I want everyone’s two cents

[mdc1979]

Hello all! 37 yr old Army Officer about to reach the halfway point. The short of it, kids will all be out of the house just as I retire and My wife and I are looking toward a live aboard with the intention to see the world for a few years. Wife wants a cat and I want a happy wife. Thinking of an owner’s version in the 40-42 foot range. Assume I know nothing and go...

[Tillsbury]

My suggestion would be to set up YouTube on your Apple TV or Chromecast or whatever, and do some serious video watching. There are so many channels, some showing bikinis, some showing locations, but a small number of them actually showing what it's like to sail a boat.

[kmacdonald]

Sounds like you're ready. Get any boat for now and start sailing. Any old junker will do and then when you retire any "other" boat will make your wife happy.

[ssmoot]

I don't have any real experience to offer, but I'm in a similar spot.

Going to the Annapolis Sailboat Show (earlier this month) was a ton of fun for us. So #1 on my list would be to plan to go to a few boat shows. It's a much different experience from watching videos.

Also, I'd consider galley-down boats with open hulls. Like on the Seawind 1260. See how it's open to the salon above his head? I'm not sure if there's a better name for the design, but you tend to see it on 41' and smaller boats and I feel like it makes much better use of the space available, plus you get a much nicer galley than you might otherwise find on a boat that size (I'm the cook in the house, so that's important to me).

On the other hand I've seen galley-down configurations on large catamarans like the Lagoon 560 that seemed to be built to keep professional crew hidden from sight. Not a place I'd want to spend any time as an owner.

Some similar layouts are the Broadblue 345/346, Privilege 42 and Seawind 1160/1190. If there are others I'd love to hear about them though. Especially newer boats like the Seawinds with nice big windows and lots of ventilation.

Also chartering. I feel like chartering really helps you nail down your likes/dislikes. Seeing boats in the flesh is a very different experience than seeing them on the internet. Being on board sailing for any amount of time is even better.

[Mediator]

My cruising dream started when I went to the Newport Boat Show and took a "sailing class" in an old Person 38. I had extensive dinghy experience but taking that boat out for an hour gave me the cruising fever. Looking through the boats on display also helped for perspective.

I second the Youtube idea. There are a dozen good ones out there that are both informative and entertaining.

[44'cruisingcat]

The trouble is, even you don't know what you want.

There's a huge variety of boats, with various levels of space, performance, cost etc. Everyone has different priorities.

Our first "big" boat was a 40' steel mono. A few years sailing (well mostly motoring) on that was a good education on what we liked, and (even more so) what we didn't like.

After that, we at least knew what we were looking for in a boat.

[Dave_S]

When I was starting and asked similar questions I was given a good piece of advice.

There are only 3 options for anyone buying a boat.....

1. Price
2. Performance
3. luxury

Choose any two at the expense of the third.

It is true, and it will tell you what you are looking for. Sort them in order of which is most important to you.

The easy one for me was how much money was I prepared to spend.
The next one was easy for me too, I wanted something closer to the performance end of cruising boats.
The next one is tricky, but once my budget was set and I knew what level of performance I wanted the luxury level was set. Look at boats with the two qualities that you have fixed then get the best 3rd option you can buy.

How do you rate the 3 options ?

That will tell people what your looking for and they can give you more specific advice.

[mdc1979]

It’s easy, with the caveat that “performance” relates to speed under sail. I don’t think I’ll ever be in a rush...but watch me change my mind when the first massive storm pops up! So it would be price and luxury (comfort). I watch the mess out of the YouTube vlogs. Boats that I’m drawn to are the Astrea 42 and the Lagoon 40. I feel confident that we will be looking at a 7-10 year old catamaran to pay for with cash when it is time. That being said, the boats we are looking at in the future are the current boats in production now.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by mdc1979

Hello all! 37 yr old Army Officer about to reach the halfway point. The short of it, kids will all be out of the house just as I retire and My wife and I are looking toward a live aboard with the intention to see the world for a few years. Wife wants a cat and I want a happy wife. Thinking of an owner’s version in the 40-42 foot range. Assume I know nothing and go...

