Hi all,
After several years of wondering and hoping and planning, our 50th birthdays were (still are) looming, so my partner and I got serious with our search and finally found the yacht we really wanted in the configuration we preferred. We have just bought a 2003
Outremer 55 Light
catamaran with the owner's version layout and will take
delivery next March 2017!! Can't hardly wait, but the long closing is because we have to wait to realise the equity we need to complete the
purchase. 20% deposit paid and now the long wait, sigh.
We'll be heading
offshore in about 4 years time, once our
kids have graduated high
school and no longer need their parents (and their bedrooms) to be local. We've absolutely loved cruising and visiting
French Polynesia in the past, so we're thinking of starting with a westerlies run east from
Auckland as far as Easter Island, then back into the
trade wind belt to the
Marquesas, then spending the rest of our lives heading west.
As we've never owned a cruising
multihull before (though we have decades of
monohull racing and cruising and Hobie 16 sailing, as well as a couple of years in
Australia racing a Crowther 40 catamaran) we're going to use the next few years once we have our yacht to learn about larger multihulls generally and our
catamaran in particular. We want to learn how to sail her in most conditions, figure out the modifications and enhancements while we still have decent incomes to pay for them, and use shorter return passages to
New Caledonia and
Fiji to confirm that we've made the right choice of yacht before we totally cut our ties to land.
It's so exciting and a bit scarey too, thinking about quitting our jobs and land lives to go cruising full time, especially now that we've taken the first step (or is it half-step, as we don't yet have our yacht?). We really enjoy this forum and are looking forward to continued
learning and hopefully making contributions of our own. And to meet others who are on this journey as well - please reach out to us, especially if you're in this area!
Cheers, Tom and Deb