Newbie from VA

[celtiksage]

Hi everyone.

My name is Gary and I'm currently an Army officer out of Fort Lee, VA.

I just wanted to say thanks for all the insightful information on this forum. You're all helping my better half and I narrow down our search for our first boat.

I am in the retirement window now but plan on staying in the military until we get that first coastal cruiser and are ready to make that leap to a liveaboard or seasonal liveaboard status (2-6 years from now).

We are to the point of visiting marinas and as many boat shows as we can until we narrow our first boat list down to 3 or 4 target boats. We see this first one as an intermediate boat between 27-33 feet and we plan to get our feet wet (pun intended) on her before making the great leap to something slightly larger to call home on a permanent basis.

Thanks for all your help so far and keep up the good work.

Gary

[celtiksage]

So here's an update: I spent the weekend looking at boats and we have discovered that our minimum space requirements are in the 34'-38' range. There will be 3 of us initially for several years.

The original plan was for a power boat because of the space vs a similar size sailboat. And we wanted our coastal cruising range to be from the Norfolk area up to Long Island and back or down to Orlando and back.

That was before we started calculating fuel costs of hypothetical engines.

Would it really cost $500ish to travel 200nm on a 30-40' boat with twin merceuiser engines or have I totally miscalculated? In other words, and if that is anywhere in the general ballpark, it would cost $1500 in fuel alone for the shorter trip north. That adds up to about $7500 a year if we do it several times a year.

That might not be too bad if we were strictly living aboard, but we hadn't planned to do so for several years. Am I totally off with those figures? If not we will be looking at motor sailers instead.

Gary

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Gary.

Unfortunately, your fuel cost calculations may be in the ballpark.

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard!
Thanks for your service. Retired Navy here.
Your calculations are correct. Just to give you hope though I sailed my 35 foot ketch from Pearl Harbor to the Puget Sound using 40 gallons of diesel. Mostly sailed so you can cover great distances with little cost on a sailing vessel.
Your boat choice should be made on the use you have planned for it.
Hope you can find that right boat for you.
kind regards,

[tropicalescape]

Yes, welcome and thanks for your service..get the sailboat ,you will sleep better if you dont have to count oil barrels...DVC

[maxingout]

Welcome aboard. It's time to sail on the ocean of your dreams.

[celtiksage]

Thanks guys for the encouragement. And yes.... as soon as Gord confirmed those figures would be close to accurate, the plan shifted to a sailboat. I haven't sailed in 25+ years though so the better half and I will be taking some sailing instruction classes later this month and probably all next summer while we research used sailboats for coastal cruising. By the end of next summer, we hope to be in the market for a 25'-30' variety. We'll give that a go until we learn how to sail and start looking for something larger.

Thanks again.

Gary

[Gelfling]

Welcome Gary,

We live about 2 miles from the Ft. Lee main gate and we sail out of Deltaville at least every other weekend. Not sure where you have been looking already but DVL is a great place for boating!

We are following a similar plan. We currently have a 28` and are always scouting the marinas for our `forever boat`. The 28` is great for weekends and weekly trips ( and we are really blessed with having a great previous owner) but like you we can see a bigger boat in our future.

Maybe we will get together sometime and share/ compare notes. Feel free to PM me.

Rob

[celtiksage]

That sounds great Rob. I'll PM you this evening.

Gary

[The Blue Heron]

Welcome. Live the dream. Life is too short.