What type of boats have you owned?

[dcstrng]

Cobia 19’ with a 135 Johnson – all about being twenty or so, wanting to wave-hop thirty miles out and fishing, fishing, fishing… lesson: just do it !!

Pacemaker `26 – the wood one, nice to sleep on, but sucked up buckets of money and caught few fish… lesson: no more wood !!

Irwin 42 – nice live-aboard, sumptuous haven for grad-school and last hitch in the Army… too hulking and too many repairs clouded it’s memory in my mind… but nicely pleasant sailing… lesson: big is not beautiful !!

Richardson 48 – wood again, never learn… but those wonderfully hearty 440 Chryslers were magnificent at full song, right up until the gas costs skyrocketed… lesson: reread Pacemaker lesson !!

8’+ Dinghy – fiberglass, rows nicely and has an almost sexy stern (if little reserve buoyancy)… lesson: few things are quite so much fun as puttering around in little boats

Bristol 24 – current low-budget recovery project… sails great, headroom for me and a wide variety of smallish, non-threatening, projects to keep one occupied over the coolish months… lesson: refer to Cobia lesson (developing)

[Unicorn Dreams]

Well, let's see,
Started out with an 8' wood pram;
Raced a Sunfish in the 60's 70's;
Built a 25' wood sloop;
Built a 29' wood cutter;
Finally and last, we built a Roberts Spray 36' Steel, Pilothouse, Ketch;
Took it around once in the late 80's and early 90's, 4 1/2 year cruise, getting ready to do around again in about 3 years and don't have any idea when we'll get back.....

[stevensc]

8' homemade wooden pram
2- 12' homemade Pirougues
14' Al. Jon-boat
19' Lightning, Sail
23' Gulf Coast, Sail
17' BW Montauk
23' Sea Ox OB
23' Grady White OB (Totalled in car wreck while being trailered)
23' Grady White OB
31' Camano 31 Trawler
On wish list, 36' Trawler late in 2008
Steve

[sv.horizon]

Well I've been all over the map when it comes to owning boats.... started with a 14' jon boat named Stinky on the Arkansas River catching cat fish as a kid. Then a graduated to a 17' ski boat named Sucicide, with an old Merc stack six motor. Went on vacation in Galviston Tx and discovered a friends Hobie Cat, owned several lengths and models over the years, my favorite was a Hobie 22 named Flipper. Then it was larger sparkely bass boats with go fast motors while in the Midwest. I had a 22 footer named Selfish. Expanded my travel options and bought a ancient Rebel sailing dingy on Okinawa in the mid 80's, named her Red. Moved up to a 38 Westsail, named Wakame, for a couple of years, along with several of those @$$%^ Jet Skis all named Pain in the Ass. Moved to England and the only water close by was canals, bought a 25 foot canal cruiser named Lily. Moved to Illinois and had a lake near, 30 foot Bristol sloop named Forever. It wasn't and we came back to Okinawa and a J24 named Need for Speed and a 47 wood motorboat named Lapse of Reason (it was). Next came a 38' custom wood ketch named Trade Wind which was a wonderful boat just too small inside. We now have settled on a Morgan Out Island 41 named Horizon. What prompted my boat selection through the years? Where I was, what was available, what I could afford. The same is true for our current boat, she just happened to fit our needs to the "T"

John, Naomi and Wes Howard
SV Horizon
Kadena Marina, Okinawa Japan

[rebel heart]

32' Ericson -
Great boat for a coastal cruiser / handicap racer. Cheap, easy to sail, built fairly well considering the cost. Loved that boat. The previous owner did a lot of racing on it, so nearly every line was at the cockpit.

Laser -
Great racing dinghy. Taught me sailing.

El Toro -
No so great racing dinghy, but the odds of getting wet are smaller. Great boat to poke around the bay on.

Various non sailing dinghies -
Bleh; they have no sails.

Hans Christian 36 -
My current boat, and I love it. I wanted something a smidge bigger than the Ericson, with sound construction, and beyond blue water rating. Growing up I always respected the Unions and HC's of the mid 70's, so that's what I was looking for. For the price range $50K-$90K, it's really hard to beat the quality of vessel, craftsmanship, and beauty. They are a hell of a lot of work though. I have more wood than a national forest.

[multihullsailor6]

Boats owned (in order of ownership):
- 10ft collapsible dinghy
- 16ft Flying Kitten catamaran & 15ft Boesch waterskiing boat
- 20ft Waarship fin-keel cruiser
- 30ft Nimble trimaran
- 14ft Hobie cat
- 54ft racing trimaran
- 29ft Kelsall trimaran
- 29ft Woods catamaran.
And chartered 3 other 32ft - 40ft cats for holidays.
On the cards: approx. 40ft cat or tri or proa to go cruising in the fast lane.

[oldsalt_1942]

My first boat was an 8' pram when I was about 7 and spent the whole summer in a tent about 30 feet from a lake.

In my high school days my family had a Sunfish, an O'Day Daysailer and a Rhodes 19 on Pleasant Bay on Cape Cod.

When I lived outside of New Orleans I lived on a houseboat (nothing but a shack on pontoons, really) and had a 22' Lafitte Skiff that I shrimped with.

After working for 3-1/2 years as captain of an 85' sailboat on the French Riviera and bringing it back to the States I bought a Kaiser 26 (#24 of 26 built). I single-handed her from Ft. Lauderdale to the Rio Dulce, Guatemala and back on a 9 month cruise that included Mexico and Belize.

