seeking advice

[boatman61]

A big help is knowing what restrictions there are on how far from base you want/can travel to buy... locally (USA E or W coast)... the Caribbean... further afield.
Makes a big difference to price and choice... also the material... if your happy with steel there's some nice Bruce Roberts and other pilot house boats that may well be in your budget...
Need more info than you've given... time to have a serious chat with the old man and work out a realistic 'Want'...

[GILow]

Deb,

We are in Australia and have a very different set of boats available to us generally, but our situation was similar to yours so our solution may be relevant.

I am a very keen sailor, sailed since I was five years old, while my wife had been on two larger boats for a couple of days and had enjoyed the experience but only as a crew member, practically no involvement in sailing the boat.

When we met and married, the boat idea came up after about five years, we decided to try smaller first, and bought a 20 foot trailer sailer. This was OK, but revealed a lot of problems for us. First of which is I learned the painful lesson of not exposing my wife and child to too difficult conditions too early on. More importantly, it revealed that my wife was not happy in smaller "flighty" boats (and it's worth noting that our 20 footer was one of the most sedate and poised of its size) and needed something stable under her feet, plus plenty of room to move about.

This led to us going through boat selling web sites with very large search results, i.e. show us anything from 35 to 45 feet (35 because my wife wanted something bigger, 45 because I feel after that it can be hard to sail any larger boat solo without a lot of technical aids.) and in our budget. We must have clicked through 300 to 400 boats before we had a list of four or five boats that seemed suitable. We then set about asking about the merits of each on this forum and others. The merits ruled the list down to three (and no, I am not silly enough to say which were canned on this forum) and then we started visiting the three types, which knocked it down to one boat in particular. We then took something like three or four years to find a good example of what we wanted, and by good example, I mean within our budget and reasonably well maintained. It did help that the market fell significantly while we were looking.

All this is by way of saying that I am of the group that says "Go for it.." but I say it with a caveat of saying "go for it SLOWLY". This is particularly funny as I often get warned by members of this forum not to rush in and change anything on our boat too soon, and I realise that there are members here who are smarter and better at the "go slowly" than me.

Based on our figures, you have plenty of money, certainly a LOT more than we have spent, and our boat is pretty well liveable now, should we choose to do so. It helps that you are both hands on and I laugh to see the same situation we are in, Sally is currently sewing new seat covers for the deckhouse (and loving it) while I potter around with bits of timber and wire down below. Gender typical roles are sometimes hard to avoid.

Only one negative comment, and that is you talk about wanting things like two heads and separate showers. I agree that these are nice to have, but I also subscribe to the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) and see that sort of requirement as possibly adding cost and maintenance while eliminating options of older boats that might be more than adequate in other ways. Our 1978 boat is very liveable but has only one head and the shower is incorporated in the same room. Not so comfortable, but the rest of the boat is magnificently conceived and is yet to let us down or restrict us in any way.

Matt

[ohdrinkboy]

My wife's requirements are similar to yours and our budget will be as well.

We decided I will get a much cheaper, used boat ($25k). Outfit as I like. She will fly down and meet me periodically. Hotel rooms and short hops on the boat when she is with me.

It seems like a good compromise and easier on the budget.

[JPA Cate]

Hi, Deb, welcome aboard,

In his first answer to you Boatman 61 posted a link to a Beneteau First 45 in the British Virgin Is., listed at 90k. You should not ever offer sight unseen, and our experience was that the values of the boats we were interested in were inflated by about 50%. It's still a buyer's market. But that boat could well be a workable one for you.

Since it is your husband who is the more experienced and has perhaps a wiser point of view, maybe he could pick say, three types of affordable boats, and you could take your pick of those three. Please don't take offense, but you really don't have enough experience living on a boat to know what you really need or want, only vague ideas. If he could do that, then you could get on with doing the things you like to do on board.

I also urge you to consider GILow's post seriously. Storage space is always at a premium on cruising boats, and a head with a shower represents about 96 cu. ft. of potential storage space for necessaries. If you're like most fancy cooks, you have a lot of specialized cookware that you consider necessities. It won't all fit, and there will be some tough compromises ahead. (There are CF threads relative to cookware and provisioning.) [Check the sitemap at the bottom of the page and go have a wander.]

Besides space considerations, there are also power and water ones. You may find yourself re-evaluating what are needs vs. wants. I sure did. I wanted a queen size island bed, which would probably have meant a center cockpit boat. But it turns out that is a poor utilization of space, and so I have a double, and it's not an island bed, and we have an aft cockpit. And I'm entirely content with it. Our boat has a pantry instead of a 2nd head, and boy am I ever glad! Incidentally, we have a number of acquaintances who have turned "spare" heads into storage of one kind and another. So I am with the group who figure adults can deal with it for the small percentage of time there are guests aboard and you have to share between more than two. The sharing has never been a problem for us or our guests; most of them are the kinds of folks who will speak up, too.

Enjoy.

