alongside all the time..

Today was interesting.An early start saw us down in Lymington by 10h30, and we quickly set in to viewing the First 405.She was clearly in great condition in most respects.... she had seen a lot of TLC, and had benefitted from a huge amount of goodies being added..... but there were a few things... the teak decks... not dire by anybodies standards, but showing their age... good for a few more years though...I noted a few other things... the running backstays, the traveller across the cockpit, and then added this to the 2.2m draft, and realised that she wasn't the boat for us. She just didn't feel quite right.She will however make someone a cracking good boat, as she is in very good nick.Alongside the First was an Oceanis 400 also for sale... she looked great from the First, so we asked for the keys..... wow!She was also in fabulous condition..... not quite so well loaded up, but a good few years newer, and a more modern shape for it... we really liked her!....A few things that stood out... the layout was good, with a particularly nice forecabin, with a large double berth, and still room for a sofa, and the heads foreward of there...A generously sized saloon, with loads and loads of stowage.... all the basics we'd want, heating, radar, etc etc... and the bit that really caught our eye... a massive and well laid out cockpit, with a brilliant cockpit table arrangement.A couple of things that made us stop and think.... one, a lateral galley, and two, in mast furling...So we wandered over to Hythe to take a look at the Feeling. On the way over we stopped in at Berthon to say hello to Fergus, and to admire his new boat... she's a very beautiful Sweden, with a truly magnificent deck, and a palatial aft cabin.... Fergus, she's very lovely, and I can understand why you are so excited about getting her onto the water!We moved on to Hythe.As expected, at Hythe we weren't able to get entry below on the Feeling, which I thought was a bit of a pain... but 30 seconds after we had stepped on deck to check out her topsides, it was unimportant... the decks were well and truly shot.... worn down by 4 or 5mm in places, at least 3mm all over, with many of the attaching screws showing where the plugs had fallen out or worn away... splits in a couple of places.... she needed £20k of remedial work to get the decks right... not what we were looking to face at all.... crossed off the list, we walked back to the car.SWMBO and I started chatting.... rapidly we both agreed that we had really really liked the Oceanis 400..... she just clicked for us both when we had walked on board.... so what about the two things we didn't like..... well... the lateral galley... we thrashed it back and forth, and couldn't actually remember a time when we had prepared a meal at sea in heavy weather.. its just not what we do... and the in mast reefing.... well, the sails were in excellent condition.... and possibly, it'd be worth another look.... so we drove back to Lymington for a second look, and this time to take a few photos and a bit of video for later perusal....This boat just felt right. Could we live with the in mast reefing?... well when I thought about it... probably yes. We cruise. We don't have any plans to race, and its a lot easier for cruising. I think my racing background has made me reject in mast furling out of hand, without really thinking it through. The more we looked, the more we liked her.... and as an added benefit, a draft of just 1.7m, so less than Maggie, making her a really viable east coast boat....Ho hum.... we set off home, arriving back by 19h00, and have been downloading pictures ever since... we need to do our sums this evening, but I suspect, if we can make it work, we'll be making an offer tommorrow...