Born or Bred ?

[Csm]

Hi forum!

My husband and I are relatively new to boating, or at least the owning part of it. We live near a large recreational lake populated with all types of boats, and after ten years of wishing and thinking (and having babies--that was the biggest reason for my stalling) we finally bought a 24' deck boat last year, and just passed the 100-hour mark on her engine.

So, we're really new.

The kids are all old enough now to enjoy that type of boating, just taking it out for the day and swimming and tubing and regular day-boater stuff. And, it's relaxing for mom since they can all fetch their own drinks and sandwiches and can swim and stuff.

So now we're looking forward to what to do when the nest empties in ~12 years. When we married, I had a dream retirement involving living aboard, and traveling internationally. When I was 22 (now 42), I had some friends who sold off everything and moved aboard a 40' sloop. I spent a couple of weeks with them cruising around the Bahamas. Heaven! WANT.

My husband's dream was a little different. He wanted to settle into an RV and travel the states. Not sooo different, except the scenery. However, now that he's got the boating bug and heard about the Great Loop, he wants to live aboard and make that trip. Progress, right? Most people motor the Loop, though, and the boats you'd purchase for that trip are a little different from an ideal boat to cross oceans. He likes the space inside cruisers and trawlers--a typical sailboat has much less space (but wow, the cats are looking awful much like a good compromise! I had no idea how big the salon is inside a 38ft cat! Not a great loop boat, though).

So, any suggestions on how to talk a motorhead into a sailboat?

I would be fine with buying one boat to cruise the loop, then selling it and buying a more seaworthy vessel. But, we still need to learn to sail, and personally I'd like to have ten years or so of experience before crossing the Atlantic. I found several small cruiser sailboats (22 footers) available on our lake for dirt cheap. Boats that need some TLC, but nothing major. I would love to get one for a project to fix up and learn to sail on, here on known waters. He's not so excited about that. He says he wants to travel further than the ICW and inland rivers, though...should I just focus on costs? How much more money we can spend on dining out and finer things if we aren't spending so much on diesel? All the cool places we can go?

Or should I just be happy that he's willing to do a little cruising, and realize he's just not born with massive wanderlust and is to old to breed it into him?

Divorce is not an option, lol.

[The Blue Heron]

Welcome Csm!
I would recommend you buy a smaller sailboat now and start to learn and he will or wont come along. That will help you decide type of vessel. Who knows you may lose the desire to sail after doing it for interim 12 years. Then you can buy a Trawler / Cruiser. Do your year on the loop and decide if you want to sell out and buy a Sail to head to the Carib and beyond. No matter, it will be on the water...
Welcome

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Csm.

[Cheechako]

after checking the price of RV sites last year... do that...... and the $600-1000 a month might talk him out of it!

[Csm]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

after checking the price of RV sites last year... do that...... and the $600-1000 a month might talk him out of it!

Great idea!

I would simply like to coax him onto a sailboat in the next year or two. It's a lot different from turning a key and hitting the throttle! I think he would enjoy it, but he's never even been on one.

so I guess step one is: get a ride on one, if just for a few hours.

Too bad our marina is all brooom-broooom go-fast boats and floating campers. There is a sail club across the way, though. Maybe if I idled in with a few cases of beer? lol. I'd probably be better off on foot...

[Csm]

The price of a basic sailing class is more than the boats I was looking at!

[LongTallSailor]

Good luck on your sailing endeavor, Csm.

[Adelie]

Bring up the relative fuel costs.

An average power boat is going to run between 1-3mpg.

The same length sailboat will run 8-12 motoring, considerably more sailing. The tradeoff is in decreased living space for the same length boat.

[Mike Banks]

I think one of the magical moments on a sailing vessel happens when you turn off the motor after the sails fill and draw--and the speed increases with the comparative silence. A thirty foot catamaran would do nost of what you wish to do and draws little water. With a diesel outboard it would have a similar turn of speed to the average trawler--about ten knots under power and a little more under sail. Anything up to forty feet in fibreglass would be my pick--leave the timber boats alone. They are nice but high maintenance--and I know. I sail one!

[Ishmael]

My wife and your husband seem to be on the same wave-length! I'm having a similar dilemma: she wants power, and I'd rather sail. There are practical reasons she regularly cites: 1) We live on an island that's 30 miles from any place else, so we'd be able to go further away faster in a power boat. And since we rarely have lots of time off when we can really "get away", that's a big plus. 2) Less work to prep and go. 3) Our mooring permit limits us to a vessel of 25 feet (currently on a multi-year waiting list to upgrade).

I'd rather spend a weekend sailing up and down the coast without stopping anywhere than racing off with engines revving to some other town. The time on the water (for me) IS the destination. And like you, I want to spend my time learning more about sailing in preparation for that day when our mooring permit upgrade finally comes through and I can get THE boat.

I've pretty much decided I'm going to buy a Catalina 25WK for next season. It "fits" on our current mooring, and it's trailerable, so the maintainance won't be much (relatively speaking).

I'd suggest you keep feeding the great loop idea and keep that alive - it's a huge step in the right direction. In the meantime, take your husband on a crewed charter vacation aboard a catamaran in the caribbean. That'll help him see the light!

[rgscpat]

Welcome!

It would seem very cool if you could try chartering (or getting invited aboard friends' boats a lot) on both trawler-style motor cruisers and blue-water sailing boats. Some charter companies have both.

[Csm]

Our local sail club does instructional cruises in the Virgin Islands, roughly the same amount of $$ as a vacation there anyway, sooo...we could get our ASA certificates (iirc, it covers 103, 104, and 105) and a really cool vacay.

We would need to do 101 locally first.

Still working on it! I showed him a cat video I found on here, he LOVED it.

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard!
I was going to suggest that you sailing club might have a basic sailing class but I guess you've already checked into that.

Hope you can find a cheap basic sailing class. Shop around a bit. If it is either ASA or USSailing then they follow the same curriculum as all others and you can shop by price.
kind regards,