Currently landlocked but looking for a sailboat in the 30-36 foot range and when I retire in May intend to eventually cruise down to Panama.

Much to the chagrin of the first mate, I REFUSE to count anything too small to live on, so....
I decided I wanted a sail boat. Long difficult decision because half the people I talked to told me I should get a power boat. The other half sail. I bought a Reinell 26. Roomy boat, but that fake fur interior just wouldn't stay up.
Then, I decided maybe my friends were right and bought a Cruisers 256 power boat. Nice boat, but so heavy it wore me out just getting it to the water and lauched. Nice heavy hull though, and I liked the lay out.
About ten years ago, my wife and I were staying part time at our house, and part time on the power boat while I worked at a boat shop. I had a regular customer with a Newport 30 and an A4 I used to keep alive for him. He talked about selling it, and I had the bug bad to go cruising, so we started seriously looking. Starting with his boat. We also looked at the trimaran that had been on stands by our shop, but the owner wanted too much money for it.
We finally found a 34' Angleman Sea Spirit. I knew a little about wood boats, but more importantly, I had discovered the personality of a boat. We bought it, brought it back from the dead, and spent 4 years sailing her and living aboard (Had to sell the house to finance the restoration).
After 4 years, we started to feel cramped, and although we brought the boat back to seaworthy, she was many hours, and many dollars away from complete.
We got talked into buying a 55' Schooner, but sold it back to the previous owner after about 6 months when he still had not come up with the correct paperwork.
We still had the Angleman, and moved back aboard. We decided to haul out and continue the work, but having lived aboard on the hard before, we opted to by a 40' ferro boat. It was not seaworthy, but for a year, it was a live aboard.
We then moved back on to the Angleman.
At this point, the angleman was still long way from where we wanted her to be, so we started looking.
In the mean time, since it is always hard to go sailing on a whim when you live aboard, I bought a 1928 Angleman 28' sloop to day sail. This was Kai Nui. She was a great boat for a couple years, but finally, I had to sell her for financial reasons.
Around that time, I had an opportunity to buy a Challenger 40. This was the boat we had dreamt of. We bought her, sold the Angleman, and sailed her for the past 4 years.
Unfortunately, there was a problem. Actually, a couple. One, my wife is terrified of sailing this boat due to the size. It is intimidating to her, so her enthusiasm dwindled.
Two, she has back problems. A serious pain in the neck besides me.
At some point, I wanted to spend more time single handing, so I found a 28' wooden double ender, Kittiwake. She was a great boat. We did allot of weekends on her, and I spent allot of time singlehanding her as well.
Finally, my wife's neck pain got to the point she could not even handle day sailing in calm conditions, so we decided we needed to go to a different plan. We started to look at multi hulls. We noticed the trimaran we originally looked at was still there, and no work going on. We got it for, well, I am not saying, but it was cheap.
Having three boats sucked, so we sold Kittiwake.
We are almost ready to launch the trimaran, and as soon as that happens, the Challenger goes up for sale.
From this, I have learned the following:
If the crew is not happy, the skipper will not be happy.
A bigger boat is not always a better boat.
I am not a power boater.
Projects always look smaller on paper.
That old truckers adage, when refering to sleepers, one wide and two deep, does not work for a live aboard boat.
And finally, I am never buying a project boat again. NEVER NEVER NEVER!

[geoleo]

Newport 41 sloop 1970----floating trash, Garden 35 Ketch wood 1965---lovely kept it 18 years, Island Packet 44 1994 rebuilt it after Huricane Charley sank and dismasted it--------overrated& kind of klunky sailing -but a cult following- sold after 2 years, Fuji35/Alden-..........pretty but slow- sold after 6mos, Gulfstar 37 1977 useful design but some stupid plumbing still have it, 36 ft Chesapeake style Bugeye Ketch wood-built like a tank -might make it into a cutter........

[JB]

We started out with a Clipper 21, then chartered a lot, then in the early '90s, bought a Caliber 40 for primarily Chesapeake Bay cruising. When we decided to head "out there" in 1999, we were fortunate enough to upgrade to a Caliber 47LRC, our beloved Dulcinea, which we just put up for sale in the Caribbean ( Dulcinea - Caliber 47 LRC for Sale )
No telling what our next boat will be as it will be hard to beat Dulcinea for all things cruising.

[Agility]

Dad's Boats
50' HouseBoat
14' Oday Day Sailor
32' C&C
36' Allied Princess
42' Gulfsteam
36' Foutaine Pajot Tabago
Spent a lot of time on all of the above. None ever seemed fast enough.

My Boats
16' powercraft speedboat
21' Rinker Ski
58' Tayana - my first sailboat.....
Kawasaki Jet Skis
57' Chris White Atlantic 57 - finally something fast enough.

[Spammy]

First boat: Catalina Capri 25. (the Admiral got scared when we got knocked down, then later had the mainsheet shackle fail...) No standing headroom, just a daysailer
Now: Catalina 42 Mark I. Love it, but the Admiral still hates heeling...for sale. (I'm sitting on the boat as I'm writing
Next: 45+' cat....you guessed...the admiral's choice!

[Talbot]

I spent a lot of time analysing what I wanted from a boat. I then created a scoring system based on those priorities. I then looked at a lot of boats and analysed them against these requirements. This provided a short list, which I then analysed against costs Whilst this was never going to be a perfect answer, due to lack of funds! it was sufficiently good for me to retain ownership of my first boat for 21 years!!

This was a 9m Catalac.