Advice

[Lysander]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

Dreams are great; everyone should dream but sooner or later, reality sets in. At this point, you have no idea what it's like to live on a boat, never mind take care or pay for it.

Do yourself a favor and don't fall into the illusion of what sailing is like. It's not all pretty sunsets and peaceful living on the cheap. Picture living in a small RV with no place to escape while it's raining and rocking uncomfortably while you try going to the bathroom in a closet.

You sound like you don't enjoy sailing.

[ArtM]

Originally Posted by Lysander

Hello,

I am 23 years old and my wife is 24. We have been able to amass over $30k. We are preparing to leave the U.S. and sail the world.

1. Which boats would you recommend we buy for our budget (that can handle circumnavigations safely)

2. What are our options in terms of making money during our travels?

If you need more information, please ask.

I know that we don't have a lot of money. We don't need much either.

Thanks.

Unless you have a source of income, you won't be gone for long. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, just that $30k will not get you around the world by itself. It will barely get you offshore.

You might be able to get an older medium sized monohull sailboat for around $20k. If you're lucky and don't require $10k in additional repairs, you might be well outfitted for some offshore cruising (you will need 6 feet or deeper at all times)

You will need to stay on the hook and be frugal with food and alcohol.

I think you should carefully consider the life you will be living. Read the recent thread "Don't give up yet, but here's some advice" from a fellow who took off on the cheap, and found that his lifestyle choice was viable, but unfulfilling.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by Lysander

You sound like you don't enjoy sailing.

It's fun, challenging when racing and educational. What it isn't is an idealistic utopian dream limited to the last 1 mile entering a remote South Pacific paradise. Not that anyone would admit to such a perspective but that sounds precisely what anyone with absolutely no experience has in his mind.

Tell me such dreamers envision spending time inverted behind a hot engine in a rolling anchorage breathing diesel fumes while changing flax packing...

[sentientcj]

The lady and I have been preparing this for a year and we're leaving in two weeks, so here are some things I've learned along the way:

1) READ. Best for your (and her) life is Heavy Weather Sailing by K. Adlard Coles. You've GOT to know how to handle inclement weather, or you sink.

2) It's not the boat that costs the most, rather, how much you refit it and how far you want to go with safety gear. Seen how much offshore liferafts are??!!

3) I started at $25k then, after two boat surveys, quickly realized that I would need double that for a good, seaworthy boat and enough money to complete a two year circumnavigation. So we saved $50k and we're almost off! Bought a (hopefully) good boat for $15k, put about $10k into her, and have $25k left over for a tight budget for the trip.

4) People have sailed the oceans in rafts, let alone catalinas. But if you don't know what you're doing I'd imagine a light production boat becomes exponentially more dangerous than a heavy bluewater cruiser. But heavy bluewater cruisers tend to cost more.

5) READ. Somebody already mentioned it, Voyaging on a Small Income. It's great, old but really gets down to saving money and doing it on a budget.

6) Do away with things you can live without. Electric Windlasses, SSB Transceivers, etc.

7) Spend the money for a good survey. Get a list of em from an unaffiliated marina and call and talk to them, ask for their experience. You'll pay $500-$1000 for a 30-35' boat depending on where you are, but it sure as hell saves you from ending up with a boat that will eat ALL of your nest egg before it even hits the water.

Hope that helps. When I decided to do it I got all the books I could on the topic and haven't stopped reading yet. You're going to have to teach yourself a lot, so I'd say discipline in the right areas is almost a necessity for safety. This forum was a lot of help as well, of course.

[Lysander]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

It's fun, challenging when racing and educational. What it isn't is an idealistic utopian dream limited to the last 1 mile entering a remote South Pacific paradise. Not that anyone would admit to such a perspective but that sounds precisely what anyone with absolutely no experience has in his mind.

Tell me such dreamers envision spending time inverted behind a hot engine in a rolling anchorage breathing diesel fumes while changing flax packing...

I'll take the good with the bad. Tropical islands are great, but I am much more motivated by the opportunity of achieving a greater autonomous lifestyle and not having to spend my life doing activities which give me no real meaning in my life, yet consume most of it.

I don't see it as an idealistic Utopian dream; I see it as a way of life that I would prefer over my current one.

[sentientcj]

Oh, and we're 31 and 22.

[foggysail]

Originally Posted by Lysander

I'll take the good with the bad. Tropical islands are great, but I am much more motivated by the opportunity of achieving a greater autonomous lifestyle and not having to spend my life doing activities which give me no real meaning in my life, yet consume most of it.

I don't see it as an idealistic Utopian dream; I see it as a way of life that I would prefer over my current one.

You are in for a huge disappointment! Good luck to you, you surely will need it. You asked for advice, you got advice from folks with real life experiences and you find fault with it. It only takes one mistake, the ocean is unforgiving. And when you get there, where ever there happens to be, what are you going to support yourselves? Again, good luck

[sentientcj]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

It's fun, challenging when racing and educational. What it isn't is an idealistic utopian dream limited to the last 1 mile entering a remote South Pacific paradise. Not that anyone would admit to such a perspective but that sounds precisely what anyone with absolutely no experience has in his mind.

Tell me such dreamers envision spending time inverted behind a hot engine in a rolling anchorage breathing diesel fumes while changing flax packing...

Shows how much I know... What the **** is flax packing??!?!

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by Lysander

I don't see it as an idealistic Utopian dream;

I know.

And if you are counting on sailing/boating to change your "way of life", that is a matter of attitude, not venue.

[sentientcj]

Originally Posted by Lysander

not having to spend my life doing activities which give me no real meaning in my life, yet consume most of it.

So long as you can appreciate fixing every little thing, at all times like Lysander said, you'll at least be prepared for the biggest part of cruising.