Ann

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

Have a look at Yachtworld and see what ballpark (size / design / age) your budget gets you into that you simply like the look of (likely you have already!)........my gut also says a mainstream ex-charter (or style) Beneteau etc likely to fit, the price on your budget will be older (8-10 years? or shorter, low 30's instead of higher 30's). Ex-Charter is bare bones on equipment vs same boat from a private owner - plusses and minuses to each approach.

Then go have a looksee in person at whatever you can in your locale (whether for sale or not! - plusses and minuses to each), including those you don't think will be right (in condition or design or budget) as all will teach you something, or at least confirm what you already know or suspect........it's called being a tyre (fender!) kicker, but so what?!

On the personal side, I would aim to get good enough to be able to get the boat home if hubby gets incapacitated (or goes glug!) without needing to get rescued (not as easy or as safe as it sounds)..........apart from for those (unlikely) events, will also mean the voyages(s) will be more fun for both of you by sharing the workload and being able to understand for self WTF is going on (downside of that is knowing when to be scared! - but that better than not knowing!).......all that does not mean you have to become a master mariner!, because most things on boats are not rocket science (fortunately) but having a solid understanding of pretty much everything (even if mostly in practice doing what you each enjoy best or are better at) will make your life more comfortable.

You have landed on a good forum here - both for knowledgeable people and it being civilised!........plenty to learn, from either the past threads or simply as the same topics get rehashed yet again - your starting point is quite a common one, it's only the details that vary.

Oh piffle.

You don't have to be good enough to bring the boat home alone in an emergency. In an emergency you have to be able to read of the latitude and longitude, and put the boat in a slow circle so you stay more or less in the same place. There is NO shame in asking for a rescue in an emergency!

Do learn as much as you can about sailing, and I recommend separate lessons for you. I think it's just impossible to NOT wonder what the partner thinks of the progress you're making, and all too often the other, more experience partner forgets just how trying some of this stuff can be at first. A professional teacher will accept that you will get closer to your goal each time you try something new where a partner might expect to see unreaasonably fast progress. Partners also tend to correct way too much and to give way too little praise.

Just keep learning all the time, and stay within rescue range at first. There's only one way to get proficient at sailing, and that's by going out there and doing it. However, with that attitude you may some day end up in a situation that's "over your head" and need to call for help, even when someone with 40 years' experience could have handled it.

You'll be able to also -- when you have 40 years' experience. Respect your limitations but push yourself a little each time you go out.

[boatman61]

I bet the guy who went over the side on the way to/from Hawaii wished he'd taught his GF more about boat handling and MOB as he went down for the 3rd time... and I'm bludi sure she wished he had as well.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I bet the guy who went over the side on the way to/from Hawaii wished he'd taught his GF more about boat handling and MOB as he went down for the 3rd time... and I'm bludi sure she wished he had as well.

Too right! It's the one procedure I drill into all new passengers, over and over again. I am certain to be able to go and get the silly buggers if THEY fall over the side, but I need to know THEY can come and get me! Otherwise I might as well stick to sailing solo, it's quieter, and I don't have to share the snacks.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I bet the guy who went over the side on the way to/from Hawaii wished he'd taught his GF more about boat handling and MOB as he went down for the 3rd time... and I'm bludi sure she wished he had as well.

You can't fix stupid. I urged these people to stay within rescue range. I urged her to learn to sail. i did NOT urge them to cross the Pacific with only one of them knowing how to handle the boat. I pointed out that it would take a while for her to become really proficient. I hope they will allow themselves enough time to become skilled enough to do what they want to do with relative safety.

Don't respect the sea and it can do things like that.

Shoot we had a big thunderstorm on Sunday, but not unheard of ... well, it was unusual that it formed over land and then moved west, still intensifying, but not unheard of. First Mayday we heard was of people in the water. Don't know what happened to their boat. Then there was a Mayday from a power boat 25 miles off shore with 8 people on it, taking on water "faster than the bilge pump could pump it out."

I hope they had a bucket ... but the Coast Guard had to tell the captain to get everyone in life jackets, so I don't think they were fully prepared for what Mother Nature had to offer.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

Oh piffle.

You don't have to be good enough to bring the boat home alone in an emergency. In an emergency you have to be able to read of the latitude and longitude, and put the boat in a slow circle so you stay more or less in the same place. There is NO shame in asking for a rescue in an emergency!

Always nice to have your input .

[Hud3]

Here's a suggestion, given your lack of sailing experience.

You can easily spend a couple of years cruising around the Caribbean without getting bored. We did, and loved it. The sailing is easy there, so you would likely feel very comfortable, even without any sailing experience.

When we were cruising there, my wife was just a happy passenger, and loved it. The most she did as far as "sailing" was to pick up mooring pennants with the boathook infrequently. I did the rest. For any long ocean passages, I got friends to crew with me, and my wife flew in to join me after the passage. We were in the Chesapeake Bay during tropical storm season.

If your husband is a competent sailor, he can handle it all by himself in the eastern Caribbean. You'll need a boat with an autopilot, a convenient mainsail reefing system, roller furling foresail, and an electric anchor windlass. It was also nice to have a toggle switch at the helm for the anchor windlass.

[GILow]

Well... either that all scared her off or she lost her password...