What happens to all the wannabees?

[In Training]

therapy: Don't get forever discouraged. My husband and I put three thru college, seemed to take forever and never thought we would get out of debt. They are doing great now and we are within 2-3 years of retiring. Nice thing about going when you are older is you don't have to work or worry about income while you are out there.


Make a new long term plan. the years go so quickly, they will all be out of school before you know it.

[SV THIRD DAY]

In our 4 yrs of cruising, 7yrs of living aboard, and in talking to hundreds of cruisers in their final preparation stages at boat shows, via email and phone there is one Universal. I have never heard someone say "I should have waited another year" or "We should have waited until we had more money" or "we should have waited until we had a better boat".

The almost Universal comment turns out to be:
"WTF was I waiting for...we should have went earlier"

More Wannabees dreams have been killed by thinking they need the "right boat" than any other single reason! Don't let the "right boat" lie kill your dream. Put down the sailing and cruising magazines that feed into this lie and stop going to boat shows making your list of must have products. There are cheap boats sitting in almost every marina around the world. Oh they may not be shinny and new, with all the systems you think you need but really don't....but they can get you there NOW before you get Cancer, before your parents are too old and you have to stick around to take care of them, and before your kids have kids and then your wife won't want to leave her grandkids.

What are you waiting for? Stop using the Lie of not being ready yet to cover up the fear of going. I see it every day, at every boat show I work and I want to grab them by the arm and kick them in the ass and say....STOP IT. Stop letting your fear of going make you keep crafting excuses: The Right boat, The Right Gear, the $3000/mo cruising budget.

I'm throwing the cold water in your face screaming WAKE UP....what are you waiting for peace in the middle east?

Now don't take this the wrong way....making a plan like the kids getting out of school, or a savings plan is GREAT...and I'm not knocking it. I'm currently waiting for my kids to get out of the house (or move off the boat since we live aboard) so my wife and I can go out again. So I get it. I understand the planning and waiting thing. But what I'm trying to say is that so many people let the act of planning to go become the dream itself!

[Mr B]

Latest piccys, repairs to my boat.

Work is being done by,

Avenger Marine, Yaringa Marina,

Sommerville, Victoria Australia,

[pablothesailor]

Well, it taken me 4 long years of selling my property plus several RYA courses as well as an incredible 2 weeks sailing the Islands of Denmark with friends................ all being well im now about to complete on my boat at the end of February and move aboard in March! My only advice is do what you think is right for you and your situation, you can never read to much, this forum itself has more info than you can imagine if you use the search facility! Most of your friends and family will think you have gone mad and lost the plot, they will try to put you off from doing what you have dreamed of, others will tell you it makes no "business sense"! I hope to be able to post in just over a month or so that i am no longer a "wannabee"

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by In Training

therapy: Don't get forever discouraged. My husband and I put three thru college, seemed to take forever and never thought we would get out of debt. They are doing great now and we are within 2-3 years of retiring. Nice thing about going when you are older is you don't have to work or worry about income while you are out there.


Make a new long term plan. the years go so quickly, they will all be out of school before you know it.

Either I wrote it wrong or you misread it.
They are out of college and back living at home.
The wife has a chronic condition that precludes much of the required physical activity. Plus balance issues.

It is over for us.

Maybe a land cruiser.

[AgPilot]

I'm a wannabe. I've been a wannabe several times throughout my life. I've accomplished every wannado on my list so far. For example, I'm a commercial pilot and I decided I wanted to do cropdusting. I bought a specific type of airplane and began to educate myself. Included in my education was some formal training at an ag pilot school. I am now a crop duster, making most of my money during the farming season. At the end of the Summer I typically have a pocket full of money and I take the Winter season off. To jump ahead, I now have decided that I too would like to learn to sail and buy some type of cruiser and go for it. I'll eventually sell my airplane and put the proceeds toward that cruiser of my dreams. In the meantime, I have purchased a Catalina 22 trailer sailor. It's parked in the barn and I'm in the process of cleaning, fixing, rigging and educating myself on new terminology, phrases, and meeting new people that can assist me with my dreams. My wife and I plan on sailing the small lakes around us, as day sailors, camping on the hook within a few hundred feet of shore, and just having fun a few times during the Summer when I'm not flying. At 59 years old I have to start somewhere. I've made mistakes before and that's how I pay for my education, however, when I set a goal I take baby steps to get that goal accomplished. When that goal is achieved sometimes it turns out that it wasn't exactly what I wanted so I adjust that goal and go at it again. My advice would be to just go for it in a logical, system of smaller, easy to obtain baby step goals. I may be one of those "wannabes" in a few years but at least I would have lived the dream......even though that dream may turn out to be a nightmare. I know people that are all talk and no action. That's not me. People laughed at Columbus too, look what he accomplished.

