The question of space

Judging from the content of this and the previous post you will probably have twigged that we have not yet managed to escape back to sailing on BV. However, it does give me a little time to try to answer the question we are asked most, “What’s it like living on board?”.

Looking forward from the chart table

Looking from the outside BV has a relatively low coachroof and topsides so when guests come on board for the first time they are amazed at how much space there is down below. BV has a traditional layout with the emphasis very much on maximising the living rather than the sleeping space. Looking forward from the excellent chart table you can see that the design philosphy gives us a large saloon area to laze around in or for hosting guests, with space for 8 adults to sit around the saloon table, more if you are prepared to cosy up. There is lots of space to move around and good handholds for when we are sailing plus, with well over 6ft of headroom, you don’t feel at all constrained in the main part of the yacht; it feels very light and spacious.

When we are not sailing we sleep in the forecabin. The photograph is slightly deceptive in that the bed/bunk is triangular and so you have to be prepared to play a little bit of footsie with your partner but it’s 2.25m wide at the head end so never feels cramped. Just to the left of the camera is an ensuite toilet and shower room whilst opposite that, to the right of the camera, is a rack of drawers and a long hanging locker which can also act as an airing cupboard because it has a heater outlet built into it.

The bed is a step up to climb into but that does mean that there is oodles of storage space below. Hidden underneath is a large holding tank and pump, lots and lots of spares, an enourmous asymmetric spinnaker with control lines and sheets, the storm jib, trysail, and our 2 folding bikes and their storage bags. That leaves the 6 lockers above the bed, the long hanging locker and 6 drawers free for our clothes.

Looking aft you can see that there is a reasonable amount of work surface in the galley, which makes life a lot easier when you are preparing a meal. BV has a beam of just over 4 metres so all of the lockers are very deep under the side decks and provide a lot of storage space so that everything you need to cook and serve food is immediately close to hand.

All of that storage space leaves the space under the saloon seats free for food, which works very well and allows us to keep heavy cans and cartons low down. Using the same logic of keeping weight low, the ‘wine cellar’ is under the saloon sole where there is space around the diesel and water tanks. There will certainly be no issues with storing all of the food we’ll need for longer passages such as crossing the Atlantic.

The aft cabin - a ‘dumping ground’?

The aft cabin is our guest cabin with a very large double bed that is actually bigger than the forepeak one. It also has a lot of storage space below it.  As well as housing all of the water maker pumps pipework and fittings there is space for about 40 litres of engine oil, the washing machine, tins of varnish and paints, lots of cleaning products and spare filters for the watermaker. Sliding out from underneath there is also a very convenient large drawer which we use for storing the charts and pilot books which are not ‘in-use’ and therefore stored in the chart table or bookcases.

Some yachts similar in size to BV have a really large after cabin across the full width of the yacht with a double bed much as you would have at home with space to walk around it. That does tend to end up forcing the yacht to be designed with a smaller cockpit in the centre of the yacht, a higher coachroof, and less storage space. In warmer climates we like to spend a lot of our time relaxing and eating in the cockpit and so prefer the bigger cockpit that BV’s more conventional aft cockpit layout affords us.

All of that storage space on BV means that we can keep our main living space pretty neat and tidy. The old adage of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ works well in yachts. If you weren’t tidy then there would be chaos when the boat heels over, as anything not tucked away would fall onto the cabin sole.

For living on board for an extended period, all of that storage space also means that we never have to feel as though we are living out of a suitcase or kitbag. It doesn’t feel like temporary accommodation, much more like we are living in a small house. Like most houses though, the spare bedroom can end up as being a bit of a dumping ground. As you can see from the photograph above, when we are in port or on short passages we often lift up part of the aft bunk mattress and leave the folding bikes there in their black storage bags so they are conveniently available rather than going through the faff of tucking them away under the forward bunk. We string up the lee cloth to prevent them from falling over if we heel.

With all that emphasis on good stowage, some people might consider having 2 heads/shower as an indugent waste of precious space but it is quite nice when we have guests staying and we have found that the extra heads forwards does provide an excellent place to hang up the iberico ham to air. I suspect a use that wasn't envisaged in the original Rustler 42 design spec.

So, in answer to the perception by some that we must be very short of space, that we must constantly be getting in each other’s way and that we must be almost bent double as we move around the saloon, I hope that you can see that those perceptions are a long way from the truth. With just the 2 of us on board most of the time, there is a lot of living space.  That said, having returned home recently, a real house does seem very large in comparison with what we have become used to on BV over the last 4 months.

Space onboard though is really only a small part of the cruising yachtsman’s quality of life equation. Many people cruise very successfully and enjoyably on much smaller and much larger yachts than BV. The fun is much more to do with the lifestyle, travel and pace of life that living on a yacht brings and that is what all of the other blog posts will hopefully bring to life for you.

What’s it like living onboard?

We often get asked by friends, “what’s it like for the 2 of you living onboard?”. For people who have not been on a sailing yacht before it must be hard to imagine how much space there is and so it’s not surprising that some assume that there is hardly any room to move, that we must constantly be getting in each other's way and that we must be almost bent double as we move around the saloon. When you start looking at buying a yacht you fairly quickly realise that 2 yachts of the same length can have a markedly different amount of space down below. You also quickly realise that on a sailing yacht everything is a compromise and you have to decide on your personal priorities to find the design of yacht which suits you.

For example there are 42ft long yachts which have more cabins, bunks and, in some cases, much more volume down below than BV has. However, that extra space below can come at the cost of sailing performance, particularly in stronger winds. If you go for a hull design which handles heavy weather well, you will almost certainly find that it is slower than a racing thoroughbred but that it has the benefit of a significantly more comfortable motion as the waves pass. But if you go for a heavier and smaller volumed hull that generally handles heavy seas well and then choose to cram it full of as many cabins and bunks as you can, you won’t have much living space in the saloon or much stowage space for food and spares.

One of the other significant factors is tankage. Our last yacht was a Starlight 35; a highly capable yacht which handles heavy weather well but was still fairly quick for a cruising yacht. Brokers would probably classify her as a ‘Performance Cruiser’ and her new owner has already successfully sailed her across the Atlantic to explore the Caribbean. For us though, we always felt that the water and fuel tanks were too small for the sailing which we wanted to do and we could see no workable way of retrofitting a holding tank (essential in the Eastern Med) without some very interesting plumbing and using up most of the stowage space. Hence we moved up to the larger Rustler 42

So when friends ask, “so how many people does BV sleep?” we always feel that the, “she has 7 berths” answer somewhat misses the point. You could probably describe BV best by saying that she sleeps 2 couples very comfortably. Therefore going right back to the question at the beginning of this post, “what’s it like for the 2 of you living onboard?”, the answer is actually that with just 2 of us onboard she is very comfortable indeed. I’ll give a little more detail in my next post so that you can understand why and elaborate on some of the compromises we balanced in our choice of yacht.