What happens to all the wannabees?

[jgbrown]

This wannabe bought and sold a smaller sailboat with a friend for a profit, and just bought half a 40+ foot WOOD power boat.
Might not be sailing but at least I'm busy.
On the sail front:
Pulled my tiller, a couple chain plates and sent for replacement. almost finished the propane solenoid wiring on my sailboat over the last couple days.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Scheyer

35 yrs old dreaming of circumnavigate with my wife and two kids. No money at this moment. No experience on a sailboat, just motor....
Does that make me a wannabe?

Am in Spain right now looking for a solution to manifest our dream. We gave up everything bought an RV and are driving around the meds looking in every marina to find a live aboard and get closer to our dream.
Does that make me a nut?

Maybe...

But eventually, she will be there. A Formosa or a Belliure..... 41'to 43'....center cockpit.....3 cabin layout.....full keel....….............hmmmmmm

go now, go small! dreams are the stuff that that fuels reality!
thanks for posting

[atoll]

Originally Posted by jgbrown

This wannabe bought and sold a smaller sailboat with a friend for a profit, and just bought half a 40+ foot WOOD power boat.
Might not be sailing but at least I'm busy.
On the sail front:
Pulled my tiller, a couple chain plates and sent for replacement. almost finished the propane solenoid wiring on my sailboat over the last couple days.

any day messin about on a boat,even if it's in pieces,the wood worm are chasing you around,and not in the water are better than any day spent in front of a tv set......or even worse at the office!

thanks for posting

[lostsheep]

I'm just sailing the concrete seas, dreaming it was H2o.
Wish I had the $47K for that Hans Christian 34 down in San Diego....Bridget really likes it!

[Boulter]

Hi:

This wannabe has a boat. An Ontario 32 will arrive by truck next week to be parked out the back door until the spring or whenever stuff actually gets fixed. Core is shot in a few places, everything needs to be rebedded, some 37 year old gate valves, and the wiring allegedly done by an electrician is of course botched. And that is just the stuff I know about.

Boulter

[nsabardin]

A work in progress! That's where i'm at.

I first came to this forum to read the very interesting, and long, thread about ferro boats.
I then decided that this was right for me due to the value for the money. I knew that finding the right boat, professionally built, would take time. I was not in a hurry and had the cash ready.
I found that boat last January in the form of a Windboats 43 Ketch. In need of some work but the bulk of the work had already been done by the previous owner, a marine engineer. Fell in love with the boat and with it's well recorded history.
I've been working on it when i have time off or money to get others to work on it.
I've also been taking RYA sailing lessons to increase my knowledge.

My target is to start with a Med cruise (the boat is in Portugal right now) in March next year. Realistically, I don't expect to depart until July so that gives me 3 months to discover and fix all the things I have not thought about yet.
My wife is very supportive and my 5 year old son can't wait to become the Captain of the dinghy boat.

So still a wannabe and enjoying every minute of it!

[KEG]

I joined with a 10 year plan. I'm working toward making cruising part of my retirement. I also made a deal with my wife that the sales from all of my books would go toward our boat purchase. I'll let you know in 10 or 15 years if I've failed, in the mean time buy my books and support my dream!

[atoll]

thanks for taking the time to let us all know your plans

[Gr8Heart]

This wannabe found, bought and just sailed his. Looking forward!

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Gr8Heart

This wannabe found, bought and just sailed his. Looking forward!

nice boat,and well written blog! thanks for posting

[oldragbaggers]

I'm going to go against my better judgment and post our wannabe story.

About 31 years ago, having never stepped foot aboard a sailboat, I bought and read a Hal Roth book, "After 11,000 Miles." When I finished it I handed it to my husband of 2 years and said "I want to do this." He read it and said "I want to do it too." The dream was born.

At the time my husband was in the Navy, we were young and had 3 children to support (from previous marriages) so this was a l-o-n-g range early retirement plan. But our mindset towards our lives changed and we started making decisions based on the long range goal. We learned to sail a year later, spent time playing with the 14' Lidos and Capris at the Naval sailing club, bought our first boat 2 years after that and have had a love affair with sailing ever since.

When my husband retired from the Navy in 1993, which is the time we had always thought we would do it, we had 1 child in college and the real estate market in CA had collapsed so we were upside down on our house. We couldn't have sold it if we had wanted to. Derailment #1. My husband went back to college and started a new career in education.

Since then we have had grandchildren come along. Our daughter, who has a disabling illness, has gotten a divorce and is struggling as a single mom raising two kids alone. We help, a lot.

Have we ever stopped wanting to go cruising? Well, maybe once or twice, briefly, but not really. The dream has changed. My husband is 62 and I am 58 now, and we still have a few years to work. We no longer want to go around the world. The idea of weeks at sea doesn't even really appeal to me any more. I've lived at anchor for months at a time and have no problem with that idea, but want to be able to put my feet on terra firma on a more frequent basis. Coastal cruising and island hopping in the Caribbean would be more than sufficient. My husband's family lives in Barbados. I can easily see myself just parked there for months at a time. (Does that qualify as cruising??) And we're not saying we're going to do it forever, we just want to say that we finally did it.

But in the meantime, we have owned many sailboats. We have rescued several derelicts and rebuilt them stem to stern. We have spent a total of around 5 years living aboard several of them. My husband taught sailing at the Naval Academy and cruised to Bermuda with the midshipman every summer. We have used our sailboats to entertain naval officers from several other countries when my husband was attached to a navy ship that was an "ambassador ship" in Pearl Harbor.

