Boat Selection Process

We are looking for a reasonably comfortable, displacement hull, trailerable
"cruiser". Sail or power...which ever seems best.

We've owned small sail (currently a 25' Venture trailered and 23' Paceship
on our dock) and power (16' Carolina Skiff) boats all of our married life
and now that we're retired we find that we'd like a more comfortable boat to
trailer behind our motor home and do 4 to 8 week cruises. We spent about 8
weeks on the Venture last summer which included an 800+ mile canal and river
cruise where we lived on the boat full time. We had a great time and will
do more of this type of boating next summer but hopefully in a boat that's
easier to live on than the Venture. It was just too cramped and too
difficult to get around on. We went through over 100 locks and poor Sarah
had to clamber through a forest of stowed spars, lines, sun shades and
bicycles each time we locked or docked. Our traveling companions had a
O'Day 26 that was a lot more roomy and comfortable below but they had the
nearly the same problems on deck.

Here are the things that I love about the Venture. 15 MPG fuel consumption
from our easy starting QUIET 4 stroke Yamaha, sun shade and bimini provided
sun and rain protection from the maststep to the aft rail, mosquito netted
pop top made the cabin cool, airy and bug free for sleeping, shoal draft,
easy to trailer, launch, rig and down rig. I pitied those that had to pay
$50 just to use the gin pole to rig their masts at the Oswego marinas. We
used the sails very little mainly because we ran short on time at the end
where we could have put the masts up (Lake Champlain) and the winds were
against us...so we just motored in what would have been perfect sailing
weather. We could have jut left the mast and sails at home as it turned
out.

So what are we looking for?
A roomy sail or power displacement hull boat that sips fuel, is easy to walk
around on, easily handled by 2 people, trailerable behind our van or
motorhome and costs between $5 to $15,000... maybe more depending on
condition. A boat that needs some TLC would be acceptable as long as we are
talking weeks not months. I'm leery about an inboard gasoline engine also.
I'm going to sell both of my sail boats next summer and buy a more open
cockpit day sailer to keep out on our dock and whatever else we decide to
use for cruising.
So I'm looking for suggestion/offers/warnings.

BTW, I don't usually cross post but I'm going to in this case, so ignore
this if you see it elsewhere.
TIA for any help!
Quinton

"QLW" <Qweaver DeleteThis @ev1.net> wrote...
 > We are looking for a reasonably comfortable, displacement hull, trailerable
 > "cruiser". Sail or power...which ever seems best.
 >
 > So what are we looking for?
 > A roomy sail or power displacement hull boat that sips fuel, is easy to walk
 > around on, easily handled by 2 people, trailerable behind our van or
 > motorhome and costs between $5 to $15,000... maybe more depending on
 > condition.

Depending on what you can find for the price you want to pay:

SeaPearl 28 (http://www.marine-concepts.com/broker.html)

Seaward 25 or 26 (http://www.seawardyachts.com/)

One concern I would have is the length of the rig with a boat that long behind a
motor home...<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->