Perhaps consider what you want to do and where you want to go. A
circumnavigation (of the Earth do you mean?) is a huge undertaking. I presume from your post that you’re not planning a non stop trip, (a very different sort of trip and requirements). On this forum most of us think ‘cruising’ is essentially short
passage making place to place with longish stopovers at leisure (usually several days or more to see and experience the sights), with occasional long passages. A short
passage is typically achieved in less than 24 hours.
You mention friends/family joining you for legs. Bear in mind that the further from home the less likely this becomes. People from the work-a-day life have very different schedules and expectations. Their leisure is based around available leave and flight schedules, nice
meals and yummy drinks, where as yours will be based on
weather windows, often one pot
cooking and what do I feel like doing at this moment. Very difficult to plan schedules and dates to accommodate visitors when you’re cruising. Stuff happens, and you’ll never be early.
Also living on a boat is very different than say a
hotel for your guests holiday. Most people don’t adapt especially well to living in a cramped boat with everything ‘child’ size. Having to step over, climb up, or get down on the floor to open a cupboard, remembering and trying to conserve
water and
power, using a tiny
toilet and
shower etc is not for everyone. And being cooped up in a boat for a week or so of constant rain and
wind is no fun at all, especially at a rolly anchorage.
Another problem with your plan is that it requires a solid ocean going yacht. So serious money, serious risks and serious demands on the boat. And given your obvious lack of sailing you don’t really have a clue what an ocean passage is all about both for yourself, crew or the boat. And that’s not a criticism, it’s a fact. You can learn for sure, everyone starts somewhere, but go and get some local and
blue water experience and see if you like it before selling up and sailing out. There’s always people looking for crew. And it gives you significant insight on what works and what doesn’t in a boat. I think actual sailing is hugely more valuable than vicarious learnings through, blogs,
books and youtube.
But back to the boat. If you just want to see the world, another far less costly option is to fly in, and buy local. Virtually everywhere in the world there are
cheap old 28-35 footer day sailors that are excellent local cruising boats. So you sail around till you’ve seen enough, flick off the boat and fly on to the next country/area or fly home again for a few months working till you’ve saved enough for the next adventure.
In
New Zealand where I live, sailing down from
Fiji or
Tonga is a nightmare trip for many and the trip requires a very very strong and well equipped boat and reasonably experienced crew. But air flights are inexpensive and plentiful and when you get here cheap boats abound. For $5-10K US you can buy a very decent yacht and when you sell it say 6 months later you won’t have
lost much money. Sure for that price the boat you buy isn’t going to be a blue
water cruiser, but she will be a very adequate, reasonably well equipped local cruising boat. And the worst you lose is the purchase price.
Many people
cruise this way. And I don’t know why we don’t have more people on the forum talking about their experiences doing exactly this. Young Europeans in particular do this quite often. They want to visit NZ or
Tahiti or
Japan or where ever. So they organise 6 months leave from their job, pop $20K in their travel kitty, arrive at their (studied)
destination and buy a boat for the duration. Often they’ve near enough done the boat purchase on-line before arrival.
And there’s no reason you couldn’t try this approach. If you find you love the life after 6 months or so, then yeah fall back on your
current plan, buy and
refit a fantastic ocean cruiser and go for it.
But beware, because the majority of people never do actually leave. They typically buy a
project boat and then start to spend copious quantities of time and money getting the boat and themselves ‘ready’ (whatever that means). Five years later their interest has waned, their life has moved on, and they have a big expensive problem that decays a little more each day.
You say “trying to keep the initial purchase to under 30-40K and doing some refitting-to make it complete.” Honestly dude you are very unlikely to luck in on a decent blue water cruiser for that. Also you’ll need to have some seriously good boat building skills. And it doesn’t sound like boat building has been a part of your life to date. And you live in Minnesoto? You’re hardly surrounded by sea, so you’ll likely have to buy the boat miles and miles away from where it is to your home for the
refit. Or alternatively you move your life to where the boat is. However you achieve this, it will not be cheap and it’s a big problem. I’m sure just looking for a boat is a problem from where you live. I’ve no idea what it costs to travel to say
Florida and spend a couple of weeks looking at boats
for sale. But I’m sure travel, accommodation, rental car etc would be what? 3K for two of you?
Just to emphasise a couple of points. Someone in an earlier post recommended Mahina Expeditions. I’d not heard of Mahina before and clicked the link. What an amazing resource and so thank, you thank you BlackHeron. But Mahina have listed a handful of boats
for sale and the cheapest I could see was $149K NZ (roughly US$107K). That’s realistic for a proven blue water mono! And All the boats available will all need
work and materials because it is never ending on a boat, plus of course they’re up to half a world away.
But on a positive, why not book yourself on one of Mahina’s ocean legs For $3K plus airfare you’ll have a wonderful experience, learn heaps and have a good idea if you like the life style. Cheaper still join a sailing club and make friends with people with boats. As well as Mahina there are many expedition companies offering this type of
service based in pretty much any/everywhere in the world you want to go.
So to sum up. My message to you Dan is for both yourself and partner to think very carefully about what it is that you’re trying to achieve and where you want to travel. Then consider the options to get there.
PS Thank you too for an explanation of OPB - Other People's Boats. That's a new abbreviation to me, and good suggestion for all newbies.
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