[sailorboy1]

it just seems I've seen this thread before, wish I could remember what happened that last time

[ohdrinkboy]

Go to youtube and search on: Cruising Albin Vega Velocir

Good series of cruising videos on a 27foot Albin Vega by a young couple.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Lysander

Could you elaborate on the cruising vs. liveaboard? We intend to live on this boat for a long time. How does that differ from cruising? Is a liveaboard some who is always docked?

Also..

No we are not having plans to have children until our late 20's.

Cruising would be regularly making passages involving several nights or more underway. From what a lot of cruisers have written figure on that being about 10% of your nights. In addition to the sailing you will be anchored most of the time, figure 80%, and the final 10% in a marina or on the hard. When underway or at anchor in brisk conditions, let's say 20-25% of the time, the V-berth will be untenable for sleeping, it will be just too bouncy to sleep. That means anyone trying to sleep will be in main cabin of a smaller boat. Pilot berths being near the center of the boat will have the least motion and do not need to be converted nightly. Quarter berths would be the second best: a little more motion, a little better privacy, more exposure to spray coming in the companionway, less than half the main cabin space used. Settees, longitudinal seats for a table have motion as good as a pilot berth but require a bit of effort to convert nightly and back each morning.

The following links have interior layouts showing the various options:
CAL 34 - 2 quarterberts and a U-dinette
CAL 40 - 2 pilot berths, 2 settees and 2 quarterberths
CASCADE 29 - 2 quarterberths and a dinette

Even though needing to sleep in the main cabin happens only a modest amount of the time, awkward sleeping arrangements can contribute to loss of sleep sufficient to impair judgement and create safety issues. For that reason interior arrangements more conducive to underway living are generally preferred over marina living arrangements until the boat is large enough to accommodate both.

Living aboard you can expect to spend very few nights underway or in bouncy anchorages. Dinettes require a fair amount of effort to convert to a berth: the table needs to be removed or dropped, cushions rearranged and lee cloths installed to create a single out of the double. Given the limited number of times this will be needed for a liveaboard, a dinette is more reasonable. In the case of a U-shaped dinette, if you are handy you could create a table attachement that allows you to pull a couple of pins, slide the table top towards the center of the boat, and sleep on the base of the 'U' without expending significant effort twice every cycle.

Here's the timeline I could reasonably see happening:
Move to east coast, buy a boat by June '13.
Outfit the boat and build sailing skills until Nov'14 (after hurricane season)
Cruise thru Caribbean building cruising skills until May'15 (just before hurricane season)
Start the round the world portion of your cruise, either NE to Europe or SW to the Panama Canal. A cruise where you don't dawdle will take 3yr. If you push hard you can do it in 2yr, but you won't see much on the way. I would count on 5 or more years.

This would push you into your early 30's for kids. As someone who started having kids at 40 and had quite a number of acquaintances have difficulty having kids in their early to mid 30's, I can recommend from experience that late 20's really is the best time.

Consequently I would suggest making 1 kid a consideration in boat choice, and if a second one came along while still cruising you would have a year or two where they would be small enough to share a bunk. In the meantime this would give you extra storage space or room for a guest while underway, not just at anchor.

Alternatively move to the Pacific Northwest which would probably shave a year of the build up but would require a bigger mental shift when you do actually setoff as the geography of the west coast is not as conducive to gradual accumulation of skills.


A short list of the boats I would consider follows:
BAYFIELD 25
CENTAUR 26 (WESTERLY)
TARTAN 27
VEGA 27
TRITON (AEROMARINE)
TRITON (PEARSON)
CAL 28
CASCADE 29
CAL 29
ALBERG 30
WANDERER 30 (PEARSON)
BAYFIELD 30/32
VANGUARD 33 (PEARSON)
RANGER 33
PEARSON 10M
CAL 34
COLUMBIA 34 Mk II

If you wanted to stretch your budget a little, there is a CAL 36 for sale in Mexico for about $16K.

The rest of these boats are available for $5-14k though some of them might be in awkward locations like Wisconsin.

Keep in mind that a larger boat in just as good a condition at a price you can afford may still overwhelm your budget with secondary costs. A larger boat requires larger anchors, anchor line, anchor chain, sails, winches, fitting, rigging wire, running rigging and autopilots. Larger in this case is a synonym for more expensive. At about 30' you are going to start needing a windlass ($1200 for a new manual, $2k new electric) for anchor retrieval, and 34' would be the absolute limit.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by sentientcj

Shows how much I know... What the **** is flax packing??!?!

Packing is the material that goes into the packing gland around the propshaft where it exits the boat. It keeps the water from gushing in. The packing used to be made of flax, a relative of cotton I believe. These days the packing tends to be other things like polyester and teflon. Under power the packing gland will drip several times per minute.

There are also packing glands around ruddershafts where the rudder tube stops below the waterline, usually for wheel steering gears since the rudder tube generally extends all the way up to the cockpit floor if the boat is tiller steered. This gland usually doesn't drip at all.

The alternative to a packing gland is a dripless seal that uses different materials and a different geometry to achieve the same ends but without any dripping.

[Lysander]

Originally Posted by foggysail

You are in for a huge disappointment! Good luck to you, you surely will need it. You asked for advice, you got advice from folks with real life experiences and you find fault with it. It only takes one mistake, the ocean is unforgiving. And when you get there, where ever there happens to be, what are you going to support yourselves? Again, good luck

Foggysail,

Thanks for the response. I'm sorry if you interpreted me as such, but I have not found fault with anything that has been posted here. How can I find fault with a subject such as sailing of which I have little understanding?

You ask me what we will do to support ourselves. This question has already been asked by myself in this thread; perhaps you have a suggestion.