Any Powercats in Sarasota?

[GhostLake]

This is my first post of what I hope will be many on the forum. My wife and I have quite a bit of time to prepare for what we hope will be a live-aboard experience when our kids go off to college. I don't want to think about the number of years, but it has two digits.

In the meantimeI know we have a lot to learn about what we want in an open water boat and even which trips we would like to make. We'll be early 50s at the time, so I'm factoring that in as well.

We spend time in Sarasota every year at Thanksgiving and would love to speak with a powercat owner about the pluses and minuses of that style. I'm leaning towards power (and not sail) based on several spectacular bouts of seasickness that I had in my early 30s. It never bothered me before that, but once the engines went off, my stomach came on.

We live on a lake with an active sailing club though, so I'm going to start small and see if I can get over the sick part of sailing. We're also going to teach out kids how to sail from a young age, so I'll be training my part time crew as we go.

Planning to charter multiple types of boats over the coming years to see what we like and want and have a list of topics that I need to learn quite a bit more about (navigation, blue water saftey, etc.).

I've been lurking on this forum for a while and love the people that are here. Thanks in advance for the help.

-GL

[mtmilam]

There are some in Clearwater, which is not to far.....We bought our Aquila 44 there....They are the main dealer for the Marine max Aquila line.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, GL.

[flyingdna]

There are a couple in St Petersburg, at the Harborage Marina.

[GhostLake]

So we were able to accelerate our timeline quite a bit and after much research bought a Fountaine Pajot MY 37. Family and I spent quite a lot of time on it in January and then had it back out for another week in early March. It is going to live with a charter company in St. Pete's most of the time, but in between we are going to use it for adventures and get experience.

We did a week of pretty intense training in Ft. Lauderdale and then cast off.

So far we have done

FLL > Mia (anchored overnight in the Miami Marine Stadium.
Mia > Key Largo (tied up at Gilberts)
Key Largo > Islamorada (Caloosa Cove Marina)
Islamorda > Marco Island (anchored by Rose Marina)
Marco > Sarasota (backed into a super tight slip at Marina Jacks)
Sarasota > St. Pete's
St. Pete's > Sarasota
Sarasota > Cayo Costa > Cabbage Key > Sarasota > St. Pete's (4 day trip, not recommended)

We've already learned a lot and made our fair share of mistakes. Fortunately none of them have been bad ones and my family has been having a ton of fun.

Upcoming trips

Key West / Dry Tortugas
Bahamas / Caribbean in winter of 2023