So....are we still wannabes? I suppose when it comes to the complete severing of the docklines and sailing off into the sunset forever, we are. But I see how much we've experienced and what we've learned since we first picked up that book 31 years ago, how many beautiful nights we've spent at anchor, how many cockpit hours shared with friends, memories we've made with our kids and grandkids, landfalls in new places even if they weren't an ocean away. We've been sailors, and cruisers all along, in our own way. I sure do hope we sever those docklines someday. But no way will I feel any sense of "failure" if we don't.

There are a lot of different ways to be cruisers. Is someone less of a cruiser because they only cruise the Great Lakes, or the Chesapeake Bay? Because their cruise only lasted a year instead of a whole lifetime? Or they only cruise part of each year?

We've made choices along the way to fulfill obligations to family or take advantage of opportunities and we have no regrets. And we have had an absolute blast on boats the whole while. And the oceans aren't going anywhere. (According to Al Gore they're getting bigger, right?) Good Lord willing we'll get out there someday.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by nsabardin

A work in progress! That's where i'm at.

I first came to this forum to read the very interesting, and long, thread about ferro boats.
I then decided that this was right for me due to the value for the money. I knew that finding the right boat, professionally built, would take time. I was not in a hurry and had the cash ready.
I found that boat last January in the form of a Windboats 43 Ketch. In need of some work but the bulk of the work had already been done by the previous owner, a marine engineer. Fell in love with the boat and with it's well recorded history.
I've been working on it when i have time off or money to get others to work on it.
I've also been taking RYA sailing lessons to increase my knowledge.

My target is to start with a Med cruise (the boat is in Portugal right now) in March next year. Realistically, I don't expect to depart until July so that gives me 3 months to discover and fix all the things I have not thought about yet.
My wife is very supportive and my 5 year old son can't wait to become the Captain of the dinghy boat.

So still a wannabe and enjoying every minute of it!

Where in Portugal... I'm based in Fig de Foz...

[atoll]

Originally Posted by oldragbaggers

I'm going to go against my better judgment and post our wannabe story.

About 31 years ago, having never stepped foot aboard a sailboat, I bought and read a Hal Roth book, "After 11,000 Miles." When I finished it I handed it to my husband of 2 years and said "I want to do this." He read it and said "I want to do it too." The dream was born.

At the time my husband was in the Navy, we were young and had 3 children to support (from previous marriages) so this was a l-o-n-g range early retirement plan. But our mindset towards our lives changed and we started making decisions based on the long range goal. We learned to sail a year later, spent time playing with the 14' Lidos and Capris at the Naval sailing club, bought our first boat 2 years after that and have had a love affair with sailing ever since.

When my husband retired from the Navy in 1993, which is the time we had always thought we would do it, we had 1 child in college and the real estate market in CA had collapsed so we were upside down on our house. We couldn't have sold it if we had wanted to. Derailment #1. My husband went back to college and started a new career in education.

Since then we have had grandchildren come along. Our daughter, who has a disabling illness, has gotten a divorce and is struggling as a single mom raising two kids alone. We help, a lot.

Have we ever stopped wanting to go cruising? Well, maybe once or twice, briefly, but not really. The dream has changed. My husband is 62 and I am 58 now, and we still have a few years to work. We no longer want to go around the world. The idea of weeks at sea doesn't even really appeal to me any more. I've lived at anchor for months at a time and have no problem with that idea, but want to be able to put my feet on terra firma on a more frequent basis. Coastal cruising and island hopping in the Caribbean would be more than sufficient. My husband's family lives in Barbados. I can easily see myself just parked there for months at a time. (Does that qualify as cruising??) And we're not saying we're going to do it forever, we just want to say that we finally did it.

But in the meantime, we have owned many sailboats. We have rescued several derelicts and rebuilt them stem to stern. We have spent a total of around 5 years living aboard several of them. My husband taught sailing at the Naval Academy and cruised to Bermuda with the midshipman every summer. We have used our sailboats to entertain naval officers from several other countries when my husband was attached to a navy ship that was an "ambassador ship" in Pearl Harbor.

So....are we still wannabes? I suppose when it comes to the complete severing of the docklines and sailing off into the sunset forever, we are. But I see how much we've experienced and what we've learned since we first picked up that book 31 years ago, how many beautiful nights we've spent at anchor, how many cockpit hours shared with friends, memories we've made with our kids and grandkids, landfalls in new places even if they weren't an ocean away. We've been sailors, and cruisers all along, in our own way. I sure do hope we sever those docklines someday. But no way will I feel any sense of "failure" if we don't.

There are a lot of different ways to be cruisers. Is someone less of a cruiser because they only cruise the Great Lakes, or the Chesapeake Bay? Because their cruise only lasted a year instead of a whole lifetime? Or they only cruise part of each year?

We've made choices along the way to fulfill obligations to family or take advantage of opportunities and we have no regrets. And we have had an absolute blast on boats the whole while. And the oceans aren't going anywhere. (According to Al Gore they're getting bigger, right?) Good Lord willing we'll get out there someday.

great post!
thanks for sharing

being a cruiser is more an attitude to life than the masochism of crossing oceans or the related Schadenfreude

[oldragbaggers]

Thanks Atoll!! That's exactly how I see it.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by oldragbaggers

I'm going to go against my better judgment and post our wannabe story.......

G'Day Becky,

Nice post and a good life to have lead. Well done!

And yes, I reckon that you ain't wannabees no mo'.

Carry on, mates!

Cheers,

Jim