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Old 09-03-2018, 19:02   #1
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Greetings from Orlando.

Greetings everyone. I planned on lurking for a while and pick up some valuable info, before I posted anything, but realized that I have too many questions within some threads already!

First off, I don’t have a boat YET, and I have never owned one. I am working toward purchasing a sailboat, sometime next year and diving right in… so to speak. I lived in an RV for 5 years and loved it, so I am familiar with the comfort, material possessions sacrifices that come with it…

This is something I have had on my mind for the past 10 years, and in that time, I have attended a few boat shows, and I feel that I could live pretty comfortably on a 38’ …. something. My budget is ~100k for the boat, and have it paid off before I retire. I should have plenty of $$$ to live on and maintain the boat with my retirement.

I have never sailed before, so I will be spending this year taking sailing lessons, and gaining experience. Since I live in central Florida, this shouldn’t be too difficult. I have been doing a fair amount of reading, research and watching live aboard videos on YT. Both the positive and negative! But you can’t ask specific questions to a book, or YT.


I am a senior flight attendant, so have a very flexible schedule. I can fly a lot and make money, or I can take a month off and sail anytime I want… or any combination in between. I can commute from practically anywhere in the Caribbean to work. From what I understand, that is a pretty good place to get started anyway. Eventually, I would like to sail to the Med, Azores, etc… but I’m not too interested in Asia anyway.

So, Logistically, it’s very doable. My biggest obstacle is… I’ve never sailed before. I have been on many sailboats, as a guest, and assisted, so forth. I don’t think it is beyond my capacity to learn, but I also realize that it takes years of experience to become a proficient captain!

I look forward to lurking and learning, … Oh, and asking a TON of questions. I promise that I will try to exhaust the search engine before asking the “What boat should I buy” type questions.

~WingRyder
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Old 10-03-2018, 02:54   #2
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Re: Greetings from Orlando.

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, WingRyder.
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Old 10-03-2018, 06:18   #3
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Re: Greetings from Orlando.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WingRyder View Post
Greetings everyone. I planned on lurking for a while and pick up some valuable info, before I posted anything, but realized that I have too many questions within some threads already!

First off, I don’t have a boat YET, and I have never owned one. I am working toward purchasing a sailboat, sometime next year and diving right in… so to speak. I lived in an RV for 5 years and loved it, so I am familiar with the comfort, material possessions sacrifices that come with it…

This is something I have had on my mind for the past 10 years, and in that time, I have attended a few boat shows, and I feel that I could live pretty comfortably on a 38’ …. something. My budget is ~100k for the boat, and have it paid off before I retire. I should have plenty of $$$ to live on and maintain the boat with my retirement.

I have never sailed before, so I will be spending this year taking sailing lessons, and gaining experience. Since I live in central Florida, this shouldn’t be too difficult. I have been doing a fair amount of reading, research and watching live aboard videos on YT. Both the positive and negative! But you can’t ask specific questions to a book, or YT.


I am a senior flight attendant, so have a very flexible schedule. I can fly a lot and make money, or I can take a month off and sail anytime I want… or any combination in between. I can commute from practically anywhere in the Caribbean to work. From what I understand, that is a pretty good place to get started anyway. Eventually, I would like to sail to the Med, Azores, etc… but I’m not too interested in Asia anyway.

So, Logistically, it’s very doable. My biggest obstacle is… I’ve never sailed before. I have been on many sailboats, as a guest, and assisted, so forth. I don’t think it is beyond my capacity to learn, but I also realize that it takes years of experience to become a proficient captain!

I look forward to lurking and learning, … Oh, and asking a TON of questions. I promise that I will try to exhaust the search engine before asking the “What boat should I buy” type questions.

~WingRyder
Welcome to the forum. ASA has excellent meat-and-potatoes courses, and the amount of information about sailing online is staggering. Use it to chart you own unique course.
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Old 10-03-2018, 09:49   #4
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Re: Greetings from Orlando.

Need to find out about the specific places decimated by last year's storms, my favorite was Tortola, hit very hard.

Find a good base location you like, convenient connections to your work, where there's a very active sailing community and figure out reasonable accommodation that suits you.

Start hanging out at the clubs / bars / marinas getting to know the gang.

Get onto Lasers or whatever dinghies available, around sailing programs set up for kids or tourists, whatever, all the skills you learn in a tiny boat will help you with the big ones.

Get friendly with charter outfits's staff, boat owners, caretakers, repair people, all the hangers-on and power players wired in to the network.

Collect all the racing dates coming up in the region, and start passing the word you want to be "ballast crew", no skills required.
If you cook well, volunteer as crew doing that for trips that suit your schedule, ideally partnering up with a skilled sailor, crew often gets hired as a team.

In other words treat "getting on sailboats" as a full-time job, and the opportunities will come in spades, maybe at some point you actually get paid for doing something you'd be happy to pay for!

In between sign up for short courses, after asking around where the good ones are. Memorize a whole new vocabulary, read books and magazines, hang out with vendors, offer to work for free and pick their brains.

After you have started climbing the learning curve you can start spending money hiring different boats, pay or invite your more skilled acquaintances to captain for and teach you.

You will start getting to know different boats, learn who to trust, and start coming across incredible bargains and opportunities.

Getting onto longer delivery passages is a brass ring, grab that if it comes around.

Your participation here will just be a small supplement to your learning curve IRL.
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Old 10-03-2018, 12:56   #5
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Re: Greetings from Orlando.

