Newcomer question - how to begin?

[BrianSage]

Question from a complete newcomer. My wife and I would like to retire (in about 15 years) on a catamaran and spend retirement cruising.

Over the next 15 years before I retire I want to build up my sailing resume to feel confident about spending years cruising and to have insurance companies feel comfortable insuring us.

I registered with my local sailing club for their small boat certification course (beginning in 2 months). Over 3 weeks, this will include 6 hours of shore classes and 12 hours of water classes using a Hunter 140 14’ sailing dinghy. This course also includes reading the “Learn Sailing Right” textbook by US Sailing.

So far I have completed the NauticEd eCourses:
Introduction to Sailing
Navigation Rules
Basic Sail Trim
I purchased, but have not started yet the NauticEd eCourses:
Getting started in dinghy sailing
Anchoring a sailboat
Catamaran sailing confidence

I began reading The Complete Sailing Manual 5th Edition by Steve Sleight. 61 out of 431 pages read so far.

Two questions:
1) Am I on the right path?
2) What would be my next step?
Note: I do not own a boat and do not have any friends who own a boat.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

[Kettlewell]

My continual advice is to purchase a small, older cruising sailboat (around 30 feet) and start learning the ropes. A couple of years of that will teach 500% more than any courses you can take. A huge part of successful cruising is learning how to repair and manage a sailboat, and there aren't courses that cover that stuff. Plus, learning on your own boat will teach you what it is really like out there and whether or not the lifestyle is for you--it isn't for everyone!

[deltaten]

You didn't list location. Anywhere near water?
"Path" looks fine to me. The small boat course will be a great start. Try to crew for a while. Get the wife involved. Ain't no fun sailing alone Once you get some experience, mebbe a charter to see how it goes?
Start saving now. Cash and patience will prevail when you're ready to take the plunge.
HTH

[BrianSage]

Originally Posted by deltaten

You didn't list location. Anywhere near water?
"Path" looks fine to me. The small boat course will be a great start. Try to crew for a while. Get the wife involved. Ain't no fun sailing alone Once you get some experience, mebbe a charter to see how it goes?
Start saving now. Cash and patience will prevail when you're ready to take the plunge.
HTH

Sorry about that, location is Kissimmee, FL (central Florida). Several lakes around and only about 1.5 hour drive either East or West to find the ocean.

[thomm225]

That Hunter 140 your sailing club has is the perfect size sailboat to learn on.

Small and light weight so that when do make an adjustment the boat will react immediately, and you can see what your adjustment did.

On a larger boat even a small 27'-30' Cruising Sailboat, the boats reaction to your adjustment is delayed so you may not get the feedback you need.

[Kettlewell]

Sorry about that, location is Kissimmee, FL (central Florida). Several lakes around and only about 1.5 hour drive either East or West to find the ocean.

Perfect! Get a small cruising sailboat and start cruising. Best training there is for what you want to do later.

[leecea]

The steps we took were:

- started with a small beach cat (but a sailing dingy would have been fine too) and learnt some basics
- found a club that chartered boats for weekend and 1-week cruisers and started going on 3-4 of those per year
- took ASA 101 at a place that would then let us rent a 23' boat
- rented their boat a few times for day sails
- found a place that did ASA 103, let us live on the boat in their marina for a week, and then let us charter a 30' Beneteau after completeing the course
- chartered that boat a few times for day sails
- found a place that did ASA 104 and then let us charter a 35' boat including an overnight
- at that point we could charter boats in the 35'-37' range from the local charter company and we did a few weekend charters with them
- we leveraged that to chartering for 1 week in the BVIs

At that point we started looking for our own boat.

We did all this as a couple and we had to travel quite a bit to find these opportunities. It wasn't a cheap way of doing it but it worked well for us.