You've received some pretty perceptive answers so far. It is true that spending a year or so with any other boat will give you both some good internal reference points. Your wife might think she wants a cat because of advertising influences. There are some people who find catamaran motion too jerky. If jerky motion is what sets up your sea sickness, you might prefer a mono. You should investigate both.

Beware with You tube vlogs. They are sort of crowd sourced entertainment. Mostly they show only the fun parts, and it's too wet and miserable to do video on the ugly ones. Many of those people are shockingly inexperienced about boating, and their deficits get them into trouble, although not usually fatal. There is danger of emulating their attitudes and mistakes.

My own start was on other folks' boats, as crew for beer can races (informal), and then, in the ocean as well. You really learn a lot, sort of by osmosis, when you're part of a team. And then, you're also developing a sort of context for your ocean experiences. If it is at all possible for either of you, just start getting time on the water.

Caveat: unless you are a mechanically and electrically adept person, you will be surprised at how much $$ you will be spending, and worse, time, waiting on others to fix *stuff* for you. It is not like going out and buying an RV and exploring North and South America. You are going into an environment not well suited to humans, not like a trip down the AlCan in summer.

Ann
PS. To put this response in context, Jim and I are very long term cruisers, with many sea miles (I've over 150,000, and Jim has more than I do).

[mark_morwood]

Originally Posted by mdc1979

Hello all! 37 yr old Army Officer about to reach the halfway point. The short of it, kids will all be out of the house just as I retire and My wife and I are looking toward a live aboard with the intention to see the world for a few years. Wife wants a cat and I want a happy wife. Thinking of an owner’s version in the 40-42 foot range. Assume I know nothing and go...

Your circumstances may not allow it, but if you can, I'd think about finding something cheap now as your first boat and spend some time sailing with your kids while they are still at home. Even just some local weekend cruising or day sailing. I've never met anyone who said they regretted spending time sailing with their kids. It will also give you a chance to build some knowledge so you know what to look for when the time comes. And what's more, you may find the kids like it enough that they'll even come visit once you are off cruising.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

Sounds like you're ready. Get any boat for now and start sailing. Any old junker will do and then when you retire any "other" boat will make your wife happy.

^^^ This. Start sailing now, take lessons, mooch rides (most boatowners welcome willing crew), start to refine ideas about what you want, maybe buy a beater to build up experience. When you're close to picking your dream boat, try to charter one first.


Have fun!

[Mediator]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Caveat: unless you are a mechanically and electrically adept person, you will be surprised at how much $$ you will be spending, and worse, time, waiting on others to fix *stuff* for you. It is not like going out and buying an RV and exploring North and South America. You are going into an environment not well suited to humans, not like a trip down the AlCan in summer.

^^ this is important - they say that cruising is just fixing your boat in exotic places!

I definitely recommend getting some experience in but I don't necessarily think buying a boat for the short term (with the intention to graduate to your "dream boat" later) makes a lot of sense. Buying and selling boats is a PITA and a beater boat makes it harder to convince the family that cruising will be fun. Charter, crew for races, sail with friends, go to boat shows, etc. There are lots of ways to build experience and figure out what you want in a cruising boat

[MIRELOS]

Go to the boat shows to see what you like, ask questions, when you have an idea charter to see if you really like it; it's an expensive investment.......good luck and enjoy it

[contrail]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

You've received some pretty perceptive answers so far. It is true that spending a year or so with any other boat will give you both some good internal reference points. Your wife might think she wants a cat because of advertising influences. There are some people who find catamaran motion too jerky. If jerky motion is what sets up your sea sickness, you might prefer a mono. You should investigate both.

