Best East Coast Location

[Sea State]

Cobbs and Cuttysark are both good DIY yards in Little Creek, Norfolk, VA

Here are links for cobbs.

cobbsmarina

Rates :: cobbsmarina

[s/v Beth]

Does the Hampton area have a anchorage with 6-7 foot draw and were a 54 foot stick can get in? This is really sounding sweet. I love small towns!

[hellosailor]

Newt-
Canada might be problematic with a US documentation. You'd be an alien and all that.
Assuming you are flying back and forth, check out the airline routes and fares into the cities you might be thinking of. From Utah I'm guessing you'd want direct flights from Salt Lake, and the places with more direct flights are also likely to cost more to store a boat. Florida has the extra problem of hurricane season--see where your insurer draws the lines about hurricanes and storage. Go further north, and somewhere above DC you also need to think about winterizing and/or hauling in the winter. Virginia I think has personal property tax and depending on the county will tax you some percent every year.
Florida's "neanderthal boat" rate is also a break on registration, not taxes, as I recall. Most if not all states will not require you to pay use/sales tax on your own boat, if you've already paid their rate or more previously to another state.
But I'd start with the airline list, cut that down for hurricanes and winter, and then see how attractive the remaining areas are. Somewhere in the Delmarva peninsula, Chessapeake Bay, might prove attractive because it is temperate, lots of flights, and lots of placers to sail without needing to follow the ICW or go offshore through the inlets. Might be more pricey--but more attractive.

[AnchorageGuy]

Two anchorages we used in the Hampton/Norfolk area with our 6 foot draft. One behind Old Point Comfort and the other, off Hospital Point at Mile 0. The Hospital Point anchorage can be quite rolly from boat wakes. Chuck

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Does the Hampton area have a anchorage with 6-7 foot draw and were a 54 foot stick can get in? This is really sounding sweet. I love small towns!

Hampton river is tight, but there's 3 or 4 good spots that will fit 1-2 boats, and another spot that regularly fits 3-5 boats. 6 foot would be the maximum in most areas at low tide. Right outside of the hampton river between the bridge and military base/marina (old point comfort) with decent protection.

Hampton river anchorages get good Wifi from the city and the hampton marine center (?) has $1 a day showers and bikes, block ice, and a free dinghy dock.

it's not exactly a live at anchor type of place, but you can get away with it for quite a while if you move around every week or two, and stay low key.

Thanks Sea State for the Cobbs link. I guess i got spoiled with the yard rates on the eastern shore... I'm looking for something more like $150 haul/block/PW and under $200 a month storage.

[Hud3]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Does the Hampton area have a anchorage with 6-7 foot draw and were a 54 foot stick can get in? This is really sounding sweet. I love small towns!

Newt,

There seems to be plenty of water for anchoring in Hampton. The Caribbean 1500 assembles there before shoving off for Tortola, and quite a few boats, many of them large, are always anchored in the Hampton River to the south of the highway bridge. There are no height or depth restrictions from the Bay into the Hampton River. The limit is the highway bridge to the left of the photo, which has only 29' vertical clearance.

I've marked up a GE image with labels for the marinas. You can find them on Google. Bluewater is a very nice spot with friendly staff, a really good seafood restaurant, clean showers, laundry, fuel, etc. I've stayed at the Hampton Yacht Club, too. Nice folks, and a lot of them are really into racing, so you could probably find a crew slot if you wanted to. The Hampton Marina next to the hotel is OK, too, and the most convenient for walking into town. Hampton is a really nice town, with many things going for it. You could do worse!

p.s. North is to the left in the aerial photo...

[norsearayder]

newt,having just traveled from maine to florida,its maine all the way,maine has more coastline than the rest of the coast put together.prices are a little on the up side ,it is an interesting coast with thousands of islands and an endless summer retreat

[Hudson Force]

I do like Hampton and with the closing of Fort Monroe, I am very interested in what will be the outcome of the former military operated marina next to th anchorage that Waterwayguy highlighted above. We are always aboard our boat and traveling up and down the US East Coast with about thirty ports where we feel some sense of community. I know there are many tougher than I, but livingaboard does not suit me in the winter north of Florida. I also like to have easy access to simple afternoon sailing that doesn't require breaking inlets or big currents. If I add the requirement of good huricane protection, then the St. Johns River south of Jacksonville leads the list. I grew up in South Florida back when there was still some wilderness and woods left an the sprawl depresses me as well as the huge dense pack of moorings in Marathon. Camden, Portland, Cape Porpoise, Gloucester, Watch Hill, Port Washington, Cape May, Baltimore, Annapolis, Deltaville, Hampton Roads, Oriental, both Beauforts, Georgetown, Charleton, Hilton Head, Savannah, Brunswick, St. Augustine, Daytona, Stuart, Fort Lauderdale, Coconut Grove, Key Largo, Marathon, Key West and more all have merit for different reasons. If expense, weather, sailing access, big city amenities and isolated anchorages appeal, then the St. Johns will suit. We'll be southbound for the Keys next month and back to Maine for the summer, but always back to the St. Johns twice each year.

