Gave my two week notice at work...

[Celestialsailor]

Well...I disagree with most of the big wheel spenders on this thread. Apart from that, I'll give my 2 cents with what I experience and people I have met along the way. I just returned from the upper Sea of Cortez where I have completed the last of my maintenance schedule. Yes it has been a hefty bill...but only because I mad changes in order to head off into the Pacific in a year. I met a young guy that has been sailing on a 30 footer that once went around the horn. He anchors out 95% of the time and his maintence bill is well under $1000 a year. I also met another guy who bought an Islander 44 for $5K on ebay a few years back and again his bills are under $1000 a year. On the other side of the coin are people in $300K boats, glued to the docks, spending hoards of money talking about cruising. Both sides seem happy with what they are doing.
My only concern for you would be attitude. You have to remain positive and optimistic if you are going to make the cruising life work for you. If this is something you want to do soon, meaning in the next 6 months, why not come to Mexico and buy a boat in San Carlos, Mazatlan or La Paz? They are cheaper here, almost 100% real cruising boats and the weather is for sailing now.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Well...I disagree with most of the big wheel spenders on this thread. Apart from that, I'll give my 2 cents with what I experience and people I have met along the way. I just returned from the upper Sea of Cortez where I have completed the last of my maintenance schedule. Yes it has been a hefty bill...but only because I mad changes in order to head off into the Pacific in a year. I met a young guy that has been sailing on a 30 footer that once went around the horn. He anchors out 95% of the time and his maintence bill is well under $1000 a year. I also met another guy who bought an Islander 44 for $5K on ebay a few years back and again his bills are under $1000 a year. On the other side of the coin are people in $300K boats, glued to the docks, spending hoards of money talking about cruising. Both sides seem happy with what they are doing.
My only concern for you would be attitude. You have to remain positive and optimistic if you are going to make the cruising life work for you. If this is something you want to do soon, meaning in the next 6 months, why not come to Mexico and buy a boat in San Carlos, Mazatlan or La Paz? They are cheaper here, almost 100% real cruising boats and the weather is for sailing now.

CS, while I personally agree with you, the OP has stated that he wants to cruise around Vancouver Island and the Straits of Georgia area, and does not like tropical venues. He's been pretty open and specific about this (to me odd) desire.

So, for you and all the other folks who think he should go elsewhere, he doesn't want to! Lets stop trying to alter his goals and help him realize those that he has!

JIm

[Celestialsailor]

Thanks for pointing that out Jim. I must have glazed over that fact. Surprised Ann didn't catch that first.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Well...I disagree with most of the big wheel spenders on this thread. Apart from that, I'll give my 2 cents with what I experience and people I have met along the way. I just returned from the upper Sea of Cortez where I have completed the last of my maintenance schedule. Yes it has been a hefty bill...but only because I mad changes in order to head off into the Pacific in a year. I met a young guy that has been sailing on a 30 footer that once went around the horn. He anchors out 95% of the time and his maintence bill is well under $1000 a year. I also met another guy who bought an Islander 44 for $5K on ebay a few years back and again his bills are under $1000 a year. On the other side of the coin are people in $300K boats, glued to the docks, spending hoards of money talking about cruising. Both sides seem happy with what they are doing.
My only concern for you would be attitude. You have to remain positive and optimistic if you are going to make the cruising life work for you. If this is something you want to do soon, meaning in the next 6 months, why not come to Mexico and buy a boat in San Carlos, Mazatlan or La Paz? They are cheaper here, almost 100% real cruising boats and the weather is for sailing now.

And you got aquainted with a guy on CF who lives in the Med on an Oyster anchoring out full time on 10-15 euros per day.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by hamburking

Have you seen this Alberg 30 at a crazy low price:

Classic Alberg 30 sloop | eBay

1 bid
winning bid $2950
Looked like it was in good shape too, maybe didn't need too much.

If you have a powerful dream, a bit of skill at boat work (or at least open to it) and $10K, there are good old boats out there that could be worth it to dive in and make them sail again...and come back to life

Forgot to mention you might keep an eye out for a Rawson 30. They are no speed demons but they have a lot of room for 30' and I hear they are built quite well. I have one 2 slips down from me and it looks like it has twice the interior volume as my 29! I remember seeing one with a hard dodger for sale up there a while back.

[robbievardon]

$3000 sounds a real steal, but if you read the whole ad there is a little bit about a couple of "soft spots" in the deck. This has the potential for a major expense depending on what the deck core is made up of. I am not sure if boat sellers are as economical with the facts as used car salesmen, but I would not pay for a boat I had never seen, unless i had read a NEW survey report and verified the source of the report. Do you have a transport cost to add and are the dock fees paid up to date? To good to be true,may or may not be true.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

And you got aquainted with a guy on CF who lives in the Med on an Oyster anchoring out full time on 10-15 euros per day.

yes I did and a better man for doing it...

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "$3000 sounds a real steal, but if you read the whole ad there is a little bit about a couple of "soft spots" in the deck."

Not to be worried about. For the sort of sailing I believe the OP is gonna do, here in waters I know well, a bit of softness here and there is nothing to worry about.

