Hello from the Pacific

[SI1974]

Hi,
I'm currently in Vanuatu, back online after (hurricane) Judy and Kevin.
Loving the sea since toddler, I came from Europe to see the Pacific, travelling through Africa and Asia to get there, to find it's near impossible to get more than a hurried tourist trip (or very expensive and still not what I look for).


Having sold my home, not really enjoying stays in hotels, buying a boat is on my mind. Looking to be on my own (and God), I have no intention of going back.


This brings new legal challenges of which I'm clueless (glanced a few here on the forum, thinking handing over cash would suffice before...VAT, import, registration, flag...), not to mention challenges to find and buy a boat. Most I found, were where I came from, most unsuitable to fare for more than 2 days. From what I read, Mexico may offer the best choice for what I need. I don't need big or bling but I do need working amenities. Maybe the boat can provide supplemental funds in future.



That's me in short



PS: would I be importing if I never return to my home-country?

[TrentePieds]

Welcome aboard, S! :-)!

We'll held you all we can. It sounds as if you are starting from square one. What you can do depends in many, many ways on your citizenship, so to get started on helping you we'll need to know what your citizenship is, in what country was the home you sold, what sort of travel documentation you have, and what your visa status is in Vanuatu.

Where to buy a boat, what kind of boat to buy and how to pay for it depends in many ways on the answers to the above, so if you would like us to help you, do let us know those answers.

TrentePieds

[Adelie]

Welcome to CruisersForum!

I would suggest updating your profile with your general location and your boat make & model or “Looking” in the "Boat" category. This info shows up under your UserName in every post in the web view. Many questions are boat and/or location dependent and having these tidbits under your UserName saves answering those questions repeatedly. If you need help setting up your profile then click on this link: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3308797

I would happily help more if the link above is not enough.

[SI1974]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Welcome aboard, S! :-)!

We'll held you all we can. It sounds as if you are starting from square one. What you can do depends in many, many ways on your citizenship, so to get started on helping you we'll need to know what your citizenship is, in what country was the home you sold, what sort of travel documentation you have, and what your visa status is in Vanuatu.

Where to buy a boat, what kind of boat to buy and how to pay for it depends in many ways on the answers to the above, so if you would like us to help you, do let us know those answers.

TrentePieds

Hello,

thanks for the offer.
My nationality is (as my former home) Dutch, my visa for Vanuatu expires half June. I have a normal, valid passport.



I am starting from scratch and am not in the market for ships I can't manage on my own.



At the moment, waiting for ferry to get me to Port Vila, hope to fly to Auckland (but rather by boat) end of the week to see if they have something for me. If not, heading for Mexico beginning of April.

[SI1974]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Welcome to CruisersForum!

I would suggest updating your profile with your general location and your boat make & model or “Looking” in the "Boat" category. This info shows up under your UserName in every post in the web view. Many questions are boat and/or location dependent and having these tidbits under your UserName saves answering those questions repeatedly. If you need help setting up your profile then click on this link: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3308797

I would happily help more if the link above is not enough.

Hi Adelie,

Thanks fo the advice. I'll see what I can fill in when battery is full enough again.

[clamshack]

Do you have any desire to go to French Polynesia? As an EU citizen you might have some better options than a non EU citizen.

Certainly the Pacific region is a large one and Vanuatu is not particularly close to French Polynesia, but it may be worth a look.

[JPA Cate]

Vanuatu is about 2-1/2 days NE of New Caledonia, which is French, just not polynesian.

Dangers now of sailing to NZ or New Caledonia now are mainly cyclone related. In case SI isn't aware of it, out of season (both sides of the season--early and late) do happen. You ought not to trust your life to the country's beginning and end dates for cyclone season. I m mainly aware of this because we've been caught out that way.

I'm hoping you are a mechanically adept person with some years sailing experience, because you will be forced to sometimes sail in conditions that were not predicted. Weather prediction is much better than it was 30 yrs. ago, but it is still very difficult because there are so many interacting variables to try and get correct. Up to about 3 days out, it's pretty good, but the further from the day on which you're looking at it, the less likely it is to be spot on.

Good luck SI.

Ann

[TrentePieds]

Well SI – you've set yourself an interesting challenge :-)!

You said: “I am starting from scratch and am not in the market for ships I can't manage on my own.”

That would indicate that at this moment in time you know nothing about boats and seafaring, Basic boat handling I could teach you in a weekend. That, however, would not be sufficient to enable you to venture “where the stormy winds do blow and the scattered waters rave”. But departing from Vanuatu that is precisely where you'd be going! You would have no other choice. And you have to leave there in about three months unless you get a visa extension.

So NZ it has to be, unless you go directly to Mexico. I assume you have valid visas for each country. There would be boats for you to buy in NZ, but again, as a raw novice, making a passage from there to anywhere in the South Pacific should probably be considered beyond any competence you can gather in any amount of time you would consider acceptable.

If you choose Mexico, why not consider the US or even Canada where the number, the type and the quality of boats on offer will be far superior to either NZ or Mexico?

As for managing a boat on your own, i.e., “single-handing”, there is – obviously – some relationship between a boat's size and the level of competence required to handle it. My opinion, not shared by all, is that you can comfortably single-hand anything up to 42 or even 45 feet PROVIDED you are a competent zeeman. But, as I said, you don't become that overnight. To become a competent schipper you need to serve some time as a matroos under someone who IS a schipper. Once you have that out of the way you can begin to consider what manner of boat will suit you. But you cannot do that until you have some knowledge of divers boats and their characteristics.

As a starting point, consider that 27 feet is the minimum length of a boat that will permit a single-hander to “go places”. 36 feet is probably the biggest a novice would wish to handle alone, yet it is big enough to afford acceptable accommodations, which IMO a 27-footer is not.

But as a novice you would not be familiar with the many aspects of surveying a boat for condition and “fitness for purpose”. And if you really are contemplating transoceanic voyages you would not know, till you have some experience, how to fit out a sailboat for such work.

Ann Cate, who has some 30 years of cruising under her keel and knows the waters where you are now, cautions you about getting caught out in bad weather. I concur, and I would like to add that weather forecasting is ultimately a skipper's responsibility because the safety of the ship is his responsibility. But meteorology is essentially something you learn from books. And practical weather forecasting is something you cannot do unless you have a sound grasp of meteorology.

There are a great many skills a skipper must have that are best acquired through book-learning applied in praxis. That is why we have marine academies. And it is why it takes a long time to become qualified.

I think therefore that your best way forward is to get yourself to a place such as California or British Columbia where you can sign on as a crew member in an existing, active cruising boat crewed by a competent schipper and competent matroozen. After a year or two of that you'd be getting to the point where you might undertake long singlehanded voyages.

You might like to get a book called The Proper Yacht by Arthur Beiser. It is an excellent treatise on what Beiser thinks makes for a "proper" yacht, and it gives excellent discussions and technical data of a variety of competent yachts right from a 27-footer up to Beiser's own boat called Minot's Light, a ketch of, IIRC, 54 feet.

You might also like to scull around on

https://sailboatdata.com/

where you will find technical descriptions, general arrangement plans and sail plans for all manner of cruising boats.

Goede reis :-)!

TrentePieds