under weight in the keel in the shoal draft verson. We ordered a 1,200lb “shoe” from Mars Metals in Ontario and had it installed. It went on perfectly and I looked like it was part of the original keel from the very beginning. Having that extra 1,200 lbs proved to be just the trick as Keith Reynolds (the patron saint of SAGAs) predicted. Now she is plenty stiff and able to carry sail as needed. Yes, she does heel over a bit but no more than our T37 did. With these modifications we were off and running as of mid April and ready for our summer “trials”.
So, is Pandora right for me, an avid sailor, and Brenda, a somewhat reluctant but nearly always willing “honored guest”? It would seem that it is.
Oh, I almost forgot, I hate to do a post without a photo so I guess that I will have to sign off with a shot of Pandora secure on a mooring in Muscongus Bay Maine back in 2008.