[s/v Beth]

Someday I am going to run into some of you and thank you for the inside scoop. HelloSailor- I have already done the transport math from Utah three ways- plane, rail and road. I spend some time in BC and never felt like an outsider, maybe east coast is different. Virginia is in the top because DC has such cheap flights- although JFK is just a bit cheaper. The rest of you- thank you for such detailed skinny on the Hampton/Norfork area. Looks like I will be coming to stay for a while, with my two - three week sailing trips going north and south (depends on the season).
Looking forward to getting to know the whole coast.

[Me-and-Boo]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Hey Newt, here's a radical thought: consider Thunder Bay, on the inland sea of Lake Superior. We have a DIY club, which makes boat ownership pretty inexpensive. The city is small, but has it all. And we have some amazing sailing up here.

Lake Superior ain't an ocean, but it'll give you all the challenge you want. It's not hard to head over the horizon and say goodbye to the shore. And it's got the big seas and big winds to rival most any you'll find anywhere. Plus, up here on the north shore, we have very few people and even fewer boats. Anchorages are never busy. You get all this, PLUS the joys of sailing on fresh water. The only real downside is that the sailing season is short, and you've got to pull the boat each winter.

Seriously, if you're that flexible, consider Lake Superior.

And with the iron blades on your keel you can wind surf on the Lake too.

[Me-and-Boo]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

I'll second Hampton, VA. I live there now and it's a perfect place for sailing, whether you're just bay sailing or heading offshore. There's a few thousand other sailors to cohort with, decent city type of living. Cheap Marinas that average around $7-8 a foot per month. The City of Hampton does not allow liveaboards, but there atleast 2 marina's I know of that allow "extended stayers". Newport news and Norfolk both allow liveaboards, but at the cost of an extra $100 a month liveaboard fee...

The only thing is the haul-out locations. I have yet to find a good DIY yard with reasonable rates. I hear they are around, maybe up the York river or some commercial yard up the James river, but I haven't actually found them yet. There are a few DIY yards, but they aren't cheap at all. The two I've talked to around here expect you to adhere to STRICT environmental rules... They charge extra to powerwash your boat if you have 'too much' growth on the bottom, and they expect you to build a tent/shelter around the entire boat if you want to do any type of sanding/scraping/painting. And they will charge extra for any failure to adhere to the rules... It's understandable and I'm not against this type of thing at all, but I'm not tenting my boat for a few days stay, to lightly sand waterbased paint and apply a few coats on the bottom.

If anyone knows of a more relaxed, reasonably priced, DIY yard in the Hampton Roads area, let me know.... If not, I'll be putting off the bottom work until I head south to find one of the many backwater yards in NC (or thereabouts).

I am at York River Yacht Club. $135/month on the hard for my Catalina 30. You can do your own work too. The ships store is very competitive on prices (actually very good on most things compared to the competition).

It is across the York River from Yorktown, the booming cannon fire occasionally is too close and I start looking for cover (he-he). There are earthworks here from the wars too. Lots of history to explore when not scrubbing the hull and deck.

[svpattyd]

Calvert Marina in Solomon's ,MD. Good , a bit rustic but in a nice small town.

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by Me-and-Boo

I am at York River Yacht Club. $135/month on the hard for my Catalina 30. You can do your own work too. The ships store is very competitive on prices (actually very good on most things compared to the competition).

It is across the York River from Yorktown, the booming cannon fire occasionally is too close and I start looking for cover (he-he). There are earthworks here from the wars too. Lots of history to explore when not scrubbing the hull and deck.

Thank you. Do you mean the York River Yacht Haven? (same thing?) Looks like a good spot for me... The 'DIY liveaboard' rate is a little steep at almost a $1 per foot per day, but I could make that work...

[s/v Beth]

It looks like I could go up the bay for haul outs and save some green. Anyway, there are a number of DIY places around that that is what is important. Let's see, did we miss anything? Oh yeah, how long to sail to Maine, and how long to sail to Bahamas....

[lancelot9898]

I'll second the nomination for Solomons, MD. Lived aboard there for almost 20 years and it was a great place to sail out of and explore the Cheaspeake both north and south. There are great places to anchor close by with plenty of deep water. Several marinas to choose from and as of several years ago there were good DIY boat yards that even allowed one to stay aboard while hauled out.

I no longer live aboard and the boat is located futher north on the Cheaspeake and soon to be sailed to North Carolina and the Pamlico Sound so hopefully will find that area as good to sail and explore as the Cheaspeake was.