Young & Ambitious Engineer with Six Month Leave to SAIL - Advice ?

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by Young_Engineer

+ Find a first mate (preferably young lady + petit + blonde (not essential)) (TCD August 2011)
+ Found someone who nearly fits the above

That one sentence could supersede all other sentences. Don't let the little head do the thinking for the big head!

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Young_Engineer

Money

+ ~$25k CAD in Cash
+$20k CAD in RRSP (untouchable?),
+$30k CAD Approved line of credit
+$? boat loan?
+ 6 months of work left – potential for $10k CAD or more?

Start by assuming you have $32k (Savings and pay to come) to play with.

If the LOA is approved then you can tap the line of credit. Without garunteed work after don't start getting indebted.

Don't know what an RRSP is but it sound like retirement savings which you don't want to touch on principle and if it's like the US there will be big tax penalties. Don't count on a boat loan, banks don't want to loan to people without current work. If you try for the loan in the US you are a foreign national. For Canadian banks the boat is outside the country. Not impossible but ... Also, unless you are willing to go the better part of $100K in debt any boat you can afford will be so old banks won't want to make the loan.

Crew
+ Find a first mate (preferably young lady + petit + blonde (not essential)) (TCD August 2011)
+ Found someone who nearly fits the above

Crew is good, especially eager crew. Most especially eager, young, nubile crew. Also means you can meet Colregs requirements for lookout.

Boat
+Still interested in purchasing in Florida
+CAD:USD exchange rate, strongly favours CAD (likely purchase USD $1000 / wk from now until I leave = $24k)
+Looks like there are still good deals on boats in Florida.

Trip Itinerary
+1 month sublet apt in Florida to find, practice sail and provision.
Have you considered buying a VW Westfalia or similar, living in that while you search for the boat. You get used to the living space, have transpo to go looking. Can look a lot farther afield. Save money on rent. Can sell when done. Probably don't want to sell in the US but... Once you buy the boat, move aboard immediately. Dispose of the vehicle after outfitting.

+Set off for Bahamas after comfortable on the boat.
+go wherever the wind blows (kind of..)
+Just returned from Cayman Islands and I would like to add them to the list of places to visit.

Issues:
-Purchasing a boat in the US as a Canadian – anyone have info on this?

Problem. Vessels documented in the US have to be owned by US citizens. Harder to go cruising with just a state registration. Heard the Mexicans like tagging people crossing into their waters with CA registration rather than US documentation. That said, I understand most of the Caribbean islands are cool with state registration. Do you research ahead of time and don't count on going much further.

-Not getting the LOA from work (option to quit if not given the LOA?)
-Convincing potential crew member to join me (should not be an issue, she seems keen)
-Boat Insurance, advised? required if there is a boat loan? required if I used a line of credit?

Boat insurance will be some percentage of the boat and contents value. If you buy with a loan it will mandatory. With a personal line of credit, probably not, the bank doesn't know what you will use the money for, they won't have collateral and that is why they are charging you a significantly higher interest rate.

Insurance may or may not be available depending on the boat you buy, your intended itinerary and the number of crew on the boat.

Personally, for a boat in the vicinity of $15k I would get liability and nothing else.

Assuming $32k, 12mo off count on spending $1k/mo to live and $1k for search and survey. That leaves $19k to buy and outfit. Count on 50% of purchase price to outfit, so $13k to buy. To me that means a 30-40yr old boat about 28-33' long.

Time to go to lunch. Maybe I'll write more after.

[roverhi]

If you'll only have a year to cruise you'll want to have the boat ready to go the day you leave work. If you don't have the boat ready, you'll waste months getting the boat ready when you could have been out there, btdt. Buy the boat now, get it ready, start your leave of absence, and untie the docklines. Don't waste a moment of your leave buying and outfitting a boat or you'll probably find still in port when the time is up.

[Young_Engineer]

Thanks All! Good points! I hadn't thought of the VW Westfalia, but great idea.

On the Line of Credit - I personally don't like buying things I don't have cash for... However, I would consider a loan with a good interest rate that is backed by my RRSP contributions as collatoral.

On buying in the United States - I started this thread: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ort-60476.html

and it appears it can be done. I assume there's some paperwork, but good to know it's not impossible.

On having the boat ready to go day 1 - I would love for this to be the case, but logistically having the boat in Florida, this is a challenge. I would rather to have the boat down south and work on it for a month, then buy here (pay the premium on the dollar), pay for storage and then sail the intercostal for 1 month (or more). But I agree in starting the search early (and if I can get away for a week vacation I will!).

Thanks!

[James S]

Thanks for the update...its always interesting to see how things shake out.

[Charlie]

Just to throw another thought in to your formula-- have you thought of OPB? Other people's boats. When I graduated from college about 25 years ago I left college with no debt. It worked out well b/c before I had actually graduated I got invited to deliveries on boats from San Fran to Newport Beach, CA and then to do a race from Newport Beach to Cabo San Lucas. While there I went to La Paz and met a boat that was sailing from Manzanillo MX to Tahiti thru the Marquesas and the Tuamotos. In Tahiti I meet another boat that was going from Tahiti to Sidney, Aus via Bora Bora, the Cook Islands, and New Zealand.

Whatever you do you need to make sure that your time off is not during the hurricane season. You can also look to sail from BC down the coast to Mexico.

Not buying a boat will save you a lot of money and give you a good taste of the lifestyle. There are plenty of older people who can not find crew to sail away on their dreams. Some can't keep crew and some are great.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

[Young_Engineer]

I think I've managed to maintain this thread longer than any girlfriend. From early to 2009 to late 2011 and I finally have things are falling into place;

Work approved a 10 month Leave of Absence (Nov 1, 2011 - Sept 6, 2011)! Now the hard part! What to do?? I've spent the last couple of months trying to decide how to best use my time...

I've opted to take Charlie's advice (post directly above!) and aim to crew for a portion of my LOA. The Goals of my LOA are;

1. Sailing / Travelling; I am 100% flexible on timing (Nov 2011-May 2012), can get to almost any location and able to support some of the cruising costs while on the boat. Anyone need crew?

2. Learn a second language - ideally Spanish! (currently have a basic knowledge of French)

3. Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) volunteer work overseas (Jan-April 2012), which may include;
a. Learning and supporting “Social Business” and “Micro-Credits” (http://www.grameen-info.org)
b. Community Development through technology (http://www.ewb.ca/en/index.html)

4. Fulltime Student core “Foundation Term” of Ryerson MBA (pending scholarship) (May-August 2012) MBA in the Management of Technology and Innovation - Ryerson MBA - Ryerson University

Thanks everyone for support, advice and inspiration.

Long term cruising (and purchase of my own boat) is still on my radar for retirement, or when I feel I've got enough money and time to make it happen