great minds must truly think alike. thanks again dan, gordon. i have indeed
been thinking of a smaller boat. went to the lake the other day and looked
at an islander 28. nice boat, but too short. cant stand up in it. maybe some
of the others will have more headroom. im 6'2 in my socks. that said, very
sound advice from both and it truly is much appreciated. as i said
previously, im going to socal within a mont. probably 2 to 3 weeks and will
spend a couple of days looking at a lot of them. will take a digital camera
and a large chip and just have a good look. thanks again fellas and best
regards, j.d.

Coming late to this party...

JDS, search for threads originated by me starting about two years ago. Most
of them have lots of applicability to your situation.

I'm 6-4. Tall is a *VERY* large challenge if you're going to live aboard.
Like you, we wanted to stay small. If you want not to hit your head, it
will be very difficult to accomplish in a small boat. One which might work
for you is a Beneteau 321 or the like in that line; we very much liked one
of those in the first part of our search in the Virgins. What we didn't
like was as pointed out about this marque - not enough storage. Beneteaus
are roundly laughed at in the "serious cruiser" world, but somehow they seem
to be the huge majority of what's used in the Caribbean charter trade, and
they're routinely sailed to and from there and the east coast, so they must
have something going for them. For us, there's a variety of reasons we
didn't seriously look at them, even when we doubled our budget and
space/volume parameters (mentioned in earlier portions of this thread), but
one might be right for you.

We had to look for a very long time to meet our needs. With your couple of
inches less, it might not be quite as difficult. After looking at all the
atlases of boats (Sherwood, Mauch, etc.) to try to get a feel for layouts
and heights/drafts/various ratios, we (well, mostly I) reviewed over 3000
internet listings (primarily through YachtWorld or its sister Boats.com),
selecting over 300 candidates, and actually getting aboard right at 200,
videoing and shooting hours and gigabytes worth of digidata, to get to our
eventual type (make, model) preference. From there we really bore down, and
had our boat bought (after a failed mechanical and standard survey/trial on
our first successful offer), very quickly.

We had a slight advantage on you - I'd done a lot of sailing/cruising
earlier in my life, and Lydia'd grown up on a Channel Island which required
boats if you wanted to go anywhere - so we knew what to expect of the water
and boat life. It remained only to go on a leg of a circumnav with my
ex-father-in-law for her to be fully hooked; our search began in earnest at
that point - to that point, we'd only been talking about it for 4-5 years,
always knowing that we'd have to do the actuality first before committing to
it. Our trail led us to that first leg, then two bareboats on the smallest
and oldest boats we could find, in the nastiest conditions we could
generate, in order to simulate our likely home. Since she was still hooked,
we started the buying process. See above for synopsis :{)) [handlebars and
full beard, tm] Old-timers here can tell you it (our search) was a very
exhaustive process.

Others have said to get on a lot of boats. I agree with that wholeheartedly.
One other usual recommendation I've not yet seen is to haunt the docks and
crew for anyone who needs it. Someone's always looking for crew; it would
be an easy way to get a lot of sailing experience quickly and free, too.
Along the way you might find just the boat you wanted, but the bigger part
is to get lots of sailing under your hands and feet. I agree with the
recommendation to take your girlfriend with you. Might as well find out
what she's made of now, rather than after you've bought the boat...

It's going to be an exciting time, and perhaps grueling, too, as you go
about your search. Please keep us posted on your progress.

L8R

Skip and Lydia

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

Apologies if this appears twice - I didn't see it from the first reply:

great minds must truly think alike. thanks again dan, gordon. i have
indeed
been thinking of a smaller boat. went to the lake the other day and looked
at an islander 28. nice boat, but too short. cant stand up in it. maybe
some
of the others will have more headroom. im 6'2 in my socks. that said, very
sound advice from both and it truly is much appreciated. as i said
previously, im going to socal within a mont. probably 2 to 3 weeks and
will
spend a couple of days looking at a lot of them. will take a digital
camera
and a large chip and just have a good look. thanks again fellas and best
regards, j.d.


Coming late to this party...

JDS, search for threads originated by me starting about two years ago. Most
of them have lots of applicability to your situation.

I'm 6-4. Tall is a *VERY* large challenge if you're going to live aboard.
Like you, we wanted to stay small. If you want not to hit your head, it
will be very difficult to accomplish in a small boat. One which might work
for you is a Beneteau 321 or the like in that line; we very much liked one
of those in the first part of our search in the Virgins. What we didn't
like was as pointed out about this marque - not enough storage. Beneteaus
are roundly laughed at in the "serious cruiser" world, but somehow they seem
to be the huge majority of what's used in the Caribbean charter trade, and
they're routinely sailed to and from there and the east coast, so they must
have something going for them. For us, there's a variety of reasons we
didn't seriously look at them, even when we doubled our budget and
space/volume parameters (mentioned in earlier portions of this thread), but
one might be right for you.

We had to look for a very long time to meet our needs. With your couple of
inches less, it might not be quite as difficult. After looking at all the
atlases of boats (Sherwood, Mauch, etc.) to try to get a feel for layouts
and heights/drafts/various ratios, we (well, mostly I) reviewed over 3000
internet listings (primarily through YachtWorld or its sister Boats.com),
selecting over 300 candidates, and actually getting aboard right at 200,
videoing and shooting hours and gigabytes worth of digidata, to get to our
eventual type (make, model) preference. From there we really bore down, and
had our boat bought (after a failed mechanical and standard survey/trial on
our first successful offer), very quickly.

We had a slight advantage on you - I'd done a lot of sailing/cruising
earlier in my life, and Lydia'd grown up on a Channel Island which required
boats if you wanted to go anywhere - so we knew what to expect of the water
and boat life. It remained only to go on a leg of a circumnav with my
ex-father-in-law for her to be fully hooked; our search began in earnest at
that point - to that point, we'd only been talking about it for 4-5 years,
always knowing that we'd have to do the actuality first before committing to
it. Our trail led us to that first leg, then two bareboats on the smallest
and oldest boats we could find, in the nastiest conditions we could
generate, in order to simulate our likely home. Since she was still hooked,
we started the buying process. See above for synopsis :{)) [handlebars and
full beard, tm] Old-timers here can tell you it (our search) was a very
exhaustive process.

Others have said to get on a lot of boats. I agree with that wholeheartedly.
One other usual recommendation I've not yet seen is to haunt the docks and
crew for anyone who needs it. Someone's always looking for crew; it would
be an easy way to get a lot of sailing experience quickly and free, too.
Along the way you might find just the boat you wanted, but the bigger part
is to get lots of sailing under your hands and feet. I agree with the
recommendation to take your girlfriend with you. Might as well find out
what she's made of now, rather than after you've bought the boat...

It's going to be an exciting time, and perhaps grueling, too, as you go
about your search. Please keep us posted on your progress.

L8R

Skip and Lydia

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain