Three-Year Clock

[captaingregger]

I've been sailing for 40 years (since I was 1 mo. old). Mostly racing in my teens, 20s and 30s but now more of a cruiser. I married a city girl from Mumbai so she's taken a while to warm up to the idea of living aboard.

We're living in Guam now but plan to buy a 38-45' cat and take the kids on a 3-5 year round-the-world cruise when my youngest is 7 (he's 4 now). So we plan to leave in 3 years.

We plan to sell move into an apartment late next year and start the process of selling off our stuff. House will most likely go too but for now it's leased on a long term basis.

We're planning on doing month-on, month-off type cruising. I'll work on the month-off while my wife and children go back to stay with family from her country.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Budget for the cat will be $250,000 (low end for a cat, I know) because we'll be paying cash. Cruising kitty won't really be an issue since I'll continue working while we sail the world.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, captaingregger.

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard!
Good to have you here.
Kind regards,

[Southern Star]

Yes, Captaingregger, welcome aboard. Your budget for a cat in the 38 plus foot range is quite workable in the current market (although take care with respect to allowing sufficent money for a refit, if your plans are for a world cruise). As to one month on, one month off, I can envision some problems with laying the boat up and the logistics of flights from various parts of the world. You must always keep in mind that cruising and schedules don't mix - lets face it, you will need to reprovision the boat on each arrival and wait for the next good weather window for any passage. Upon arrival at a new destination, you will need to arrange security, etc. for your month away and then clean the boat out prior to your departure. The end result will be, I suspect, that you will only be able to count on making relatively short passages during each 'on' month; I would certainly not count on being able to cross either the Atlantic, or the Pacific if your schedule is that tight.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that you can enjoy some terrific cruising thay way, so long as you are a little less ambitious than a circumnavigation. Perhaps start with a boat in the Caribbean and enjoy that and central/south america for a couple of years.

Anyway, I am sure you have thought of that and, lets face it, if you can't arrange time that is sufficient for ocean crossings, you can always hire a deliver skipper.

Cheers!

Brad