Thee grand is the cost of a years moorage in the more remote marinas. Whe the OP has advanced to something else, he can just give this boat to the Sam Sullivan Society against a tax receipt.

A three grand boat has no resale value, although obviously SOMEONE picked her up off e-bay. Maybe just for the bits, tho disposal of the carcass is expensive.

TrentePieds

[navy davy]

Shaun and Julia sailing YouTube channel just put their cruise ready boat up for sale after finding a problem with the engine that was going to cost them more than they could afford out of their cruise budget . the boat is on the east coast and the last episode of their channel talks about the boat "I'm easy "check it out.

[robbievardon]

I don*t agree at all with Trentepieds view in this case. In fact it seems to me that the vast majority of responses disagree with him.To save me writing all over again, go to his "decks" link and see my response. Unless he is going to become a siamese twin of the OP he has no control over where he sails and around Vancouver Island does include the Pacific Ocean!!!!

[robbievardon]

Forgot to mention this, but pleasant as Mexico is (and I am Going there in January) it is still capable of producing some very stormy weather ie Hurricanes, seasonal I know,but keep it in mind

[TrentePieds]

Ribbie:

I think you missed the "I believe" in my post that you object to. I don't have a problem with that, and if you, as a "new entry", go back through my past posts, you will see that I consistently make the case that sailing/cruising in the overgrown bathtub we call the Salish Sea is a kettle of fish of a different colour from sticking your nose into Hecate Strait, circumnavigating VI or going down the West Coast of the US.

I based my "I believe" on my reading of the OP's first post, meaning no disrespect to him at all, which suggests that he wishes specifically to sail in the Salish Sea, but that he is not yet a sailor, i.e. he would not be ready immediately upon purchase of a boat to go "blue water", or for that matter even to deal with the Straits of Juan deFuca when it gets snarly.

If a man is messing about twixt Shelter Island and French Harbour, with a quick look at Plumper Cove and Brigadeer Bay on the way, all in the interests of learning to become a sailor, or blithely drifting down Trincomalee driven by a cat's-paw, a soft spot or two in the deck is of no consequence. A $3K imperfect boat is prolly a very good way to get started (in these benign waters) since a 3K investment is the sort of thing most people can walk away from if cruising turns out for subjective reasons to be less than it's cracked up to be.

I see elsewhere that your are professional seaman and I respect that. I see nothing in your postings or stats to indicate that you know the Salish Sea. You may not, therefore be aware that you have to try really, really hard to ever be more than an hour or two's run from a well-found marina or other hidey-hole . Thus stress of weather is not the same threat in the Salish Sea that it is when sailing "for real".

Because of that, a vessel that you, as a professional seaman, may well turn up your nose at, may serve a novice rather well for the restricted purpose of learning to sail in the Salish Sea.

You will see also if you go through my past posts that I consistently argue that since frozen snot boats last forever and a day, even if blemished, the best early expenditure you can undertake is to re-engine. I recommended that the OP budget his meager funds accordingly. Our waters are infested with reefs, pinnacles and half-tide rocks, and the current in many places that you may wish to go often runs 6 knots or even more, particularly where the "slot" is less than 2 cables wide. Not a problem if you have a reliable engine, but without... No novice sailor should be abroad in these waters without a reliable engine.

So on the question of safety I would think you and I are in accord. As MySaintedMother never tired of telling me: "A vessel must be fit for her trade". Being "fit" isn't the same when the "trade" is in the Salish Sea as it is when the "trade" is blue water.

Another thing MSM used to tell me is "if you can't mend it with a piece of cod line and a dirk, don't go to sea in it!" She was terribly old-fashioned I admit, but there is something in what she said.

I would think that a forty-year-old, $3K Alberg 30 is PRECISELY the sort of thing you can "mend with a piece of cod line". And a little help from CF-ers ;-)

Best regards

TrentePieds

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Another thing MSM used to tell me is "if you can't mend it with a piece of cod line and a dirk, don't go to sea in it!" She was terribly old-fashioned I admit, but there is something in what she said.

Personally, after wrestling with and cursing at mechanicals, electricals and other modern conveniences while being sprayed with cold water or with nausea in the bilge.. I'd say there's far more than a fair bit of wisdom in those words!

[TrentePieds]

DonCL

I told this story before you came here, I believe, but it may be worth telling again for the sake of the "new entries"

I may have been 13 years old. I was visiting Granny and standing on the wharf in MySaintedMother's childhood town - a fishing harbour. A geezer who might have been the age that I am now was readying a little "spidsgatter" - a double-ender - for sea.

I spose that even then I had an appreciation for a well-crafted rear end, so I said to the geezer: "Wow, Sir - I bet you could take that boat out in some really bad weather!"

The geezer gave me a hairy eye-ball and said: "Look, Boy - you DON'T take them OUT in bad weather!"

It took me some years before THAT lesson struck home. But it has now ;-)!

TrentePieds

[KetoNomad]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

If you think corrosion and hull fouling are not issues when not in a marina, you have lots to learn.

I definitely do have lots to learn, although a much saltier guy than I said he found his anodes last much longer while on the hook. Hull fouling I'm guessing is much less common when you sail most days too, right?