Greetings

[Hoosiersailor]

Hello everyone! This is my first post, however I have been reading this site for quite some time now and there is a lot of great info here. This next year I am going to be boat shopping and I need a little assistance. I have been sailing for about 20 years now on and off. I used to live in NC and sailed all over the coast but I have been living in Indiana for the last 11 years. For the past few years my wife and I have been chartering in the BVI (everything from small monos and to big cats) and now that the kids will be graduating and moving out we want to move back to NC and buy a live aboard/cruiser. We do not plan to cross big oceans and just want an affordable comfortable boat for coastal and Caribbean cruising. We are looking for a mono in the 38-42 foot (maybe a little bigger or smaller) range with a shallow draft (less than 5’) for NC and the Bahamas. We would like one of the cabins to be a little larger and nicer for us. This could be a nice fwd cabin with a centerline style bed or and aft cabin similar to a CC design. A second cabin would be used for the occasional guest. I would prefer a larger fwd cabin with an aft cockpit but I am open to most anything. We are budgeting around $100,000 for the boat depending on the condition and how it is equipped but would probably prefer something even cheaper so we can extend our time cruising.

We would love a cat (shallow draft and great living space) but the initial cost and then the additional maintenance really doesn’t fit in our budget. I have looked at a lot of boats including Island Packets, Hunters, Catalinas, etc. But I think there might be many on this board that have looked exactly for this and can give me some ideas/boat models that I might not be looking for.

Hoosier Sailor