On 4/16/10 11:13 AM, Don White wrote:
wrote in message
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wrote in message
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I once met a couple who had bought a boat on Lake Michigan, sailed
down the Miss. R and then across the gulf and then all over th
Bahamas. They were on their way back aqnd had stopped in
Apalachicola, FL and I asked how they had liked it. She had hated
it. He had liked it but her dislike was enough.
Another couple I know spent years re-building a boat to get ready to
go cruising and then finally after 10 years of planning, set off. For
some reason I still do not know, it din't work out and hey came back
within 4 months.
Another couple I know is working on their boat talking constantly
about how they will take off as soon as they retire. What if it
dosn't work out for them and they do not like it? That's a lot of
wasted effort and years.
Doesn't it make more sense to have a smaller boat you can afford with
far fewer things to go wrong so you can afford to go NOW? A smaller
boat you can afford allows you to arrange your work to allow more time
for shorter coat hopping trips until you finally get some real time.
I see too many big boats that sit at the dock rarely being sailed and
we all know the saying that the amount of use a sailboat gets is
inversely proportional to its size.


I wonder how many stories there are of people who actually enjoyed it.
There must be a few.

I think you're right. It does make sense to have a boat you can afford.
We're not looking at a megayacht, which I suppose if we went into hock, we
could "afford" (the very broadest sense of the word). As I said, two of us
are not really too concerned about "jobs" at this point. The other two
are, and we're trying to accomodate everyone.

I think it would be quite reasonable to expect the boat would mostly sit
at the dock for a year, since we're not planning on leaving before that.
Even if we sailed every weeked (which is highly unrealistic - more like
twice a month over the course of the year), that would still have it
mostly sitting. The other three live down that way, so they'd be much more
likely than I to go. In fact, assuming all goes as planned, I would likely
be sailing on school boats, since I'm learning.

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Nom=de=Plume

How many miles would the sailboat be moored from your residence?




Yes, *that* certainly can be a reason not to use the boat as often as
you like.

I doubt I'd be a candidate for cruising these days. I like boating, but
for a day or for a day or two at a time. But that's just me. I know some
"cruisers" who are really into it. But...if you buy a large boat without
first having cruised, well, you're really buying a pig in a poke.


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