What are our thoughts so far on the new boat and did we make a good choice?

A friend asked us this question the other day and was really the first time I'd considered it. Overall from a comfort and usability perspective we really like the boat. One small challenge is that everything on it is European which seems to translate into there being very few vendors in the USA that stock many of the parts. This means small things like new locks for our deck hatches, light switches, port lights parts all have to be found at European vendors, shipped over here, and tariffs paid. Another small annoyance is that everything on the boat is metric. Generally this is not much of a problem for replacement screws or running rigging until one starts looking for things like plumbing parts or through hauls. This means that I'm either converting items to imperial or I have to order the various fittings from somewhere special. This may prove to be a good thing once we start traveling internationally with the boat but for now its a bit of a pain in the rear.

Another item I'm concerned about are all the fancy electronic gadgets. I'm a bit worried that I may not be able to service the light switches, fans, various boat pumps (bilge, gray water, fuel transfer) if the CZone system fails while at sea. While it all looks gee wiz neat at a boat show I'm less then excited about the added complexity it brings. There are other things like our electric davits. I love them for raising and lowering the dinghy but at this point I'm really not sure what the back up plan is to get the dingy out of the water if and when one or both fail. Our engines have computers in them that must be working for the engine to start or control the throttles, our steering is hydraulic what happens when the electric pump fails or we loose power. Thinking about all of this stuff makes me wish for simpler times. While none of it has failed catastrophically yet. I'm sure it will at some point during our journey around the world.

My last real gripe is that the boat is big. Yes we knew that when we bought it but after seeing so many at the boat shows and on YouTube you get a little desenstisted to it. As I've mentioned here not every marina can fit a boat our size I would guess only 1 in 5 or maybe 10 marinas can fit a boat our size in their docks as most are set up for monohauls. Even less can service or haul it due to the overall size of the boat and its components. If I were looking again I might strongly consider limiting the beam to something 24ft and under.

The good stuff the boat is very stable at sea. It is very comfortable at anchor. It really does not rock much and it takes a fairly big boat wake to feel the movement while on anchor. Ultimately all those fancy electronics are nice. Power while on board is not even a consideration. Our batteries and inverters are large enough to allow us to run our AC at night, cook, run the water maker, and do laundry all while using Starlink to surf the internet while watching TV at night. Then as long as we have a sunny day and the main sail is not making too big of a shadow the solar will have our batteries recharged by the afternoon if not we just need to run the generator for a couple hours to recharge the batteries. So far the boat has been pretty to work on. I have not run into inaccessible spaces or really hard to get to items. I also really appreciate a lot of the thought that has gone into the design to make the boat easy to work on and live with.

Unfortunately when it comes to actually sailing the boat I don't have much to offer or really compare it to. We have really only day sailed it a few times and other then the first leg of our trip from the Bahamas to North Caralina we really have not sailed it much. I will say its a bit boring to sail. Don't get me wrong its still amazing when you can get the engines turned off and all you hear is the water going by the haul. But unfortunately you don't feel very connected. Part of the reason is the boat does not heal so its harder to feel how it and the wind are working together. It really does become a sail by the numbers experence referring to the chart we have that says if the wind is over 20kts its time to reef the main. You really can't or at least I can't yet feel or hear when the conditions are changing. The other part that really disconnects us from the experience is the hydraulic steering. It removes the feel for how/where the rudders are and how the boat is reacting in the waves. While I had gotten used to this with our tug it still would not be my first choice for steering if I had a choice.

Overall I would say we are both pretty happy with this boat so far. Based on what is/was on the market at the time I still think we made a good choice. If I had to do it again I probably would have waited another year before buying it and I would buy one of the newer versions that are significantly lighter, have a hard top, opening front windows, maybe in boom furling, and the ability to run code sails.. Not to mention all the other little tweaks Xquisite has improved upon over the years.