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From: Baumgart, James (no email)
Date: Thu Mar 03 2005 - 16:29:07 EST
Hi Bill, I find myself in a similar situation, except I live in San Diego
now (warm) and I've already completed a year-long cruise with my family.
Today I have a Catalina 25 that I sail nearly every day and take on local
cruises in the summer. You asked for links, so take a look at mine
www.indiscipline.org <http://www.indiscipline.org> you'll find my entire
year-long voyage documented in words and pictures, plus lots of stuff about
my current 1978 Catalina 25 pocket cruiser.
Everyone is different, but here is my thinking (along the lines of the
question you posed).
Get a small boat now and sail it in all weather, all conditions, and daysail
plus go on cruises. A Catalina 25 can be had for $5000 and can take you a
lot of places, especially with a trailer. There's a great owners group (I
am Vice Commodore of the Catalina 25/250 National Association) at
http://www.catalina25-250.org/ <http://www.catalina25-250.org/> I love my
C25 and a C25, 27 or 30 would certainly give you some
sailing/cruising/maintenance experience right now without tieing up a lot of
money. Sail your pocket cruiser as much as possible, you'll need the
experience and to keep the dream alive. You also need to get alot of
experience with fiberglass and epoxy repairs. With a trailerable cruiser
you can go anywhere from Key West to the North Channel in Canada.
You may not be able to take your loved ones on a year-long cruise like I
did, but you can certainly bareboat charter in the Carribean for a couple of
weeks each year.
Get into your local racing circles and crew on as many boats as possible.
Read. Recent "how-to" books that you should get are "How to Sail Around the
World" Hal Roth, and "Modern Cruising" Don Dodds. Plus thousands of others.
I am never not reading a sailing book (or 3).
Sell the house and everything when you retire. Buy a older, fiberglass
cruiser with room enough, but not too much. For me and my wife as crew, I
think it will be in the 36 to 40 foot range, with a Cal 39 seeming like a
very nice choice - but there are lots out there and the choice of the actual
boat is not very important as long as you can be comfortable on it and the
structure meets the needs of your cruising destinations. So many boats
don't have adequate tankage (ex Catalian 36). Don't buy the boat now! 1
year before you leave is early enough.
Lets say I'm expecting to net about $500K from the sale of my small farm.
I'll buy a boat for no more than $75K, and have about a $25K budget for
repairs and equipment. I'll put about $300K aside for buying a condo for
when we get back from a 5 year cruise San Diego - Carribean - Europe. $100K
plus my retirement income in the kitty. Expected cruising budget is
$100/day. We'll be able to stay out for 5 years till the kitty is dry.
We'll have medical insurance (early retirement - planning to leave my
Government job at 57 years old). Your numbers will be different, but you
get the idea. Don't go cruising with a house, cars, etc. you can't use.
Don't spend all the money on the boat and equipment. Don't buy a boat that
will take too much maintenance (wood, steel, aluminum). I'd stay away from
Ferrocement as its an unknown and unlikely to be a highly performing boat.
Do buy a well known boat, well maintained, well equipped, where the flaws
are known and fixes available. $75K to $100K gives you thousands of
choices. Don't buy new. Get a boat that performs well in light air, can be
reefed down for heavy, and has a decent underbody for where you are going.
Don't wait too long!
When you get back, sell the boat, swallow the anchor, and you've got maybe
$350K to decide where you want to live. I'll probably get a condo near
Mission Bay and go back sailing my C25 every day until the day they dump my
ashes in the Pacific from its cockpit ... but who knows? Maybe we won't
come back and live in Malta or Barcelona. Maybe we'll retire in Costa Rica?
Live in New Zealand? Al options are open since we have money in the bank
and not in a house we can't use.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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