Hi everyone,
Just joined the forum after more than a few years of lurking and reading. I've probably spent around 500 cumulative hours reading and re-reading, researching, just generally having a good time.
I grew up with a grandfather who was an avid
regatta racer and
member of the
New Orleans Yacht Club, taught my mother to sail at a very young age, who taught me to sail my first Sunfish when I was 7. From there I moved onto a Laser, a 21' O'Day, a 21' Hobie, then kitted out another sunfish for local
regatta racing. I hail from northern Indiana, Warsaw to be exact, a city known as the Lake City. 109 Lakes in our county, including the largest natural lake and the deepest natural lake in the state. I've done all the powerboating (even building from scratch a custom welded
aluminum 13' jetdrive powered
racer - that was too fast @ 85 mph on flat
water at the
tender age of 17) and watersports stuff you can imagine, but find that my first love has and always will be sailing.
I've sailed everything from my Sunfishes up to a 40' mono-hull owned by a friend's parents on
Lake Superior in some decent chop (inland lake chop - not much compared to ocean swells). I dislike
cruise ships on principle, too crowded, and have only been on the ocean in a
boat on a few weekend deep sea
fishing trips in both the Atlantic and the Pacific that were chartered or friends of the parents when I was younger, on large
fishing vessels. I still deep sea
fish with my dad when I get the chance, which is not as often as he and my mom have both retired to
Costa Rica /
New Orleans.
I grew up with a father who instilled a love of
learning (necessary on the large farm we grew up on, with a dad that was a mechanical engineer) and a freakish love of researching. In pursuit of that end, every decision, no matter how big or small, is preceded by asking knowledgeable others for
advice and researching to exhaustion. I've rebuilt everything from BMW engines (my
family is also obsessed with BMW's - put myself through college
buying, fixing, and selling them) to
boats and tractors. My engineering prowess took me down the road to college, where I decided pre-med coursework was my best course (dad was a bioengineer). My long-term girlfriend is dental, and I'm
med, so we'll be comfortably provided for in the future.
Years ago, when I was researching my ideal 20 year plan, I fell in love with my first big cat - the John
Shuttleworth 64 super cruiser Dulcinea (links
here and
here. It was
for sale by Lee
Marine in Phuket and I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. From there, I researched cats vs mono-hulls and decided cats were the ideal
boat to include in my 20 year plan. I think, and user yeloya will love this, that
Fountaine Pajot has stolen my mind as the most bang-for-your-buck market manufacturer of cats right now. The Athena's are beautiful and well-equipped, and at <200k now, well valued. They simply look good. I seem to like a lot of their design decisions as a manufacturer and from what I've read, they sail well and behave admirably.
In the next 10 years I anticipate owning a small (to me) 38-42 footer as a proving grounds for getting the feel of a relatively large sailing cat. Although I will likely be able to afford something much newer, or new, depreciation is my forever enemy. I've vowed to never buy a brand new car, for example. If I can fix anything that goes wrong, so why would I? In that pursuit, a 7-10 year old owner's cat or post-charter vessel (which doesn't bother me in the slightest) at sub-500k prices will be my mid-life boat on which I would expect to spend 25-50k on refitting to my specs, doing most of the
work myself.
In the very short term, a well-kept
Catalina 27' came up
for sale that I'm interested in.
Anyways, thanks for reading the long-winded post with tons of extra information, way more extraneous bits than anyone needs and a fair bit of good information. See ya around the way--
J
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