Alright, so my wife and I have always loved the
Caribbean and for some reason never really thought about trying our hand at sailing.
We don't know what it is like to sail, but I don't think our expectations of life at sea match what the popular youtube videos show.
We think we would need to spend multiple hours working daily on the
boat between
cleaning or
maintenance. We would have numerous times were we would have to figure out solutions to problems and learn a lot of things we have not had to deal with before. Finally,
learning how to navigate and understand
weather to not put us in bad situations.
For various reasons we don't plan to retire for another 5 years, so we figure we will use that time to
1. Get
ASA or US sailing certified (does anyone have recommendations in Austin TX or around for a great place to learn?)
2. If we enjoy the
certification, join one of the clubs on the lake here, try to sail once a month to build skill.
3. Volunteer where we can locally to crew.
4.
Charter a 35-45 foot monoull and a cat for at least a week in
BVI or the
Bahamas to get a feel for what we prefer. We are damn near certain we would prefer the motion of a cat but not going to go into a large
purchase without trying both options.
5. Start trying to figure out what we want to buy if we are still in love with the idea after 1-4.
6. Repeat steps 2-4 until we get a
boat & retire.
We DON'T want to be one of these folks that buy a boat, leave for the
Caribbean and decide the life isn't for them.
All that being said, doing this will require
money which we want to put together over the next few years (and why I am
posting here). Our rough idea is to put together the funds to buy a cat and have a cruising kitty in 5 years time (depending on numerous factors), which we have been well underway on for now (we had some other goals we were saving
money up for)
Assuming that we think we will want a 35-45 foot owners cat our budgeting goals would put us at having 300-450k (numerous factors) for the
purchase and ~300k cruising kitty (worst case 5 years @ 60k, best case much, much longer)
The 60k per year figure comes from assuming 10% cost of the cat + living expenses. I know this is highly variable between everyone, but we are the type of people that enjoy
cooking and don't mind not needing to eat out or sacrifice in other ways if we had a particularly bad
maintenance year.
My big question is this - does it make sense to believe that a cat can be found in turnkey condition in that rough
price range? I'd prefer to need no
refit time needed and go sail, but I don't know if that is naive or not. I know folks do this with a whole lot less, but once we leave our careers behind we want to be pretty sure money ain't gonna be a worry.