I Wish My VW Bus Could Float

[David M]

I'm sure with enough silicon sealant in the right places you could get a VW bus to float.

[Ocean Girl]

VWs rock!
I second the searunners, they are cheap, beautiful, and sail like a dream. Also you might be able to find a folding tri at a good price (f-27)
Also for a mono, check out the Tartans, Pacific Seacrafts ( 25 is trailerable), bayfields( slower but good boat).

You can get paid to sail! Just do a couple freebies and gain experience, references, and a good rep. Finding good reliable, trustworthy crew is hard. Once you prove you are not a drunk, wacko, or lazy bones and show you are level headed, hard working, trustworthy( obey orders, don't sleep on watch, don't disappear as soon as you arrive at port) the paid crewing jobs will come to you.

heed the call of the sea, she will not let up till you do.
Cheers
Erika

[Wookiee_King]

I would gladly crew for free to get some experience. I can't do anything till next April though. I promised my current boss that I would not leave the shop till then. I have always lived by the code "loyalty above all else" so keeping this promise is of the utmost importance to me. I feel that even with no sailing experience I may have a leg up on other candidates for a crewing position. With even the smallest amount of research a person would find that the shop I currently work in is known as the hardest working restoration shop on the planet. We crank out more "Barrett Jackson" quality cars in a year then any other shop. We also have a webpage where every build gets its own blog, and I am required to update this daily. We have several thousand members, and we love interacting with them. Needless to say it gets pretty funny at times. It would give anybody interested in having me crew a peek into who I am. Oh and we have two live webcams that I am constantly caught dancing like a fool on.

[Ocean Girl]

You can do it!
I had zero experience, was an 18 year old girl, and blonde :-).
My first two or three gigs was free, then it was pretty smooth sailing after that. I learned to gravitate to the family boats, they usually are more stable in their itinerary, better maintained vessels, less risky behavior. They don't usually pay a lot but I only needed one or two paid trips to keep me going for a season.

You sound like the perfect crew, but you just won't know till you get out there, we all react differently to being aboard, interacting with others. I was so in awe of the ocean I needed a lot of alone time..night watches were my favorite time. Everyone is asleep, you have the boat and ocean to yourself. I was considered the gamble on my first offshore trip, we didn't know how I'd react to no land for two weeks. Turned out I was the calm one during the kickass storm, while our supposed experienced crew rocked in his bunk near comatose.

Godspeed to you dreams hope to see ya out there.
Erika