How Did You Get Your Boat ?

[Jill_Brian]

I agree with most that it is planning that makes it possible. I have not bought the boat yet, but we will within the next few months.

I am a university prof and make probably slightly lower than average for profs (i am in the arts so we don't make nearly as much as science or business) anyway, wife has done some part-time, but mostly raised and homeschooled our kids through 6th grade.

WE can only afford this because we go out to movies once a year during the holidays, don't eat out but learned to cook really well ourselves, don't go to bars, but can make 20 different martinis ourselves, made the kids work hard in school so they got full rides at universities, made them get jobs and make their own money at 16 (no more allowance and they had to pay for gas) on and on.

Now, we are in a position to do what we have dreamed for some time and we are both younger than 50 (only just younger) and are hoping to retire within 5 or 6 years.

I always told the kids (we are hikers so it made sense to them) "If you take the hard trail to the top of the peak you have every direction on the compass open to you. if you take the easy way up the gully following the stream you loose choices the further you go until there is only one way forward. Do the hard part now and enjoy it later when it really matters. This year should always be the best year of your life"

[norsearayder]

worked,saved the money,paid cash,a small boat with a suitcase full of cash goes further than a large boat tied to a bank

[GeoPowers]

Grumpy old men. Should've taken the "kid" sailing!

[44'cruisingcat]

I built it in my backyard.

[SailingwithSoul]

I always looked for the ones no one wanted. I got mine for the price of registration. She went down because of a faulty bilge pump. I spent 6 weekends cleaning, cutting and replacing everything I could get my hands on, without a break or help. I still have some cosmetic work to do, but Sailor's Soul made me proud during her first shakedown cruise.

Cheers and happy sailing to everyone and their beautiful boats!!

[Cotemar]

Girlfriend came home one day and said "I just bought a Catalina 30 sail boat".
I said, what are you flippin crazy. We do not even know how to sail.
..
..
..
Look where we are now. It's addicting.

[tager]

I saw the ad for "Keet" a 1968 Haida 26 on craigslist. The price was too high, so I made a lowball offer and sat on it. Three months later, the boat was still not sold, so I got it for less than half the listing price. She's a very nice boat and I don't plan on changing unless a seaworthy multi comes up for the right price. (unlikely)



If you have a boat, and you don't think luck played a role in acquiring it, you are simply wrong. It takes quite a bit of luck to even get to the point of owning a small runabout.

Lucky you weren't born in Tibet.
Lucky you're not deaf, dumb, and blind.
Lucky you didn't lose it all in an accident.

Need I elaborate?

[Celestialsailor]

Being a blue collar guy, I knew I would never be able to afford a turn key boat. but I had always traded from my childhood on and knew I could buy, fix, flip. I started out building in steel a few times which was fun and later would buy F/G derelicts and restore which is what I'm doing now. I also applied this to housing and have a house here and land in Hawaii paid off.
It irks me to no end when some little snit mocks hard working people as 1% or buying into some kind of bull dream. I feel the best part of this path I'm on are the earnest people I meet who at the end of the day smile with accomplishment and a good sense of self worth.

I found this one in a yard, for sale who's owner had passed away. he had been sick for some time and the boat fell into disrepair. Like most of us, the boat spoke to me.

[Ex-Calif]

Didn't buy a mcmansion
Didn't buy a 46 inch plasma
Didn't buy an rv
Didn't buy a garage full of cars and motorcycles and riding lawnmowers
Didn't buy twice yearly vacations to vegas, europe, etc. etc.

Born poor, started working at 12 delivering papers 3 times a day. Been working at least semi-full time ever since.

There aint no luck involved.

How'd I get my boat? I wrote a check... Never finance toys.

[sww914]

I promised to pay 5k in a week and pay 20k within 120 days, I had $800.00.
I went home and started selling stuff, I had gathered a lot of old Porsche parts and cars when they were cheap here and there, sold 3 low budget race cars (2 were projects) and managed to pay the boat off on the last day. It was tight.
We sold the rest of our crap and parted out my business and here we are, cruising without enough money to do it but doing it anyway.
When I was 10 it would have been very difficult to ever come up with,say, $100.00. Now I know how to do that easily as we all do. We can come up with what we need when we focus on that and work hard towards it and know we can do it.

[s/v Jedi]

Okay DeckOfficer, it took me some time to think of a good way to tell this so here it goes

my mother:


my Father:


they get together:


make me:


teach me to sail on a 30 footer for 17 years:


while I start with my first boat:


and we sail and sail:


then we built the Internet (well, a little piece of it):


while getting serious with girls and cars:


now watch this... use paper charts and such:


while training with the lady for the real thing:


and then we sell the Internet (ehrm.. that little piece of it)


and then we found this in the Gulf of Mexico:



Nick.

[deckofficer]

That was a simple story, another Internet entrepreneur that cashed out to smell the flowers for the rest of your existence on this planet. Makes perfect sense to me, and if I wanted a crack at some world record like "Most solo circumnavigations by an old fart" I would pick the same boat.

Well organized post, Nick.

[Celestialsailor]

And Nick lived happily ever after...good on ya...

[cdennyb]

worked my ass of for over 40 yrs, hard to save with all the expenses and real estate payments, and never had a decent profit because of the real estate prices dropping so much in the last 5 yrs., got lucky, bought a winning lottery ticket by accident. The rest is history.

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by cdennyb

worked my ass of for over 40 yrs, hard to save with all the expenses and real estate payments, and never had a decent profit because of the real estate prices dropping so much in the last 5 yrs., got lucky, bought a winning lottery ticket by accident. The rest is history.

Now that history I'd love to hear.