Sue and Mike Pail give a tour of S/V Betelgeuse. She is a 1997 Beneteau Oceanis 40 CC (Center Cockpit); a two cabin ocean-worthy sailboat that we keep in Oriental, NC.
Thanks Dawn! We’re relatively new to it as well. Subscribe and learn with us and don’t be afraid to ask any “newbie” questions; it’s the best way to learn and a good sailor has to have a heavy dose of humility to make sure they don’t get themselves in trouble!
Thanks for the tour. Literally getting ready to go look at one exactly like yours, same year etc even, last weekend of August! Very much like this size and layout.
Hi Robin, thanks for the comment. We love the layout of this boat too. The cockpit is a little tight compared to modern boats, but modern boats come with a modern price tag! The main cabin is very comfortable and not cave-like like so many others in this size. And she sails really well. We can get up over 8 knots on a very comfortable beam reach and she handles chop really well. Report back on how the visit to the boat goes and consider subscribing; I have some service videos in the works that you may find handy!
@@OnANewTack Hi Mike! Already subscribed, and thanks for the info, we noticed the smaller cockpit, (planning a 32" folding wheel to replace the big solid one too), all the upper deck room fore and aft make it worthwhile, and of course the nicer stateroom for sure. Already enjoyed watching the informative hot water heater refit. Cheers and fair winds!
Hi Todd and thanks for the comment. We were originally expecting to a get a 3 cabin boat in this length, but when we saw the CC and that cabin, (instead of the typical 'cave'), we were hooked!
Congrats! Enjoyed the video. Looks like a lot of fun ... all the creature comforts, could get away for awhile and still be very comfortable. I never realized the stove top swiveled but that makes total sense. Look forward to seeing more videos, but proper Captain attire is expected!
Thanks Matt! The range gimbal is pretty cool. We haven’t really used it much since cooking underway is challenging, but it did work well to keep the coffee stable! I may just have to send you a picture of my captain’s attire...
Cool tour. What stands out to me are the number of things that can go wrong and lead to something bad, i.e. sinking. But other than that, boats are fun!
Yeah, it’s kind of like a high-stakes house. A lot of the same systems as in a house, but as you’ve said a problem with those systems has a higher change of being serious (i.e. sinking). In a strange way that is part of the draw for me; it’s really important to have humility when it comes to your strengths and capabilities. You have to either know something well or be aware that you don’t know enough.
Yeah, I sometimes switch it up between the American salon and British saloon. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saloon#:~:text=The%20cabin%20area%20of%20a,often%20combined%20with%20dining%20table. I'll make a point to stick to salon since that's where I've always lived. Makes me wonder how or why I ever started down the British path...
Sue is a real trooper to support her hubbie's passion. A suggestion for future videos, have Mike do the talking and Sue do the video work, since he seems to be wanting to do most of the talking anyway . . . it's a bit annoying.
First, Sue is a real trooper, but it is her passion as well. Second, thank you very much for the honest feedback; I will keep your comment in mind as we make more videos. I really appreciate your candor. - Mike
Beautiful boat and thank you for the detailed video! I have a 98 40cc that has the same headliner issue in the aft cabin. Do you have any info / advice for replacing it? Looks like a tricky job!
Awesome, really enjoyed that congrats. I love what I can see of your main sail as in the way it's stored, anyway you can show us details on that, thanks. Save travels.
Hi A W, thanks for the comment. We just recorded some more details of unfurling the sail this weekend. We’ll post that soon; Let us know if that helps and if not we’ll try to give more details.
I watched one of the company's last real and reliable model/products, I wish they had stuck to the same quality/design philosophy instead of making charter boats.
That happens to a lot of production boats. Gotta follow the money, I guess. That's why we ended up with the new boat we have, a semi-custom boat out of South Africa!
Thanks and Subscribed, though I'm going to have to guess at the contents since I don't know French and either the RU-vid translation of captions is very inaccurate or you are speaking in gibberish ;-) I'll start with your videos in English! What year is your boat, she looks to be in beautiful shape? Thanks, Mike
@@OnANewTack Hi Mike, our Beni 36cc is a 1999, we bought it 3 years ago, it was in pretty good shape. Those auto generated captions are not the best, thanks for the sub
Thank you for this great walkthrough of the 40CC. You really showed some details others skip. I really like the Beneteau / Bavaria Center Cockpits and is on my list of what I could want and afford. They are, for being mass produced boats from the big ones really good boats, for an affordable price, intellegently made for being on the ocean and really made to pass crossing oceans. Literaly with some solar/wind/hydro generation, good batteries, a water maker, you could live aboard and circumnavigate safely. Some questions.. I see you are in Oriental, NC. May I ask what marinas you recomend and what is costs for this boat? I am looking near Oriental, New Bern area. I am in the Piedmont area and will have to drive down in the weekends. If you had a washer dryer, where would you fit it? If you had a water maker, where would you fit it? If you had the option of a Beneteau or Bavaria 40CC (Same boat just small differences in interior), which one would you choose and why? I like your channel and subscribed. I am half time in Piedmont, half time in Sweden.
