We are you, just a few years ahead. We are about to close on our first
boat, a
Lagoon 380 catamaran.
The best
advice I can give from one
newbie to another
newbie is to be patient-we started looking at
boats when I was 45 and hubby was 47, and three years later we're finally about to close on our
boat.
The entire idea started when we were dropping off our younger kid at summer camp (she was in high school) and he said "I'd like to get a boat, what do you think?" We spent the drive back searching "boats" on the
internet (lol), and gradually came to the conclusion that a
catamaran was the right fit for us.
Then it was which catamaran, and that took another year of
research and looking.
Then it was finding THE catamaran, which has taken six months of intense hunting. This boat under
contract (and accepted and surveyed), is our third one we've made an offer on. For various reasons, the other ones did not
work out due to condition. We are hopeful that this one will be ours by the end of the month, god willing.
During the three years we were hunting and researching, we also went out on some cats and loved them. Just loved them. Loved being on the
water, didn't want to come back to land. We are both 100% committed-and we kept asking each other along the way "do you still want to do this?" because it's VERY scary to spend that kind of
money buying something you have no idea how to use, and committing to all the lessons and
learning that go along with it.
We also didn't buy our "Forever" boat (we think). We are
buying one we feel comfortable
learning on and spending weekends on, and that is not an unusual one-off that will be hard to sell or
repair. We also did not go into debt to buy one, in case the world goes to hell in a handbasket and we need to sell it. We did drastically downsize our home when the youngest went to college to make it
work financially.
I should also add, that while we have no sailing
experience, we do have some handyman/electronic/plumbing/sewing/math skills that seem to be very applicable to being happy on a boat. I don't think it's absolutely necessary, but I think it helps when both parties are excited about the idea of adding "diesel
engine repair class" to the to-do list.
Our plan is to retire in about 5 years once both
kids are out of college and independent (fingers crossed) and either move up to a larger cat (like a
Lagoon 450F or a
Leopard 48), or decide that it's not something we want to live on and keep the 380 for the weekend. Or decide that sailing is not for us and sell it, and we picked a boat that would be (relatively) easy to sell in 2-5 years if the
maintenance is done properly.
Some people have told us we're crazy, but from our perspective, and our spreadsheets, and our continued interest in pursuing this goal for the last three years, we don't think so. I like to reply to the naysayers with "You don't stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing." We feel like we're now grown up enough to have a really epic toy to play (very carefully) with.
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