Well I guess I have been around boats most of my life since one day getting home from
school and finding dad had bought a brand new shiny runabout, excitedly we went to the local ramp that saturday to launch it, in it went and down she went, dad knew nothing about boats and the salesman hadnt mentioned anything about the bung
plug.
Since then I have owned a multitude of powerboats. More recently(8 years ago) I wanted to get back on the
water after being boatless for 3 years. I thought about a house boat but it had limited range and I wanted to travel up the coast of
Australia to the
Great Barrier Reef. That year an opportunity arose when several of my kitesurfing friends deciding to
charter a yacht at the Whitsundays, so off we went, what a blast. Amongst our group was a good friend who had built his own
Catamaran and was
living aboard while he was finishing it ( its till not finished but he doesnt care he's off living the cruising dream) and a guy by the name of Brett Crowther, some may know him and his late father as boat designers. Well obviously each night the conversation would turn to boats particularly catamarans.
The first thing I did when we reached shore was buy a copy of
multihull world, then cruising helmsman and the search began......
I found a 40 ft catamaran designed by Derek Kelsall that had been
on the hard for some time bought it, installed 2 new 9.9 Yamahas repainted the hulls,etc...
Launched it and sailed it back down the coast to my home just north of
Sydney with the help of a
delivery skipper ( I had never sailed such a big boat on my own before). Over the next 8 years I renovated the boat rewiring and replacing just about everything, getting it ready to
head north again. Meanwhile we still used it regularly.
At the time I owned a take away shop (fast food), and when ever I spoke to customers about my dreams of sailing off to the islands my wife would add afterwards that I will be doing it on my own! That was a major disappointment as I wanted to do this as a
family with my
kids, but how can I do that if she wont be coming?
Well things turned out ok, well kind of, when during an argument I asked where did she see us in 5 & 10 years time, guess what I wasnt part of it! And she asked me to leave( it had been pretty rocky for a long while). So I left with a couple of garbage bags full of clothes on my way out to my boat I stopped at the shop( which was on the beach next to my boat). When I told the staff what had happened one of them picked up a short post and stuck it into the
knot and placed it on my shoulder and said now you look like a real hobo! That wasnt really the sympathy I was looking for. But I got the last laugh! That girl is now my wife of 6 years and with a 3 year old gorgeous daughter we are living our dream of cruising the islands. We sold the shop after some
health problems and moved onto the boat and set off, my wife didnt even know the first thing about sailing, that was
9 months ago.
So 3 weeks ago I heard a Perry 43 was going to be auctioned so I checked it out best I could with only a few days to the
auction, and spoke to people who had seen the boat, registered for
phone bidding and thats it, I had the highest bid, so off to the owner for some convincing and 3 long hours later they rang and congratulated me, I owned the boat sight unseen.
So here I am mid way through cruising and I now own 2 catamarans.....so we hired a car and drove down to the Gold coast and picked it up, loaded our provisions for a weeks sailing and tried to leave, but its abit hard when one of the motors wont start....several hours later I traced it to faulty relay. Next day installed 2 new relays and off we went, a few problems of course but I got a boat that I could never have dreamed about. So here I am anchored next to my old boat swapping all the good bits over then sell the othe one and continue this
cruise.......such is our confidence now that this is the lifestyle that we want, just need to sell the other one, I love boats but dont want a fleet!
I am now 47 and hope to still be doing this when I am 77. 360 degree
water views and can change the view anytime I want, what could be better?
Re: How Did You Start as a Liveaboard?
, bought the boat I have now, have been 
Linear Mode
Vendor Spotlight
Chevy Camaro Forum
Ford Mustang Forum
Jeep Wrangler Forum
Volkswagen Touareg Forum
Land Rover Defender Forum
