"André Langevin" wrote:

Good day to all of you group fellows,
snip
Now i'm thinking at the next boat and i would like a sailboat to do coastal
navigation and even trans-atlantic crossing and long distance travel. Since
it will take me some years to get to this next boat, suppose i'm 50 years
old and i finally have that big 43-45 feet sailboat. What are the chances
i could use it for 15-20 years ?

André

This depends on your genes (how long have your mother and father lived, and
how healthy were they at the end?), and how healthy you have kept yourself
(smoke? overweight?).

We bought a 45-50 ft sailboat in 1998 when Bob was 62 and I was 60. Now he
is 70 and has survived a heart attack, and has had a bout with skin cancer.
My dad died when he was my age (after two heart attacks and a stroke), but
my mom lived to be 96 and was driving herself and mentally alert until the
last 3 months of her life. I am overweight, but I don't smoke, and so far
I have not had any heart attacks or anything of that nature. I don't know
if we will make it for another 7 years, but we have had a lot of use out of
our boat in the last 8 years.