[PUP] The Global Adventure

[Mark Tilden]

Scott & Group:

I come from years of owning racing and racer/cruiser sailboats. The last was
a 43' J/130 that was optimized for racing to Hawaii, which we did twice.
Our switch to the trawler was motivated primarily by the fact that for the
first time in nearly 30 years of boating, my wife enjoys being on the boat.
She never enjoyed the sailboats.

We looked at a broad variety of boats including of course the Krogen,
Nordhavn, and Selene among others. We'd come very close to closing a deal on
a Krogen NorthSea 48 when we saw the Selene 53. My wife fell in love with
the interior arrangement of the Selene 50/53, which has two large staterooms
and one smaller one and a master in the middle of the boat instead of in the
bow. I really liked the lines, the pilot berth, the engine room, the solid
construction, and the value.

I was fortunate enough when we were getting serious about a Selene to be
around when one was hauled and could get the cores from drilling thru hulls.
I hired a respected Seattle-area surveyor to look over the boat and give me
some feedback. I also visited the shipyard in China and came away convinced
of the quality of the boats. Have they had issues? Sure...that's no secret
or surprise, but they seem to be very willing to stand behind the boats and
have made great strides in producing consistent quality. So far, all of the
issues that I've heard of have been systems installation issues as compared
to hull/deck structural issues. My experience suggests that everybody has
those kinds of issues, especially since the manufacturer allows owners to do
fairly extensive customization to the basic boat, which often brings with is
unexpected impacts on systems installation.

Our Selene 50 is stabilized with Wesmar active fins. I wouldn't go anywhere
offshore in a boat the NEEDS stabilizers for safety's sake, but they are a
great way to improve the comfort of the boat and my wife LOVES them. No
trawler that I know of has the 130-degree limit of positive stability that
my J/130 had (with 8-1/2' of draft in a bulb keel), but we've had her in
10-12' swell off the west coast of Vancouver Island and I never felt in any
danger in those swells. This spring we'll be helping deliver a Selene 53
down the coast from Seattle to San Francisco, so we'll get some more time in
the big swell that is common around Cape Blanco and Cape Mendocino.

All in all, we love our Selene. We've enjoyed it so much since we took
delivery in 2004 that we decided to move up to the new Selene 59 design,
which has been extremely successful and is a great value for a boat in that
size range. Our plan is to do a circumnavigation with one or two other
friend's in their Selenes.

Mark Tilden
Selene 50 "Koinonia"


-----Original Message-----
From: Scott E. Bulger [mailto:scottebulger@comcast.net] 
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 9:28 PM
To: mark@mdt-consulting.com; 'Passagemaking Under Power List'
Subject: RE: [PUP] The Global Adventure

Congrats on your new 59!!!!

I think Selen's are beautiful looking boats and I'm sure the quality
improves with every single one.  It will be great to see more and more of
them out there giving their owners great joy.  I think I know three couples
that have 53's on order, clearly it's a very popular boat.

Regarding the forum, kudos to you for making it open, it's a testament to
the good will of the owners and belief in the product.  All good stuff!
Thanks, perhaps you can tell us some of the things that led you to choosing
a Selene?  Are they stabilized?  Do they even need stabilization?  Thanks
for sharing with the forum!

Scott Bulger, list admin