A catamaran certainly makes it more challenging. Where we are, catamaran charters are few and far between and much more expensive that 35' monohulls.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by BrianSage

Sorry about that, location is Kissimmee, FL (central Florida). Several lakes around and only about 1.5 hour drive either East or West to find the ocean.

So after learning to sail on that Hunter 140, you will then be more prepared to sail a larger boat.

Same with pilots.

They train on very small planes first so the can feel the wind and how the controls make the small planes react so the trainee pilot gets good feedback.

After getting a private pilots license on something like a Cessna 152 or 172, they are then ready to move up to a larger plane.

It works the same with sailing.

On small boats especially when racing, you learn to steer the boat with the sails.

The rudder is just a trim tab as compared to what the sails can do.

Many cruisers never learn this.

[boatpoker]

Learning to sail can take a weekend then years to build on that.
A much steeper learning curve is learning about boats.
Marine Survey 101, pre-survey inspection

[Kinkircating]

My favorite saying is “it usually takes 15 years to make an overnight success”. So good news is you’ve got time!

So we are sort of you a decade ago. We started with the ASA classes, then a whole bunch of chartering around the world as a bareboat captain and just my wife and myself. We then started sprinkling in boat shows, lots of them to get a feel for what we wanted. Cannes, Dusseldorf, Annapolis, Miami, La Grande Motte, most of them multiple times. We would then take what we thought we learned and go charter our dream boat of the moment. We also volunteered for crew on passages whenever and wherever possible.

After all this we made the call on which cat to build and it will be done later this year. Buy the time we take delivery between me and my wife we will have 30,000 miles under our belts, with over 25,000 of them being open ocean “blue water” passages. I still feel like we have so much to learn, and it’s absolutely true, but we’ve done way more than most and it’s timing is near perfect for when our daughter is off to college.

It starts with taking the first step, good luck and hope to see you guys out there!

[Kettlewell]

By the way, go as soon as you can. The younger you are and the better your health the more likely that you have a good time, and strength can make up for some lack of knowledge. In the last few years I have lost several close friends who didn't quite make it to retirement. They waited too long.

[seandepagnier]

in 15 years, society will begin to actually collapse and cruising may not be possible at least not in most places the way it is now for most people. Not sure its a good idea to wait that long. cruising gets worse every year for the most part and this trend has continued for decades.

As for myself, I started too soon (15 years ago) and that was probably a mistake.

[Don C L]

I'd get some experience chartering catamarans you are thinking of first to see if it all really appeals to you and your wife. Make sure you and your wife are in complete agreement there.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by BrianSage

Question from a complete newcomer. My wife and I would like to retire (in about 15 years) on a catamaran and spend retirement cruising.

Over the next 15 years before I retire I want to build up my sailing resume to feel confident about spending years cruising and to have insurance companies feel comfortable insuring us.

I registered with my local sailing club for their small boat certification course (beginning in 2 months). Over 3 weeks, this will include 6 hours of shore classes and 12 hours of water classes using a Hunter 140 14’ sailing dinghy. This course also includes reading the “Learn Sailing Right” textbook by US Sailing.

So far I have completed the NauticEd eCourses:
Introduction to Sailing
Navigation Rules
Basic Sail Trim
I purchased, but have not started yet the NauticEd eCourses:
Getting started in dinghy sailing
Anchoring a sailboat
Catamaran sailing confidence

I began reading The Complete Sailing Manual 5th Edition by Steve Sleight. 61 out of 431 pages read so far.

Two questions:
1) Am I on the right path?
2) What would be my next step?
Note: I do not own a boat and do not have any friends who own a boat.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

Buy one of these.. no trailer needed, no storage fees, light enough to carry and great for sailing.
https://www.minicatamaran.eu/

[rbrazil]

Take up Tennis while it’s not too late!

Just kidding. You’re on the right track. You didn’t however say your wife was involved in any of these undertakings. Therein lies the problem. She needs to be as invested as you. It’s easy to buy and sell two tennis raquets. Not so, with a catamaran.