Ready to take the plunge! Need advice

[rexposeidon]

Blue Dreams,

Go to YouTube and watch Captain Q's channel.
He goes over numerous boats of all prices and utility. It's free easy window shopping for someone in your shoes.

Look for others who have posted recently in your same shoes and compare notes with them.

Then read EVERYTHING you can find about cruising.

Start with these, and good luck!

[blue dreams]

i signed up for the class today and paid the fees. I Will spent as much time as possible around Perry lake and then start taking trips to coastal areas to expand my training. This will be fun.

[Moana Bella]

Sail on an many boats as you can, to see what you like and don't like.
Clearly define what type of sailing you want to do, so you can establish priority features - otherwise it's too confusing comparing apples with oranges.
Find a boat you like enough to spend LOTS of time and money on it. (I re-iterate what others have said - they are all project boats).
Make sure you don't spend all of your budget just buying the boat. Even though you can do lots of the work yourself, still keep about 30% back for fixes, improvements, modifications, etc. You will find them once you have the boat. Otherwise it will take you forever to get going.
Find some sailing friends. Trust me - every single thing you do on a boat is harder and takes longer on your own. And the sailing part is much more fun with company.
Good luck on your sailing journey.

[sailingharry]

One challenge is the combination of living aboard and sailing. Sure, it can be done, and I have friends that do it. But what often happens, especially on a smaller older boat, is there is so much stuff in the boat and so many projects being done that sailing never happens. It becomes a alternative to an apartment. And if that is the case, power boats are much better live aboards than sailboats!


As an alternative, consider an old dock mate. He lived in a dirt home. His boat was a tired run down old Irwin 30. He used the crap out of it! No frills, no stuff on it,. But he sure took it out an awful lot!

[austinsailor]

You mentioned you passed on the Hunter 37 cutter. I had one for many years and wrote up many upgrades and repairs. This may help you if you consider another.

http://austinsailor.net/upgrades.html

[Adelie]

Welcome.

I would suggest updating your profile with your general location and your boat make & model or “Looking” in the "Boat" category. This info shows up under your UserName in every post in the web view. Many questions are boat and/or location dependent and having these tidbits under your UserName saves answering those questions repeatedly. If you need help setting up your profile then click on this link: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3308797

I would happily help more if the link above is not enough.

[Rohan]

Blue Dreams, I was you not long ago. You can also post this on the meet & greet forum: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f9/

If you already know how to overhaul diesel engines, are familiar with electronics, batteries, plumbing, etc, you are already far ahead of where most beginners started out from. I had no idea how to even change the oil, for example, until I learned from YouTube videos. You can always hire people to do all your maintenance, but that gets really expensive and won't help you when you are far from shore.

Some advice - people suggest taking ASA courses, which is not bad. I did some of those too. The classroom side is especially good to know sailing regulations. But for actual sailing, I learned more in one day of private one on one lessons than I did in in all my ASA classes. It was expensive (95 bucks an hour), but well worth it. So that's something to consider too. Wolfgal suggested joining a sailing club which is also very good advice if there is one near you. You don't even need a boat to do that. Some sailing clubs are pretty inexpensive, they have events/races where you can sail on other people's boats, and you essentially get free lessons from old timers, and some of them love to help you troubleshoot your maintenance problems for the fun of it.

As far as what kind of boat you should start with, people could write books about that. But it makes a big difference if you are solo, with a partner, sometimes plan to bring guests or kids, have a dog, etc. That 37' boat you were looking at is a great cruising size for a couple. Beginners should generally start with newer boats, but if you enjoy diving into maintenance right away, go for it.