New to sailboat purchase

[Pinchecharlie]

No ism actually really into them to be honest. I just don’t order and know from my other life , that sometimes something that old would need to be gone completely over . I actually have tried to make a plan to do a refit somewhere affordableish as a way of knowing the boat is safe and sound and updated to contemporary standards. I’ve been doing that with cars and houses my entire life so get it . I just this morning looked at 1988 in San Francisco for 28k . Iam not sure where the prices land in real numbers ? Could I get it for 20 or would it be more like 25? I dunno I’ve never tried. I do know that the sailboat after narket is very proud of their gear and iam guesssing usually but if I could double the price and have a relatively Sa fish. I’ve been a mechanic a body man a welder and a contractor in my work life so iam not all together afraid of a project but I will admit I have never messed with fiber glass or epoxy . I also have kinda explored rigging and sails and know that’s much more than you’d expect. What I don’t know is if you can piece together good 2nd hand stuff and salvage ect like you can in other worlds. I have a 1964 Chevy truck with a 2017 engine and transmission from a suv roll over from the junk yard. You know? I do like that you can see a prout in the us or Caribbean and k ie it had to sail here. IF I was a better man, I’d buy one and truck it to my place. Refit it and bobs yer uncle lol. The refit ideas does not fall on sympathetic ears with my wife as she does not want me to go by myself abroad or e en to Florida and she doesn’t like living in a remodel much after we e done that several times in our lives lol. So yes . For the price they seem like a no brained but how dated and how much further do they need to go you think? I just think of the catamaran as the most comfortable at anchor and I know they are sea worthy.

[boatman61]

The ones I posted don't need much but.. unlike your original post that was talking Med it seems your looking local so I'll bow outa this thread.. too much waffle..

[Pinchecharlie]

Ha! Just looking to see what’s around. After I said that I realized I’d have to sail accross the Atlantic and that’s probably a bad idea. There’s a nice one in holland I’ll call about and see. Thanks for the help. I did say I was just in the planning stage lol

[JimsCAL]

Some thoughts:
1. Don't finance if you don't have to. Your budget is enough to buy a decent boat for what you propose. Will be a bit older and need some work, but any boat will need some work.
2. Definitely charter some different boats before jumping in. After you spend some time living on a sailboat, you will know if this is for you, and what you want in a boat.
3. Why the Med? Good sailing on both US coasts. Washington State and into Canada. New England in the summer. Southeast to the Bahamas or Carib.

[Pinchecharlie]

Naïveity probably? Was wanting the first go around to be really easy. The sailing easy the logistics easy . Warm weather. I think it may be a bonus for my family to see other than American style stuff? That said I had originally wanted to do a icw lol. Then a San Juan and then the Caribbean. The truth is is that our daughter is having some challenges with school and with social stuff. My wife had said she didn’t want to sail. She said she would not do it. So I forgot about it and was just happy to go to the lake and fart around on my little dinghy. Then she met some people who do the San Juan’s every summer and have a challenged kid too. She then started wanting to go more and she wanted to think about maybe doing some extended stay stuff. Now when I say easy I mean like a summer all within sight of land and I was even thinking of staying in anchorages for days and days. I thought the med just because of the infrastructure and it’s different and it’s foreign and maybe we could use that with the home school thing and I dunno? If it was me I’d be in Indonesia and Thailand and looking for surf but my wife’s ideas is maybe it’s a way to reach our daughter in a healthy nature way? I can teach her to spear fish and we could wing board or just camp on beaches and look at stars? It’s kinda a dream honestly. Our home town has been taken over by out siders and money. During Covid and continuing now is a crazy influx of not people we want to be around. In fact in 4,5 years the outside population now far exceeds who was here before. So we’re starting to wonder. I mean weve talked about other things too. In fact since the other poster was in Portugal we had thought about buying our way in there lol. So maybe we are just grasping at straws but we now have met several part time seasonal cruisers who have encouraged us to keep exploring the ideas. I know it sounds like iam talking **** but iam the guy who buys a boat and circumnavigates single handed. I’ve just allways been an out there let’s do it **** it kinda guy. This is different and more challenging to me. If charters weren t so Expensive I would just do that but 3 months of charter is cost prohibitive. I dunno just thinking out loud . My buddy has a place in Greece and that what started the med thing lol. Then I saw Croatia as a beginner place and just thought ok? I personally like the Caribbean but it was for adult reasons but a season in the Bahamas would be awsome too. Believe me I really don’t want to spend alot or money and lose it blah blah . I’d much rather have a cheaper boat but I know from experience that the more comfortable stuff is the easier to share with others.

[desodave]

No ones suggesting you charter for 3 months ... I agree that would be prohibitively expensive. But a shorter charter, perhaps 2 weeks would help you answer a couple of questions relatively inexpensively, esp if it's in an area you can easily drive to, such as in the San Juan's. First, from your various threads, it's not clear that you've actually been on the type of boat that you might be interested in purchasing. Chartering gives you a reality check on the space available in a boat of a size you might be interested in ultimately purchasing. Secondly, it gives your family a short experience of life on the water before committing to a full on living aboard experience.
The size of boat you seem to be now interested in is not easily (nor inexpensively) trailered, making your idea of working on it at your current home location expensive and impractical imo. Our 42ft boat has a near 14ft beam and that beam is what gives it a lot of the living space that we want ... but also inhibits road transport. A lot of 35ft'ers would have 11-12 ft beams ... newer tends to be wider. Not sure anything much shorter would provide adequate living aboard accommodations for 3.

Another option for boat viewing is the Seattle boat show (February 2-10, 2024) in-water section. I suspect most of those will be newer boats above the price range you seem to be interested in but at least you get to see the sort of living space available in different sized boats.

[Pinchecharlie]

All good advice thanks. The tentative plan was to finish the asa courses to be able to charter and do a few Holliday charters somewhere friendly to see like you said. I posted another thread about doing that and got some good suggestions and some other suggestions about doing some other style week long trips with better sailors. So yeah it was all part of the progression. I will buy a 22-25 footer for the lake here. I finally got a commitment from a marina so I’ll look for something and iam activly looking. I just know my personality enough to know I will want anything iam on to be in good shape. I won’t lie I’d be perfectly happy refitting a large sailboat just as something fun to do . I realized after looking into transport that living here was not a good place for sailboats lol. I see everyone re fitting and fixing and having big problems so I just thought would t it be nice to adress those things in a comfortable well equipped way. I know that’s easier said than done however unless your acreage is near the ocean! Good start. I will admit that after real research it’s better to be really rich than poor in the yacht world. Now that the fall boat shows are starting up iam seeing things that are just absolutely beautiful and only very affluent folks could own. Too bad there’s no Subaru of the sea? Maybe there is lol. I was actually just asking my wife earlier today if she’d like to go to a boat show just for fun. Maybe we’ll come to Seattle. February is cold here and it would be a nice break.