Chalk and Cheese (and a bit of a revelation)

This boat search will come to an end.... I'm sure it will.

As of three or four days ago, we were onto two candidates, neither of them metal.  They were the proverbial chalk and cheese - it would be hard for two boats to be more different.  Here are pics of each:

The underbody of the top boat is very similar to that of Pelagic.  A deep, modified fin keel, skeg hung rudder and a deep hull sections.  The bottom boat is completely different: twin rudders, a very flat bottom and a centerboard.  The only thing that unites the two is that they each appear to well kitted-out with reasonably new gear, and ready to start crossing oceans on short notice.  This has always been our top criterion in the search.

But then, predictably, after we got excited about each, they both seemed to go pear shaped.  The listing broker for the top one is in the hospital, and he works for a large brokerage that is apparently so disorganized that no one else has any info about the boat, not even the seller's contact details, so no one can tell us if the boat is even still for sale.  And while there's a lot to like about the bottom boat, it is very very light indeed - as near as I can figure, she displaces 8400 kg half loaded, on a 12.8 m waterline, for a displacement/length ratio of 112(!), which, if I'm figuring it correctly, is about half of the D/L of an OVNI 43.

Our friend John, who may have more first-hand knowledge of boats than anyone else we know, said, "Mate, she's too light.  You'll feel every pothole in the road.  You'll wake up every time you go over a ripple."

We tend to agree.

Which brought about a low point in group morale - "When will we ever find a boat?" I wailed.  So many of the boats that we are interested in don't have the required 1.95 m headroom, and that seems to be making a tough search much tougher.

So, today, on a whim, Alisa measured me.

My height is something that I've always known about myself - 6' 3 3/8".  But I have no memory of ever measuring myself - the last time must have been in high school.

Alisa made my height at 189.5 cm, or a hair under 6' 2 1/4".  So either I've been wrong all this time, or I've lost an inch.  Either way, it's a bit embarrassing to have been ruling out so many boats because of a faulty piece of information.

Hopefully this revelation will breathe a little life into our search.