How long between Dream and Machine?

[Willie@VoyagingYachts]

Interested in the range of people's experience between dreaming about adopting a cruising lifestyle and actually selecting and acquiring their boat.

What was your experience?

[Andy73]

About 2 years...

... with the count down (re)starting tomorrow

[Kettlewell]

I started dreaming when I was about 8 years old, so it took me a little while. In high school I had read every book in the local library so I started riding my bike to other towns and signing up for library cards, but pretty soon I had exhausted their collection of boating books. Bought my first "cruising" boat when I graduated from college, but it was only a 17 footer that cost $1700. Had a tiny cuddy cabin, no engine, and sailed terrible. Cruised all over the place and never once didn't make it back in time for work on Monday, though a couple of times it was close after sailing all night in light airs. Taught me a lot not having an engine. Have had a cruising boat ever since.

Buy something small and start learning now--upgrade later.

[model 10]

You just go out and buy a boat, dream fulfilled. Not sure I agree with start small. I know small boat sailors know more but it's not really that important to cruising. Dealing with all the broken stuff a big boat has is more important

[Cotemar]

Everything "boat" takes years.
Takes a few years to research your boat
Takes a year to buy your boat.
Takes a few years to get your boat the way you like her.
No one is ever done working on a boat, even if purchased new.
Average boat owner only keeps a boat for three years.

To go cruising, it takes years to save a good boat kitty
Takes years of planning
Need medical insurance, and good boat insurance, well save a few more years.
Have a bigger boat that needs more maintenance, well save a few more years.
It all revolves around how good your boat is and how good you want your lifestyle.

[Pelagic]

Interesting question and I think the answers will be as varied as our members.

Personally I could never understand the dichotomy some people impose upon themselves between career and happiness.

Life should be simpler than that:
Decide ‘where and what’ it is you love doing, then figure out a way to make money at it.
I always found that a good business plan for success.

So my cruising lifestyle started early after university when I switched mindsets from becoming a marine biologist to a ‘watersports specialists’.
I focused on becoming accredited and comfortable with teaching people how to be safe above and below the water. Achieving both yachting and commercial marine licenses, I transitioned to delivering their dream or commercial boats all over the world, while honing and testing my design, management and seamanship skills so as to be of higher value to any HNW employer.

Success breeds success and the by-product in my case was that I was already living 80% of my ‘dream’ where the compensation was secondary to the experience of sailing all corners of the world.

Ironically, there is a real danger of becoming a workaholic when you really love what you are doing and are well compensated. It took the sudden death of both my parents to realize that and help me to decide to go after that other 20%.

So I retired early, bought Stargazer and now enjoy life…. one day at a time, with the freedom and confidence to do as I choose.

[mausgras]

A good question which made me reflect on my own path.
I have had on again / off again urges to buy a boat since my student days. But something always came up that meant I deferred a decision. That first car came first, then getting married, then buying a house and raising kids.
Over the next 40 years, the kids grew up, I split with the wife, sold the car, gave the house to the daughter and retired early to go travelling.
But the urge for a boat never really went away so last year I decided to have a serious look around some brokers and marinas. I was not really intending to buy, just yet. I just wanted to check out the market and knock on a few hulls.
I looked at several boats. They were all about what I expected, Out of my price range or not worth the money they were asking. Nothing I saw turned me on.
Then one broker asked me to look at one last boat. I fell in love with it before I even stepped aboard and decided to buy it before I had reached the saloon.
It was at the very top of my price range but doable and I did it.
I now believe that when you see that right boat for you, you will know it is yours, whether it takes two days or two years.

[jim_thomsen]

I dreamed about cruising in the 1970's. But work and then a wife who loved the mountains put that dream on a very back burner,
In 2005 my wife went on a "live aboard" kayak trip in British Columbia and came back to say, even though she had never been on a sailboat, that maybe she would enjoy cruising.
That's all I needed and within a month had ordered a boat and quit my job. Even though my wife had never been on anything bigger than a Hobie Cat and I had not been on a sailboat for 30 years we moved aboard in April 2006.
Since then we have sailed 36,000 miles over 7 years and don't see an end in sight yet. Life could not be better... we are off to Papua New Guinea, Palau, the Philippines and Borneo this year.
Other than saving enough money I can not see any reason someone would wait years to follow a dream.

[denverd0n]

Well, I first started dreaming about it when I was 15 and read W.I.B. Crealock's "Vagabonding Under Sail." I was 25 when I bought my first boat. 28 when I bought the first one that I could over-night on.

[zeehag]

i didnt consciously dream--i moved on board an dthen after a time i went cruising.

i worked a lot in between.... and owned many boats before i sailed out in this one....

the duration of time between dream/plan and do all depends on the individual.

[boatman61]

Spent years dreaming and living others lives...
Then I broke a leg and bought a boat...

[boatsail]

I have had small dinghy's and my fathers boat my entire life, have like 3 kayaks now, built a few small boats 4 to be specific. 1 sailing dinghy, 1 rowing dinghy, 1 canoe, 1 16 ft catamaran, chartered and owned my current boat(in process of total refit).

Always dreaming. Never stopped dreaming.

[boatsail]

Right now, dreaming of taking off for a bit, place and timeline for how long I'll be gone is not known, but time to leave is known.