[Alchemist 66]

Originally Posted by Therapy

And you are falling for the LIE like most. I was not allowed to influence the decision. See, Most people don't belong in college. It is a money-making myth. I have two college graduates and the degrees are worthless if you rank "a paying job/career" high on the list.

I wanted them to go to a trade school for a year or so (since there is no draft) to learn something they could trade (heh) for money to get by on. They would then have a better idea of what they want to do, have better motivation to "move up" and generally be more responsible. Then they can save and work for it. (like we had to right?) More motivation = better results.

I was voted down. Now the realities are home and so are the boys.

Apologies if this takes the thread way off-topic, but there is some truth to what Therapy stated. College is no longer a guarantee of a job or even a "better life". In some ways it does just the opposite, with no employment prospects and student loans constantly weighing on the mind.

Case in point: I graduated near the top of my class with a PhD in chemistry from the best program in the world 20 years ago. I was heavily recruited by all the major pharmaceutical companies. Ten years ago China opened up and pharma opened research labs in Shanghai while shuttering labs in the US. Makes good financial sense, as the Chinese chemists are quite good, and cost a third of American chemists. After being laid off and unemployed for a few years, I've started a new career in the legal profession. I make half of what I made before, and consider myself lucky. Many former colleagues without the academic pedigree and experience that I have don't stand a chance of any employment remotely related to science.

I recently read a news article which quoted Michael Bloomberg. He urges students to not attend college and instead learn a trade. I agree with him to some extent. Globalization and the internet has meant that anything that can be done more cheaply overseas will be done more cheaply overseas. It started decades ago with garments manufacturing off-shored. Then came auto and machine manufacturing. Now it's electronics, science, software and engineering. The only things really safe are things that can't possibly be off-shored, such as plumbing, electrical work, auto repair, etc.

Other traditionally "safe" professions will soon be off-shored, if at least partially. Traditionally medicine and law have been safe from off-shoring, because when your life or financial well-being is at risk, you want someone you can meet and can trust. However, radiology (reading and interpreting X-rays, for example) is being off-shored to India. So is much of patent research and writing in the legal front.

Not to be completely doom and gloom, globalization does offer many opportunities. A growing middle class will in China will soon develop a hunger for certain quality American-made products. Status is very important to Chinese, so they will spend extra for genuine stuff, not just counterfeits. Bottom line is: a career path is much more difficult to map out these days, and one must be very careful to see developing pitfalls and perhaps take advantage of them.

[brookiesailor]

There are no guarantees in this world. College guarantees you nothing. Just the way life is. My mother lived to have grandchildren, died two weeks before the first was born. Both my husband and I went to college to learn a trade, me a nurse, him a ships engineer. We have long told the kids to do the same


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[Ballenxj]

Originally Posted by AgPilot

I'm a wannabe. I've been a wannabe several times throughout my life. I've accomplished every wannado on my list so far.

WOW Ag, you have an impressive resume!
When I was a kid growing up on a farm I used to watch a bi-plane crop dusting our fields. That pilot was impressive. Every time he got to the highway end of the field he would sometimes climb to fly over the power lines, and sometimes he would just fly under them. He certainly knew how to fly that old plane.

[brookiesailor]

I nearly died in my thirties, started my bucket list then and there. I have run two marathons, gotten a black belt in Tae kwon do and lived overseas for six years. My life long aspiration is to sail to Tahiti and Fiji and I am not very patient about it. Actually I am pushy to say the least. I am only in my mid forties but have a sense of urgency about this. I agreed to wait two years for a boat and then changed my mind. I have already been talked into waiting six. Instead of a new boat, I looked at used, then very used. I found a boat that we can get for the down payment of the other boats we were looking at. Yes it needs work, a lot of work. I won't be actually able to see it in person until May. I am sending an expert representative to tell me if I am nuts or not. But unlike the other boats I have looked at I have a sense of peace about this process. Right now it is just information gathering but I really feel I may be on to something. I have posted in the monohull section about the specific boat and gotten some good feedback. I am tired of being a wannabe.


