Completely Clueless Aussie

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Allan.

[Rustic Charm]

Welcome aboard.

Unless you have plenty of money avoid the power boats. They are expensive to run and as others are saying you can't go the distance.

If you have $30k, then you can rule out a cat, so your looking at a mono hill sloop or ketch. Sloops are more basic and less maintenance.

For $30k you can get a suitable boat for what you want, and you will need to renovate to make it the type of vessel your talking about for off shore cruising. But that's a good thing because you can get a good boat for $30k at this time with how the value of boats has dropped and as you do it up, practice your sailing. The benefit you will experience in doing it up is that as you renovate, repair, replace, your learning all its systems, which you will need to know.

Practice/learning. My recommendation is the schools are a waste of money. I spent $4000 in Sydney on a course and it was a complete waste of time. Before you buy a boat, you and your wife/ family, hire a yacht in the Whitsundays and give it a go over ten days. You will know by then if you want to purchase and whether sailing is for you. And after ten days, you will know the basics of sailing.

Do some night courses on navigation, weather and engines. That's about all you need to ensure your being safe. And get yourself a radio proficiency certificate.

Yacht clubs I'd recommend. Others are always looking for crews.

Hope this helps. Just be sure you want to do it before spending money (therefore hire for week or two) and then go get one.

I have a rule when renovating. As I live in Tassie, the winter is not a lot of fun sailing in. So my rule is, when I renovate, I never pull it apart so much that it won't be finished in time for the summer sailing season.

Good luck.

[tassiespirit]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Allan.

Thank you kind sir, hope I can learn a lot by being connected here. I know I need to keep learning....

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Cluelessaussie

Also random question: whats the difference between sailboats that have a wheel and sailboats that have that rudder looking thing?

oh dear!

That rudder looking thing I think your referring to is a 'tiller'. There are differences of which you will need to decide which type of boat you want.

Tiller: the immediate difference you will notice is the direction of steer is different. With a tiller if you want to turn right you turn the tiller to the left. It feels odd for the first ten minutes or so but then you quickly get used to it.

A tiller gives you good 'feel' of the waves and motion of the boat. But depending on the size of the boat, setting up 'electric' auto pilots are a bit more complicated.

Wheel: work off hydrolics, cables, gears or chain. The boat turns in the direction which you turn the wheel the same as a car.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Cluelessaussie

Also random question: whats the difference between sailboats that have a wheel and sailboats that have that rudder looking thing?

Not so much an "Oh, dear..." , but rather: Everybody hasd to start somewhere.

"Sailing for Dummies" is a REALLY good book and you can most likely find a used one at Amazon or Abe Books.

Good luck.

[bayview one]

seems to be a few Taswegians here?
cheers

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by bayview one

seems to be a few Taswegians here?
cheers

I've come across 5 or 6 myself. But there's probably quite a few given all the boats in Tasmania, though most aren't ever used.

[tassiespirit]

Originally Posted by bayview one

seems to be a few Taswegians here?
cheers

Greetings and Salutations oh ye "walkers on southern waters deep". Nice to have some local friendly faces in amongts the multitudes.

[JPA Cate]

BayviewOne,

There's also Weyalan and Wotname, for sure, may be more.

Ann

[bayview one]

thanks for that,
will keep an eye out,
cheers

[fozrunner]

Hello Jeremy!

Although I'm in Canada at the moment, your situation is close to where I was just over a year ago. At some point I plan to retire to Australia (my wife and kids are Aussies) and I had figured I wanted a relatively large powerboat that could make more than day trips. The plan was to have it based in Brisbane, but perhaps be trailerable (with a wide load allowance) so I could take it down to the brother-in-laws place at Port Stephens, to the Whitsundays, up the QLD coast to Hitchinbrook and occasionally to Sydney Harbour.

When I was in Aus last year I even went around various boat brokers and checked out some powerboats. At one in Mooloolaba, my wife and I ended up having almost a three hour conversation with a very interesting bloke, who knew a heck of a lot about all sorts of boats. He wasn't in for a hard sale as he knew my plans were three or more years off. After discussing the price of diesel, amongst other factors, he asked why I wasn't interested in sail boats. I replied that although I had limited sailing experience, I reckoned it would be harder to learn and potentially more dangerous. During the last hour and a half he showed us a few sail boats, and mentioned a few courses we could take to get experience, as well as volunteering to crew aboard different boats.

At the end of it my wife turned to me and said, quite enthusiastically 'I think we would be better suited to a sailboat than a powerboat" Up to then she had barely tolerated my dreams of any sort of watercraft!

This last summer we took a week's practical sail course and we loved it. I also discovered this forum, which has some great information (also some biased views, but that goes with any forum). We are now on a path to eventually getting a sailboat and cruising, probably much further afield than originally planned.

So consider you options carefully and figure out exactly what you want to do with your boat. There are great opportunities to learn, either way you go! Good Luck!

Foz

[td0tz]

Seconding the value of taking classes (what, you want to re-invent the wheel?) Like anything, there are ones that will suit you and your needs, and ones that won't. Some are just glorified ride alongs and that you can get for free at any local yacht club.

Naturally I favor this since I started that way, after trying to teach myself in a small dink and just getting frustrated.

I just took a couple basic dinghy sailing courses at my local community college, and with that was a very welcome crew at the local YC every week. I got to experience a wide variety of boats that I didn't have to pay for, and a wide variety of conditions. This gave me a much greater understanding of what was important to me in a boat.