Hi all. My wife and I have been lurking on this forum for a while trying to absorb as much as possible but now it's time to start asking some questions.
2 Years ago we decided to make a 5 year plan (scary as we never planned more than a few months before!) to go cruising with our two
children who will be 7 & 10 when we leave. We are now down to 3 years before casting off and touch
wood everything is lining up so its time to plan in earnest.
So we've done the
research, been to a few boatshows and bought a UFO 34 to learn some skills (upgraded from a mirror dinghy). We've decided a cat is the way to go for us and had a look at the usual suspects (Lagoon,
Seawind,
Leopard,
Catana and quite a few others) out of which we're 90% sure that the FP
Orana is the one that has the right balance of compromises.
Boat choice is obviously highly subjective but we welcome any other suggestions of something similar to the
Orana other than those mentioned.
We are based in Western
Australia which is a long way from anywhere, our initial plan was to buy in the States or
Europe and spend a couple of years sailing back to Oz. The strategy was to buy a
boat that's reasonably new but already fully set up for cruising so that brings up the first question: What are the chances of finding a boat you can just sail away with minimal setup time? if the boat isn't set up for
long term cruising but has the usual basics how long does it typically take to prep a boat?
We would ideally like to have a cat over here in Perth for the next few years before the big trip to learn the specific skills associated with a multi and just to enjoy coastal cruising with the
kids. So we were thinking of
buying a smaller cat to tie us over and sell it before picking up the larger one overseas but maybe that's a bit crazy?
The other option is we get the dream boat now but the problem there is first we need to ship it here (anyone know how much it costs roughly to get a boat to Perth from the States or
Europe?) and then where to from Perth? We're not even remotely interested in entering pirate territory and SE
Asia isn't as attractive as Europe/America and the Pacific (been traveling
asia extensively for the last 15 years) so we'd probably sail to
Singapore and ship it from there?
Anyway we'll be asking quite a bit more soon, just out of interest are there any other families on this forum that would be planning something similar in 2015? Be nice to connect and share ideas, experiences and eventually some anchorages!
Thanks and Regards,