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Old 11-05-2016, 13:21   #31
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Re: A good inexpensive learner boat?

If your goal is to learn how to sail, the best boat would be a small dinghy.
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Old 12-05-2016, 06:34   #32
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Re: A good inexpensive learner boat?

My advice is to not buy anything until you are ready to live aboard and then its going to be the real boat you want. Life on a Cal 25 and the like would be outright miserable on a good day.

Instead, spend like the other poster said, on sailing TIME. Lessons, practice, out in storms, celestial navigation, begin acquiring gear, these are all things to do which dont require your own boat (yet). If you buy anything right now you dont intend to keep, remember you have to re-sell it somehow, you have to fix and maintain it. Forget it.

I dont believe there is any such thing as "practicing or learning to live aboard." Either you do or you dont.

Sailing classes are offered in any college located near water and they will often use something like a Lido 14, probably the best learning craft on the planet. Spend your time and effort there. Make friends and crew on larger vessels too. If, for example, you could buy a cheap old small sailboat on Craigslist for $600, I still would rather buy a good sextant for that money and if you are lucky, some good charts within that budget too.

There is another thing seldom talked about. You buy a boat to learn, only to find out you hate sailing and especially sleeping overnight on a boat. Then what, the money is burned and you just write it off and walk away? Wish I was rich like that.

I dont even see how sailing and living aboard can be said in the same breath. How are they equal to each other? LEARN to sail and after you have failed or taken to it, THEN discuss boats. Anyone who says they want to buy a boat to learn to sail and live on it is 100 steps ahead of where they actually are.
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Old 12-05-2016, 07:26   #33
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Re: A good inexpensive learner boat?

Well... there is practicing for living aboard and especially practicing for an extended cruise such as an Atlantic crossing.

Kind of like "camping" trips vs living in a motorhome. What you learn from a weekend helps you learn what you will actually need in vessel size and supplies for a longer time in the smaller living space.

Sorry... there won't be room for 500 pairs of shoes and 5000 lbs of clothes that you'll never wear in the boat like you might have room for in your house even if you get a 50 ft boat. You'll have to select stuff you'll actually use REPEATEDLY.

Laundry facilities will be relatively limited on board.

Water will be like liquid gold on a longer cruise.

What foods you can reasonably stock, preserve and prepare will be limited also.

Its going to be a different way of life.

Sure you can supplement storage and have transportation handy at home port just by having a van in the parking lot. But as soon as you cut free of the pier, that's gone. You will be calling a cab, walking or using a bicycle at your destination.
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Old 12-05-2016, 08:29   #34
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Re: A good inexpensive learner boat?

I bought an O'Day 30 for about $10K and it does not need anything but a little cosmetics. It is a very stable and forgiving boat...good to learn on. They key is to take your time looking and not to buy something just because it is cheap or to get seduced by looks and features. Also, be wary of a boat that hasn't been sailed for a year or more. Also, it is a good idea to take a sailing class. Good luck.
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Old 12-05-2016, 11:17   #35
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Re: A good inexpensive learner boat?

All Tanzers are tanks. Tanzers were designed for the Great Lakes, where the chop is square and the storms come fierce. Their spars, rigging and hardware are larger than you would find on a comparable-sized boats. They have medium to high ballast ratios. Yet for all that, they generally sail pretty well.and thay do like a good breeze.

The T26 is surprisingly roomy and sleeps two adult and three kids.
Hull and deck is chopped fibber glass solid not sandwich core construction.
Low maintenance usually outboard engine cost < $5000.

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Old 12-05-2016, 12:24   #36
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Re: A good inexpensive learner boat?

I agree with MarkSF. The way to learn sailing, really learn SAILING, is in a small dinghy, and even if you have no competitive bone in your body - race it. Don't have to win. But what racing does is force you to go to a particular destination (the next mark of the course) even if it is not in the direction easiest to sail, to do that without relying on an engine, to maneuver in crowded conditions (start lines and around marks). And after experience in ta dinghy, race your own boat. You willlearn how to handle your own boat. Racing to win is fun for some, but not for all. But we ALL can learn more from racing one season than we would in a decade of day sailing around the bay or lake. Although I'm not as accomplished a cruiser as some on this forum, I did spend 4 years cruising in Mexico and decades doing deliveries of various different boats between Puerto Vallarta on the south and the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound on the north. I've seen skippers not be able to get their boat safely to a dock if their a motor died - and MANY other things that people who've raced their own boats could do easily.
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