Quote:
Originally Posted by john61ct View Post
Need to find out about the specific places decimated by last year's storms, my favorite was Tortola, hit very hard.

Find a good base location you like, convenient connections to your work, where there's a very active sailing community and figure out reasonable accommodation that suits you.

Start hanging out at the clubs / bars / marinas getting to know the gang.

Get onto Lasers or whatever dinghies available, around sailing programs set up for kids or tourists, whatever, all the skills you learn in a tiny boat will help you with the big ones.

Get friendly with charter outfits's staff, boat owners, caretakers, repair people, all the hangers-on and power players wired in to the network.

Collect all the racing dates coming up in the region, and start passing the word you want to be "ballast crew", no skills required.
If you cook well, volunteer as crew doing that for trips that suit your schedule, ideally partnering up with a skilled sailor, crew often gets hired as a team.

In other words treat "getting on sailboats" as a full-time job, and the opportunities will come in spades, maybe at some point you actually get paid for doing something you'd be happy to pay for!

In between sign up for short courses, after asking around where the good ones are. Memorize a whole new vocabulary, read books and magazines, hang out with vendors, offer to work for free and pick their brains.

After you have started climbing the learning curve you can start spending money hiring different boats, pay or invite your more skilled acquaintances to captain for and teach you.

You will start getting to know different boats, learn who to trust, and start coming across incredible bargains and opportunities.

Getting onto longer delivery passages is a brass ring, grab that if it comes around.

Your participation here will just be a small supplement to your learning curve IRL.
Thanks for the very in-depth reply! Much of what your are saying is already in my plan. I will be starting my "part-time" job (learning to sail) in May. But until then, I am doing as much online stuff as I can. I have already taken the ASA free-course, essentially just terminology, learning the meaning of bouy markers, sailing theory videos, etc... I agree! The amount of info on the web is staggering! I am grateful to all of those folks on YT that altruistically share their knowledge for 'friggin' FREE! I watch a ton of Vids from cruisers, mostly the ones about the sausage making part of cruising, and not the ones where the couple is like, 'look how cool we are, we're in <insert exotic location here>.

I have yet another avenue open to me as well. There is an airline "regata" in the Caribbean, basically a bunch of airline pilots, that have boats, meet-up to 'race', but they are just island hopping from Bar to Bar. Additionally, one of our captains is a Yacht broker, so once I'm ready to buy, I think he may be a good insider to assist me in finding my dream boat.

I am very excited, and in a way, I am glad that my finances won't be in order for another year. That will restrain me from making an impulsive decision. I have to wait until my knowledge builds before I get anywhere near a purchase.
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Old 10-03-2018, 16:05   #6
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Re: Greetings from Orlando.

Quote:
Originally Posted by danielamartindm View Post
Welcome to the forum. ASA has excellent meat-and-potatoes courses, and the amount of information about sailing online is staggering. Use it to chart you own unique course.
Thanks. A local Cocoa beach club has a ASA101 & 102 combo course for a very reasonable price. I love the interwebz! It allows one to learn at their own pace and in their own way! I am a visual learner, so a 10 min video on apparent wind, is better than reading 100 pages.
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Old 11-03-2018, 07:51   #7
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Posts: 40
Re: Greetings from Orlando.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WingRyder View Post
Greetings everyone. I planned on lurking for a while and pick up some valuable info, before I posted anything, but realized that I have too many questions within some threads already!

First off, I don’t have a boat YET, and I have never owned one. I am working toward purchasing a sailboat, sometime next year and diving right in… so to speak. I lived in an RV for 5 years and loved it, so I am familiar with the comfort, material possessions sacrifices that come with it…

This is something I have had on my mind for the past 10 years, and in that time, I have attended a few boat shows, and I feel that I could live pretty comfortably on a 38’ …. something. My budget is ~100k for the boat, and have it paid off before I retire. I should have plenty of $$$ to live on and maintain the boat with my retirement.

I have never sailed before, so I will be spending this year taking sailing lessons, and gaining experience. Since I live in central Florida, this shouldn’t be too difficult. I have been doing a fair amount of reading, research and watching live aboard videos on YT. Both the positive and negative! But you can’t ask specific questions to a book, or YT.


I am a senior flight attendant, so have a very flexible schedule. I can fly a lot and make money, or I can take a month off and sail anytime I want… or any combination in between. I can commute from practically anywhere in the Caribbean to work. From what I understand, that is a pretty good place to get started anyway. Eventually, I would like to sail to the Med, Azores, etc… but I’m not too interested in Asia anyway.

So, Logistically, it’s very doable. My biggest obstacle is… I’ve never sailed before. I have been on many sailboats, as a guest, and assisted, so forth. I don’t think it is beyond my capacity to learn, but I also realize that it takes years of experience to become a proficient captain!

I look forward to lurking and learning, … Oh, and asking a TON of questions. I promise that I will try to exhaust the search engine before asking the “What boat should I buy” type questions.

~WingRyder

Hello from Devon Uk.
My advice is to sail small boats in sheltered waters as much as you can so you can become aware of the effects of wind and water on sails and boats. small boats respond more quickly to changes in wind strength direction and steering. that way you will learn the mechanics and they become second nature. something under 16ft will be great. If you come to dartmouth I will take you out on our GP14 which I bought for my wife to learn on. also read everything you can get your hands on ... cruising under sail, heavy weather sailing, voyaging on a small income and anything by the pardeys is a good start.
Martin
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