Hi sm6wet, thanks for subscribing! As engineers, we love showing the details! Absolutely agree about liveaboard-ability, and the CC gives you a master cabin that feels much more like a proper bedroom. Solar, Wind and Hydro would all be great options for this boat, with some lithium batteries. First, Oriental is great; really love the area (The Sailing Capital of NC). We are at Oriental Harbor Marina, by far the most convenient. We pay $350/mo including electricity/water (most oriental marinas are all really close in price). We are on A dock which is much more exposed to SW winds than I would like. B dock is way better and C better still (but draft is a concern). Given that we charter our boat, it limits the options. The marina is now managed by Bow To Stern, which is our chartering company - they are GREAT and take care of the marina so much better than the prior management. Hands down, River Dunes Marina is amazing. Slip cost is slightly higher, but there is also a monthly facilities fee that bumps up the cost a lot, but it is basically like a resort, slightly outside of town. If you are going to use those amenities, the value is high and you will never need to haul out for a hurricane given how well protected it is. Pecan Grove is a really nice Marina and very protected as well (unlikely you would need to haul out except for very bad hurricanes), right in Oriental; great as long as your draft is not above 6'. Whittaker Creek is another nice option-very protected, fewer amenities, but good location still in town. Safer in bad weather than Oriental Harbor, but not as safe as Pecan Grove. There are still others, but don't know enough to offer any advice on them. We thought about New Bern as well. Great town; much bigger than Oriental, but way less personable. It is 40 minutes closer to home, which would be great, but on almost all days, you need to motor for about 2-3 hours to get to where you get any wind to be able to actually sail. In Oriental, it is 10 minutes from dock to hoisting the sails and killing the engine. We hate motoring, so we drive an extra 40 minutes to get there and can be in Ocracoke Island in 6 hours. Washer/Dryer: That's a tough one since they are so big. I honestly don't think I would suggest one given you would have to give up the forward cabin to have a place for it. (Do some research on Ammonia washing and line-drying - plus you would save so much energy!) Watermaker: I don't think we'll ever add one to this boat, since we just coastal cruise with it, but what I would suggest is something like the RainMaker (www.rainmanusa.com/). I've seen these at the Miami boatshow and they are really well thought out and you can store it in one of the topside lazerettes between uses. If you wanted to get one that is hard mounted, you could probably fit this under the forward cabin mattress, or maybe behind a removable panel in the master cabin, maybe even under the galley sink is smaller in size. The boat model is great. It sails great on anything from a broad reach forward, but needs a spinnaker for better down wind performance (though wing on wing with a preventer is always fun!). As for the Beneteau vs Bavaria, I don't know much about the Bavaria model. What I like about our Beneteau is that it has a Yanmar diesel and Westerbeke Genset that are very easy to get parts for (Bavaria may have the same, I just don't know). What I would suggest is search for both and decide based on the condition of the main parts of the boat (engine, gen, sails, electronics, etc). If you can spend $10K more for a boat where you fell better about the main components, you will be far better off in the long run. For that matter, as much as we absolutely love sailing, Sue does NOT enjoy the close-hauled healing I put her through sailing-to-wind, so there is a good chance that we will move to a catamaran at some point within a year or so, so you may even see our Betelgeuse listed! Thanks again, and feel free to ask any follow-up questions about any of the above! Tack, (LOVED finding out the translation for thanks in Swedish!!) Mike
Nice boat. Always liked the Beneteau CCs. Shame the anchor locker is not partitioned so you can store fenders. That guest bed is good. The port side should be all storage. Who needs a sofa! Galley is great. Engine access great. Really nice boat. Just big enough and small enough. You could live on that boat with enough solar cells and lithium batteries so you don’t have to burn diesel fuel because I doubt you have a lot.
Thanks Robert. We really liked the Center Cockpit layout when we found it (I don't like the normal cave-like feeling of the aft cabins on many boats). The anchor locker is partitioned port/starboard, but we have the primary on one side and the secondary on the other. The lazarette that is at the aft/port corner is great for fenders and dock lines. Good comment on the sofa; definitely would be better as storage for liveaboards, but it does allow one person to get dressed while the other is in bed a little easier. Agree, you could easily use this to cross oceans, etc. Fuel capacity may be better than you think; it is 50Gal giving us a decent range somewhere about 300 NM (hard to know for sure because the genset runs from the same tank and we haven't done the research yet) . One issue would be where to place enough lithium house batteries!! Great comments; thanks!
@@OnANewTack I hope you don’t find out as I found out that the 50 gallon tank is really 38 gallons. When I proved it to Beneteau they offered a free bladder. Rather than argue I had built two aluminum tanks to being it up to 100 gals. One in rear and one under forward bed. I was shocked that Beneto would continue to report that it was 50 gallons. Mine was aft cockpit, 1999 Oceanis 461. To the best of my knowledge all the tanks are 38 gallons no matter what they tell you. It was the only boat I’ve ever owned but I had lots of people on it on long passages and everybody was impressed by how agile it was and how it did everything well. It was really really fun to sail. I single-handed a lot and I never got into trouble even docking. I once had to heave to. It behaved just like Chapman’s said it would! Magic! Enjoy!
Thanks for the comment John. I'm not familiar with that model and what years it was made, however, I would imagine that if it is beamier, especially near the cockpit, it would open things up topside quite a bit.
@@OnANewTack There is 36 CC, 40 CC, 42 CC and 44 CC. Also Bavaria collaborated with Beneteau and made their own versions. I would say Beneteau is a bit more bare bones and Bavaria has more storage spaces. Bavaria Ocean 38 CC, 40 CC, 42 CC, 44 CC.
Tell me about it. There is history for both being accurate and I think it comes down to geographical preference. Apparently in the US, salon is more common, in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, saloon is more common. If you check out www.dictionary.com/browse/saloon and www.dictionary.com/browse/salon I think you will agree both can apply, though technically, saloon(definition 2 and 3) is more accurate. In practice though, as we have been sailing through the Caribbean, salon is what is heard 99% of the time.
Hi Matt, thanks for the watch and comment. The “girl” is my wife and I think it is just her delivery. She certainly didn’t feel negative about the things she was talking about. It was one of our first videos and I think she was just concentrating a lot on remembering details. Thanks for the feedback; it is helpful. -Mike