Beware with You tube vlogs. They are sort of crowd sourced entertainment. Mostly they show only the fun parts, and it's too wet and miserable to do video on the ugly ones. Many of those people are shockingly inexperienced about boating, and their deficits get them into trouble, although not usually fatal. There is danger of emulating their attitudes and mistakes.

My own start was on other folks' boats, as crew for beer can races (informal), and then, in the ocean as well. You really learn a lot, sort of by osmosis, when you're part of a team. And then, you're also developing a sort of context for your ocean experiences. If it is at all possible for either of you, just start getting time on the water.

Caveat: unless you are a mechanically and electrically adept person, you will be surprised at how much $$ you will be spending, and worse, time, waiting on others to fix *stuff* for you. It is not like going out and buying an RV and exploring North and South America. You are going into an environment not well suited to humans, not like a trip down the AlCan in summer.

Ann
PS. To put this response in context, Jim and I are very long term cruisers, with many sea miles (I've over 150,000, and Jim has more than I do).

I would emphatically agree with the above.....also a very long time live-aboard/cruiser/captain/instructor. 36 years, in fact. I would particularly agree with the comments about being mechanically and electrically adept, but you also have time to learn these things, or some of them, before you go. Also, the comments about the videos....a very few are good, most are the blind leading the blind and good for entertainment, only...sorry, because they are quite popular.


I would add two things. An old friend once told me to "buy a boat you can afford to lose!" By that, he meant that this would allow me to make my own safety decisions, rather than be bound by insurance regulations imposed by a dirt dweller in an office. Very good advice. I had a boat I could afford to lose for the first 22 years, and I had great freedom. Always had liability insurance, often totally insured, sometimes not, but never driven to make decisions to satisfy insurance requirements or resale value. Yes, I did ride out the eye of a hurricane, at anchor, because I was in a hole from which I was sure I could swim ashore, so felt no personal danger, but I have also been in other hurricanes where I stayed ashore. Whatever decision I made was situationally based, and backed up by the fact that I could afford to have lost that boat...although I didn't. Now, I have a boat that would be catastrophic to lose, and whose resale value I am always conscious of, and my decisions are always somewhat colored by that. Just read the various posts on various subjects, and you will see that most people face the same constraints although they may never have realized it and thought that through.



I love my current boat but I never forget that it was really great to be free of serious financial consequences.


On a more specific level, I think that many older cats, say 1995 - 2005, were designed more with solid seakeeping features in mind, than the later ones. I will mention three features that my 1999 Leopard cat has which are now quite hard to come by, singly, let alone all three: 1) shaft drive to the props - no saildrive, 2) skeg hung rudders, 3) sacrificial keels, demountable in the water, should replacement or repairs be necessary. You can talk your way around all of these, and most folks do, but each makes for a more bulletproof boat. I would be hard pressed to buy a boat without any of them, but that is what you will most often find.


Best of luck. Do your deep research, maybe go to a few large brokerages that have older boats, and be careful who you listen to!

[skipmac]

Not much to add but will emphasize a couple of points.

First and most important, until you spend some time on a boat you will not know what it is you like and dislike. As Ann Cate points out, cats look good in the ads and videos but sailing the motion can be very uncomfortable to some people. On the other hand, some people cannot abide heeling over in monohulls and will sail only cats. Different strokes.

Also, the perception is that cats are roomier but you should understand that as a rule of thumb boat prices are based not on length but square footage and/or weight (how much glass and wood it takes to build it). So a 40' cat will cost a lot more than a 40' monohull of similar quality. Buy a monohull with similar living space to the 40' cat and prices will be similar.

I highly recommend you and the wife get a little time in on a cruising boat before taking the big leap. I know chartering is not cheap and will take a bite out of your boat funds but could save you a lot in the long run. Another option, see if you can find time on OPBs (other peoples boats). Racers always need crew (but may be the best intro to casual, enjoyable sailing) and often cruisers need an extra hand moving their boat from one place to the next.