Hello from Hong Kong

[Stede]

Yona,

You've gotten some good advice here. I'll try to throw in a few more thoughts for you.When I first started " sailing," it was on small "Sunfish" daysailors. I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing.The boat stayed deck down, more than up. I learned a lot though.Buying a used Sunfish, and getting a book to find out what it takes to make it go, is one the cheapest ways to get into sailing.Someone else here mentioned taking lessons.That's an even better way to learn. After my first endeavour, later I took several classes and began to hone the necessary skills to sail better.After you achieve the necessary sailing skills, new doors will open to you by the means of chartering (renting) boats.Chartering boats of different sizes, and sailing characteristics is a really good way to improve your sailing skills, while developing your likes and dislikes concerning sailboats.It will also give you the opportunity to plan family vacations around sailing so that everyone in the family can enjoy it.

While sailing the last twenty years, I never had much interest in racing. I had participated in a few races, but just never really got into it. Last year I crewed a few times for a friend while racing "one designs." We did fairly well, but got rammed during the championship and had to drop out of the race. I can imagine how discouraging that experience could have been to someone new to sailing.Another guy I crewed with one time told me." I'm not the type of captain that will hollar at you very often." I told him, "that's good, because I'm the type of crew that hollar's back often!" Racing can be fun, but I agree with others here that it's not the best way to learn how to sail.

In regard to boat selection, to achieve the type of sailing you've stated as a goal, you have a lot of learning to do. The good thing is you can do a lot of it right here on the net and it won't cost you anything. Below are a couple links for you. The first site,"Mahina.com" provides some good "brass tack" basics on what to look for in a "Blue water" type of boat.I used the list of potential boats here as a basic foundation of learning. At this stage of the game, I would suggest that you just start looking up some of the boats on "Yachtworld.com" to start getting an idea of what a blue water boat looks like.From there, start digging into how displacement,draft,beam, and all the other factors will effect your final decision on selecting a world cruiser. As someone else mentioned here, look up some of "Jeff H's" posts.He's very knowledgable on boat build/sail issues. So you see, you have plenty of homework to do! The good news is that if you love the beauty of sail, you'll have fun doing it! Good luck in your pursuit!!

http://www.mahina.com/boats.html
http://www.yachtworld.com/