By Rich

I finally bought a Sabre 38 MKII, the boat I decided was my ideal all the way back in 1994 while I was still in college. The story of how and why I chose the 38 MKII – and why haven’t owned one before now – begins over a decade before that, in the early 1980s, before the Sabre 38 MKII had even been designed.

When I was a small child, my parents bought our first family boat – a brand new Pearson 36 which was newly delivered in the early / mid 1970s. She was later traded in for a new Pearson 40 my parents had built in 1979. The 36 was a very nice sailing boat and very stylish, but not ruggedly constructed. The Pearson 40 was also marketed as a raceable cruiser, but my parents were sold on the promise of its expanded open-ocean capabilities. Unfortunately the blue water sales pitch exceeded the boat’s capabilities, as we discovered the hard way.