Start small?

[rkjbnz]

If you are planning on buying/selling in NZ then get the biggest one otherwise you could be stuck with the smaller boat longer than you would like. Boats can sit on the market in NZ for years. A lot of the boats I looked at were owners trying to upsize.

Rich


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[thomm225]

Many people think they want to cruise, buy a big boat, then park it.

It's probably best to move up in steps until you know for sure.

It would be sad to have lots of money tied up in a large boat and then spend all your time talking about cruising on an internet forum about cruising but doing very little sailing

[nzmal]

Hey thomm225... lol to the last comment.
We're actually pretty competent sailors. .. heaps of racing and we've done some 3 week cruise holidays with our 2 kids on the Noelex 22..
I've grown up dingy sailing, Jo has done some offshore multi day passages. The cruising decision is pretty solid. It's 3 years until we can do some extended cruising though and we've sold the 22....

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[thomm225]

Originally Posted by nzmal

Hey thomm225... lol to the last comment.
We're actually pretty competent sailors. .. heaps of racing and we've done some 3 week cruise holidays with our 2 kids on the Noelex 22..
I've grown up dingy sailing, Jo has done some offshore multi day passages. The cruising decision is pretty solid. It's 3 years until we can do some extended cruising though and we've sold the 22....

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Great!

Hopefully you can adjust to full time cruising.

I lived along the Gulf Coast for years and heard stories like yours many times.

Lots of folks do actually start the cruising life but many do not last long.

I've seen one couple last 6 months before they sold their boat and moved to Maine. This after years and years of planning to cruise (on their late model Catalina 36)

Another guy last 3 months after selling all of his "onshore" belongings only to return and have to start over.

He had taken several sailing vacations where he would cruise across the Gulf from Pensacola to the Tampa Area or south to the Day Tortugas and back.

He took the sailing vacations (with his girlfriend) on his beautiful Cape Dory 30 (with wooden wheel mounted aft)

He later became a liveaboard and bought a Tayana 37 even though we all lived about 150' from the dock anyway. Sadly the Tayana was destroyed after he gave up cruising while it was on stands in a boat yard during hurricane Ivan ....a cat 3/4. It got knocked off the stands. no insurance

Quick note on the girlfriend. They had a fight, broke up, then she bought a newer model Hans Christian 33 (w/maroon sails) and parked it at a dock 40' from his late 60's model Tayana. She then started dating the broker that sold it to her. Ouch! She's back to a twin engine power boat last I heard.

I'm just thinking a well built 30' boat that I believe you could easily buy for $20,000 would get you started cruising and you might be able to use it for a few years while checking out the other boats and deciding if the cruising life is truly for you.

No pressure like having invested $130,000 in a boat and not using it

[Reefmagnet]

^^^ Very sound advice. We were in the market for a bigger boat around 38 to 40 feet but ended up with the 33 footer we have now purchased at about 1/4 the original budget. Was going to be the boat in between the last boat and the next boat but in the meantime we've decided to try for at least a few years with the old girl which means we don't need to sell the house. Not selling the house gives us a base to return to as one of our kids has decided to rent it to make it cost neutral and we've moved into the granny flat for the moment which will become our storage once we're on the boat. The attraction, aside from cheaper running costs, is that if for one reason or another we move back to shore, we won't be starting from scratch. We figure that after a few years if we're still on the water and still keen, then we will sell up and buy something bigger if we want.