The search for the Class 40 continues

Getting yourself a Class 40 is more difficult than you'd imagine, a limited budget immediately narrows the search to series boats, the one-off protos are out of boundary... then you have to look at the equipment on board and and what standard the boat has been prepared to... with the ambition of doing the Global Ocean Race in 2011 there is a definite advantage in favouring boats that are already setup for long distance offshore Category Zero (i.e. you can go in the southern ocean).
The additional equipment is also a big plus, as buying each item individually can soon blow the budget... so, if you look around, there are just a few boats that meet these criteria.
We are now in negotiations for one of these beasts, the learning curve is steep, you soon end up talking to surveyors about obscure technical terms, you have to make important decisions and shift large amounts of money, it's all very exciting but rather scary at the same time...
So, the search continues, the new year will hopefully bring some interesting developments.