Ramona said.. M&W 32's are usually cheaper than that but after perusing the photos there has been a lot of quality fit out work on that vessel and I can see the value. Timber work is first class and that main saloon is interesting! Years ago I was keen on buying one of these. I had one of Ben Lexcen's quarter tonners at the time and have always been a fan but someone told me these did not sail all that well!
It's interesting to wonder how well they sail. None of them ever won a big regatta back in the hey day of the class, whereas the Currawong, Adams, Defiance, Cavalier, Ebbutt, East Coast, Knoop and Spencer were all on podiums with Endeavour 30s and others also sailing quickly. But if I recall correctly, a couple of the M&Ws were pretty competitive around Sydney HT class racing a little while later, so it may have just been that they were not campaigned as well in their early years. Years ago I used to race against on a modified Defiance and an M & W 32 was the only one of the 10 or so old halves in that series that gave us much trouble.
Given the huge difference that tuning and sailing make, I always tend to think it's impossible to judge a design's performance off just one or two examples unless they are both being sailed at their absolute top level in top level and comparable fleets, and that hasn't been the case with any old half in Oz for many years.
And Defiance has done everything I wanted it to do, here coming back up the Huon with big SW front approaching and double reef main.
