Just as we are being reminded in other fields we are the product of our collective past and your "current wisdom" is from the past. Remember the folks who bought centre cockpit fin and skeg boats 20 or 30 years ago were brought up on a diet of Hiscock, Guzwell, Humphrey Barton, the Pyes etc who went off into the unknown, leaving Falmouth behind and not expecting to be heard from for 30 or 40 days at least. They had no weather forecast, basic 18thc navigation and had to prepare for the worst the elements threw at them. All a great big fight against nature. Doing it in 1985 was much the same thing as 1950 but in a bit more comfortable and spacious boat like a Moody 37. This is a peculiarly (almost) British approach and at the time it was mainly British builders serving the market.
The world has moved on since then and the UK is no longer the epicentre of ocean voyaging. That is why I suggested you look at the ARC entry list as not only will you see the changing pattern of boats used but also the nationalities of the entrants. Non Anglo sailors (I say that because typically US sailors have a similar history to the UK in choice of boats) simply don't have those hangups and have readily embraced modern designs. None more so than our antipodean cousins who readily buy European boats in the Med, cruise around for a while and then head back home, some via Cape Horn. Their boat of choice is a Bavaria partly because they are freely available, often ex charter and partly because they are in demand back home. There are youtubes of some of their blogs in the thread in Scuttlebutt.
Older boats of the type you have been looking at are perfectly viable choices, but inevitably on a limited budget they will be old and may well need more than 50% of the purchase price to bring them up to scratch. Even then be prepared for your adventure turning into "mending boats in nice places". Centre cockpits do have their advantages in terms of accommodation for length and many like the separation of living from sleeping area. The smaller raised cockpit also seems to be more secure, particularly in the odd bad weather you might meet. On the other hand you will find that between 75-90% of your time is spent at anchor, mostly, hopefully in nice warm places with deep blue seas around you. You will then bless the large open cockpit with instant access to the sea for a swim or dinghy for going ashore.
I went through a similar process 20 years ago - my project was to end up in the Med in time for retirement with 10 years or so to get to that end point. My first choice was something like a Moody 376 or a Westerly Corsair which were then about 7-10 years old. I quickly became depressed looking at boats with saggy headlinings, leaking windows, collapsed mast steps, mild steel fuel tanks rusting away and which needed half the boat taken apart to replace them. I chartered a Moody 37 in the Med to try it out and quickly discovered how unsuitable it was for living in hot climates. The next year we chartered a Bavaria 42. What a revelation. light, airy, easy to sail, well put together and could be bought new for the same price as an 8-10 year old "quality" British boat. The following year we bought a Bavaria 37 under a charter management scheme. It did 7 years flat out chartering then a further 2 year private use before I sailed it to Spain and then trucked back to UK. Nothing serious broke or fell off and what problems there were came from the heavily used items such as electrics, water systems, loos, most of which are common to all boats.
Fast forward to today and of the centre cockpit boats the Ocean range is superior in my view to all the UK offerings of the time. With a budget of say £100k all in you could get a really good example of a 40 or the less common 42. The Vision range was Bavarias attempt to get back into that market as distinct from the high volume production cruiser range. Same basic formula as the Ocean - higher ballast ratio, bigger rig, better fitout details such as the separate armchairs in the saloon on the 44 and up. Aft cockpit and twin wheels, reflecting both the wider stern sections and the market demand for walkthrough access to the stern. Not many were sold in the UK partly because the "sell up and sailaway" market had moved on from that size/price point, but as you see from the location of the boats now for sale found a ready market in Europe.
Does it meet its brief? To my mind, pretty much so. As I have already mentioned the biggest failing is fitting 2 aft cabins, but there is no reason why you could not convert one (or even both) into a combination of storage and a bunk in such a way that you could revert to two sleeping cabins later, I did something similar with my 37, splitting one cabin into storage under the cockpit side. The two toilets are poor use of space for a 2 person boat but at least they are on opposite sides of the boat so you have one usable on each tack. Otherwise the interior has just about everything you need from both the sailing and living point of view. The boat is a very powerful sailing boat with a big rig and a high by today's standards ballast ratio. Both the boats you are looking at have in mast which together with a good offwind sail will give you good performance in all conditions. A removable inner forestay for a storm jib would be useful. They both have the bigger engine and good electronics that can be easily upgraded if necessary. Those 2 features are a big advantage over older boats where you are likely to see a high hours engine of an obsolete type and a hotch potch of electronics. The only major addition I would make would be a stern gantry for solar and davits to take a RIB of around 2.6m. If you fancy windvane steering it is possible to fit a Hydrovane offset on the transom.
The success of a project such as yours is less to do with the design and construction of the boat and more to do with you and your crew and the way you prepare yourself. The limitation will always be you rather than the boat.
