Quote:
Originally Posted by Fore and Aft
I would be interested to see who has actually sailed before buying their first yacht? A client of mine spent $300,000 on a cat and the first time he went sailing was on the sea trial! He knew it all, had watched YouTube and was hiring a delivery skipper to show him the ropes for a few weeks.
I get a fair few clients who have never sailed or boated and just throw themselves in the deep end.
Cheers |
Not too unusual.
We went to several boat shows to compare the models and get an impression of livability and built quality, but knowing we would rather afford a pre-owned cat we had to look at the older models. YT
research and various
used boat platforms gave us an impression what to expect. Lots of
reviews too so we sailed in theory every boat. Many prospects even were not available for charter and because of lack of
experience we even have not considered to charter one alone for a test ride.
Never sailed before, done the sailing
classes and practical
training on a 45ft
monohull with a
certification as costal cruising
skipper in a one week intensive sail turn.
We did exactly know what we wanted and finally found our cat, an owners version, fully equipped and almost ready to sail, was in charter before. We hired a
surveyor to dig deeper and check it out after us having looked at it inside out for a couple of days.
First sailing was indeed on the sea trial. First alone moving the boat was 6 month later off the travellift slip to the floating
dock and getting her tied up in a tight slip between two other cats, what an exciting
experience. Between this she was on the dry
dock, have done a lot of
maintenance during this time,
sanding down the
bottom paint, applying copper coat, fixing
electronics, upgrading the
electric systems, living on board and making her ours.
Then we took her out of the marina for couple of hours, figured out how to set the sails properly and how she behaves in different conditions. We have done 2 weeks of coastal cruising, first returning to the slip, then our first over night anchorings. I would say comparable to a charter
vacation, besides we knew the boat in and out technically then in contrast to a 1h
introduction when chartering.
Then we set sails for a 5 week / 1000+nm
cruise from
France via Korsika, Sardinia, Sizilly,
Italy,
Croatia to
Slovenia. We started with lags of 20nm ad light breezes and ended up in day and night passages of 300+nm in severe
weather conditions. We buit up confidence in the
gear an also respect of the sea and
weather. We left her at the dock for the
winter and now we are living on board full time and cruising the 4th month, with more than 3000nm on the
keel water. Still
learning every day new tricks.
Should have we chartered before buying? My gut feeling is no, charter cats are different, I see them every day passing by, small cabins, no livability, lots of heads, no
electronics like
AIS,
radar whatsoever, overcrowded and lazy, most of the time docked at
marinas for eating out, always motoring. This is not the experience for living on board or trying before buying.
We saved the
money instead and invested in our new home in LFP
batteries, a proper
galley and refits that make it comfy and safe,
epirb, plbs, proper life vests, chart plotter upgrade,
maintenance. It may make sense, when you buy new and intend to give your boat in charter to charter first and see how the company treats the fleet, but making a decision for a cruising
liveaboard boat based on charter is almost meaningless. Livability and
storage is more important than sailing performance, the systems on board you may need for cruising are rarely installed, the time is too short to check it in all weather conditions by chance.
Choose the boat you want to live in and fit it out for your cruising grounds.
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions