- Slightly different. The Hunter Liberty is a different shape from most.
- Outboard engine - most would choose a diesel inboard, but while diesel motors have benefits of economy and reliability, they are much more complex than petrol outboards. By necessity, diesel installations are complicated and complications are to be viewed with suspicion in older boats. If a petrol outboard goes wrong it will cost less than a thousand pounds to replace, which includes fuel system, alternator and transmission as well as motor. A complete diesel installation may last twice as long, but cost ten times as much... and takes much more than a trip to the chandler! Outboard is also much lighter than inboard, important because we also have a...
- Trailer. Although our car will not tow a Hunter Liberty, a trailer seemed a good idea as it potentially opens up the sailing areas we can access. It also makes maintenance easier and cheaper as we can get the boat home to work on her... Of course, we also need to store the trailer through the season.
- Ketch. I have long liked two masted boats. Typically they are slower than single masted, but smaller sails are generally easier to handle when sailing single or short handed. This is just about the smallest ketch around.
- Unstayed. Smaller and lower sails give less bending force to a mast, and the Liberty is designed to take the force through the masts instead of through wires (or stays). Less to go wrong and cleaner lines - and easier to walk around the deck (but with less to grab hold of...).
- Condition is important, but condition relative to price is most critical. Peridot is not perfect, and a few bits of kit need replacing (there is a new echo sounder on order...), but essentially seems sound. I also feel we did not pay a low price, but when a design is rare, choices are limited. We must hope to find someone similar when we come to sell.
But all of that must be decided before getting to know a boat, so for me the biggest agony is risk - but not such a traumatic risk that I'm willing to pay for a survey! Now, though, it's bought and, to an extent, tested, and it's time to stop worrying and agonising and live with the decision, and make it work.
A big question hangs over just what we want a boat to do. While I certainly enjoy sailing, I'm not very interested in sailing for its own sake. Far truer to say I enjoy travelling by boat. Ultimate sailing performance is less critical than ability to travel, arrive, then stay somewhere interesting, and following a sea passage almost everywhere IS interesting! From our Hartlepool base we have many options open. South east follows the Yorkshire coast opening delights of Staithes, Runswick Bay, Whitby and Scarborough. North, and we pass monumental harbours of Seaham, Wear and Tyne, and on to Blyth, Amble, Seahouses and many sheltered drying anchorages, with Lindisfarne and the inner Farnes offering offshore opportunities. We could take the time to travel further, hopping up to the Forth, and traversing the newly renovated canal linking to the Clyde. And, of course, we still have a trailer to take Peridot to Penzance for our long overdue Scilly trip.
If we keep Peridot a lifetime we'll not manage to use up our dreams. But there's more...
We have a cockpit large enough to take guests along. A hull designed to dry level, so we can sit on a beach if we plan around tides. Storage space for fishing rods - and no standing rigging to foul landing the "big one"! A heads compartment (toilet) much larger than is common for this length of boat. A double berth wide enough to allow ventilation as well as warmth.
Remarkably, Peridot sails well. She's no race boat, but any racing we do will be simple club outings alongside other cruising yachts. For our first proper outing down the coast to Staithes we enjoyed winds from force 1 to 5, and she was stable and quick. We've yet to experience a big sea, though... Once sails are uncovered, hoisting and reefing can be completed by pulling strings without leaving the cockpit, and reefing is so quick and effective that we weren't tempted to wait too long before shortening sail. We loved it.
So far, so glowing. I said all boats represent compromise, so what else do we want, or what do we plan to change?
Our engine is noisy and, until the boat starts moving quickly enough, smelly, with exhaust fumes drifting into the cockpit. Some day a new one may tempt us, but not for a while.
I mentioned the echo sounder earlier, and it just don't work. We have a rather nice hand held GPS (satellite navigator) and at the same time as ordering the new sounder a cockpit repeater for the GPS seemed a good idea...
The hull needs a few scratches filling and a good polish.
Spray dodgers around the cockpit could keep us drier and warmer as winter approaches - and we could build in storage for fenders, freeing up the limited cockpit storage.
Which, while I think about it, could also be improved by a few bulkheads and hatches being added. There is a quarter berth (in the quarter of the boat, running alongside the hull towards the back, not quarter length…) so shallow that once I am in I can’t roll over. Begging to be used for storage.
Various ends of rope are free to tangle in the cockpit, so storage for these seems a good idea, too. A few canvas bags screwed into the cockpit would sort that out.
Oh, and a simple but significant feature would be adding a few more strings to allow the second mainsail reef to be as easy to deploy as the first.
Extend the main anchor chain and sort out somewhere to stow a second anchor – the last owner sailed in the Humber where the challenge is to find water deep enough to sail, rather than our problem of closing the coast to find water shallow enough to anchor!
The next few months should add more good and bad, but this has already taken me two weeks to write, so I ought to summarise and stop. We're happy that we have a sound, functional and interesting boat. We're looking forward to exploring more of our coast. We'd be honoured to share some of those experiences with our friends and family.
Steve Bunning
September 2003
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Peridot
was delivered on her trailer with, obviously, masts down. It was
a bit of a challenge, but excellent education, to rig her. This
particular moment of truth was on Saturday morning, 6th September. |