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[Group9]

When I went on my first cruise, I didn't really spend much time on these boards. We just bought a bigger boat and went. Looking back, and from what I have learned on that cruise, we would have had a better cruise if I had spend a year posting and asking questions here and on other sites.

We are scheduled to leave May 1 on our next long time cruise and I feel a lot more comfortable now than I did leaving on the first one.

So, being a wannabe, and trying to learn before leaving, is not such a bad thing.

[Rhapsody-NS27]

I was just catching up on the last couple pages of this thread. With the talk of kids and college, I'd say let them figure it out.

When I was coming up on graduating high school, my parents said "you have two choices, go to college or join the military."

I knew my parents wouldn't be able to pay for my college. Hell, I didn't even know what I was going to study. The only interest I had when I was growing up was ham radio near the end of 10th grade. I didn't have a clue what I was going to do for work/college. I just knew that if I went to college first, I'd have to work my way through it and learn how to say "would you like fries with that?" while smiling.

So, I joined the Army. Funny enough, it was related to ham radio. I worked with morse code because it was something I already knew. Sure, I got the GI bill for college and Tuition Assistance to also pay for while I served, but still didn't have an idea of what I wanted to do. Now in the military for 17 years, multiple deployments, assignments, etc., and I just received after 8 years of work, an associates degree this last December. So, I essentially still worked my way through college. It just took longer than expected.

I say this because I think it helped me. May not work for everyone. I just don't think that a parent should feel obligated to pay for their children to go to college. Nor do I feel that every child is deserving of it either. Paying for trade school does make since because it can be useful to learn some work skills before moving up to larger/expensive schools that they could work their own way through.

Some kids, I think, need to realize their dilusional sense of entitlement can be brought back to reality.

[SailorDoc]

Why do so many seem to suggest the "wannabees'" (I agree, an offensive term) changes in plans represent a "failure"?

Dreams change. Plans change. As long as one is happy with the new direction(s), that is all that matters.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by SailorDoc

Why do so many seem to suggest the "wannabees'" (I agree, an offensive term) changes in plans represent a "failure"?

Dreams change. Plans change. As long as one is happy with the new direction(s), that is all that matters.

Well, some of the "wanabees" to which we refer are those who arrived here o n CF and said something like " I don't know how to sail, but I'm gonna buy a (insert some sort of boat here) and sail around the world." This is often followed by a request that we (CF) tell him/her just how to accomplish this goal.

When they then take up golf or whatever, abandoning the idea of sailing anywhere, let alone RTW, I feel justified in calling that a failure to do what they said they intended to do. And we get quite a bit of that sort of posts and that sort of conclusion.

If the WB says "I'm gonna learn to sail, then buy a boat and then go sailing somewhere" and stops along the way for whatever reason, no, I don't call that a failure.

Finally, if you find the term "wannabe" that offensive, I fear that you are too sensitive to enjoy internet fora. That is a pretty mild epithet!

Jim

[Martin J.]

Hi guys and gals!
Just wanted to post my wanabee situation
For those who didn't read my previous posts...maybe a year or two ago....Can't really remember cause I was too busy making it happen. Long story short....Wanted to ditch the business and the house and take off for an extended around the world cruise when I turned 45. I turned 45 in Dec, sold the business two weeks ago, I'm listing the house by the end of this month, went to St Maarten to see 2 boats early Jan, making an offer on one in Fort Lauderdale this week...
We're right on target to set sail next fall? Planning to be in or near the Virgins by the end of 2015...
As a Canadian I just took a good blow with our dollar loosing 30% but there is no turning back and I'm just going to have to be a little less picky on my boat choice...we might even have to revert to a mono.( Still way better then staying on land)
So for those out there who might have a 38 lagoon or something similar in the 120K range, feel free to send it my way.
(No project boats please...a little TLC is ok but no major refitting) the plan is cruising not restoring...
Can't wait to raise the main and unfurl the genny!!!!

Cheers to all of you old salty's....who btw all started out as wanabees too
Oh...and thanks for all your great input and help...here in this forum and on the water during my first 10000 miles from 1985 to 2003.



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