I think you do need to buy a boat and use it. You can use it and change if you
want. Life is too short for the stuff you are describing.

Take it for one who know's. We bought a hull and deck and spent 4 years
building it. In retrospect, we shoulda bought a boat sooner, sailed it, sold
it and bought another.

On the other hand, we are proud of her.

fairwinds.

Rich
SV Jasmine

Sorry I didn't get to this sooner - I was on yet another trip with a myriad
of boats to see...

"Toolowd" wrote in message
...
I think you do need to buy a boat and use it. You can use it and change
if you
want. Life is too short for the stuff you are describing.

Take it for one who know's. We bought a hull and deck and spent 4 years
building it. In retrospect, we shoulda bought a boat sooner, sailed it,
sold
it and bought another.

On the other hand, we are proud of her.

fairwinds.

Rich
SV Jasmine

Well, sorta. We expect to put the huge majority of our liquid assets into
the boat, and then cut the lines and live aboard it, sailing it in every
free moment, and cruising when we're not working in the high season. Can't
easily just start over with a different boat.

That said, the more I read, in various places, the more I realize that we're
doing about what all the serious liveaboarders have done - but we're talking
about it in the process.

Read the recent Good Old Boat issues for some pointed examples of that.
Read some Cruising World issues, join the sailnet newsletter list and read
some of the ones who are really doing it's stories, and you'll see, if
anything, we're making extraordinary progress. It looks very much like
we'll have bought our home in less than a year since we started the process
of actually looking, including the missteps of trying (thus far futilely) to
find a boat I could stand and sleep on at too little money and length.

The one thing we've not yet done that all the others seem to have (and we're
hopeful of avoiding if at all possible) is to have boats we walk from after
buying a survey. David Pascoe (a surveyor, mostly of power boats) has a
marvelous website with what I consider to be a large amount of resources;
his essay about 'after the survey' is priceless - and happens to agree with
my thoughts about a survey which has revealed some problems with an older
boat. So, absent some really horrific stuff, likely we'll buy the boat
we've chosen to survey...

Stay tuned for an update on our travails and travels...

L8R

Skip (and Lydia, by proxy

--
"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

Sorry I didn't get to this sooner - I was on yet another trip with a myriad
of boats to see...

"Toolowd" wrote in message
...
I think you do need to buy a boat and use it. You can use it and change
if you
want. Life is too short for the stuff you are describing.

Take it for one who know's. We bought a hull and deck and spent 4 years
building it. In retrospect, we shoulda bought a boat sooner, sailed it,
sold
it and bought another.

On the other hand, we are proud of her.

fairwinds.

Rich
SV Jasmine

Well, sorta. We expect to put the huge majority of our liquid assets into
the boat, and then cut the lines and live aboard it, sailing it in every
free moment, and cruising when we're not working in the high season. Can't
easily just start over with a different boat.

That said, the more I read, in various places, the more I realize that we're
doing about what all the serious liveaboarders have done - but we're talking
about it in the process.

Read the recent Good Old Boat issues for some pointed examples of that.
Read some Cruising World issues, join the sailnet newsletter list and read
some of the ones who are really doing it's stories, and you'll see, if
anything, we're making extraordinary progress. It looks very much like
we'll have bought our home in less than a year since we started the process
of actually looking, including the missteps of trying (thus far futilely) to
find a boat I could stand and sleep on at too little money and length.

The one thing we've not yet done that all the others seem to have (and we're
hopeful of avoiding if at all possible) is to have boats we walk from after
buying a survey. David Pascoe (a surveyor, mostly of power boats) has a
marvelous website with what I consider to be a large amount of resources;
his essay about 'after the survey' is priceless - and happens to agree with
my thoughts about a survey which has revealed some problems with an older
boat. So, absent some really horrific stuff, likely we'll buy the boat
we've chosen to survey...

Stay tuned for an update on our travails and travels...

L8R

Skip (and Lydia, by proxy

--
"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

I've been cleaning out my files and stumbled across this, and a later one.
Long-timers here will recall our boat search adventures. Given the events
of the past 18 months, I thought this was worth a grin and a rejoinder (also
an update at the end):

wrote in message
...
"Bruce" wrote in message
...
Skip
What kind of boat did you buy?

We haven't yet. We had an accepted offer on a Mason 43 which Lydia
rejected
based on the teak and stern cabin redo needed. We expect the deposit back
this week.


You should not have a boat. It's a far too variable and spontaneous thing
for
you to deal with.

If you really wanted a great boat, you would have bought one long ago.
There is
absolutely no legitimate reason that you have been doing all this
foundering.
You need a shrink, not a boat.

BB

PPHHHHHHHHBBBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLTTTTTTTTTTTT !

He also later said, and I responded:

"Bill" wrote in message
...
There some people who love sailing or just being on the water. There are
others that love to work on boats, others that like to own boats, and
still
others that like to look at boats. Some people have a few of these
characteristics, some only have one.

I have a friend who has been looking at boats for 15 years. He has never
bought one. Over that time, I have owned 6 . My wife and I chuckle every
time he mentions a boat.

What kind of boat do you live on, where do you cruise, and did you do it
from cash or from liquidating assets?

We're cutting the lines; it will be our home.
**********
I had more to say, but that part was enough :{))

I found/find it telling he's been silent, ever since (well, at least on the
subject of our getting a boat, or anything else we've been up to).

Those here for any length of time know we not only bought our boat, but are
close to the end of a very major refit which was enabled, time-wise, by some
surgical challenges I faced. Those refit items have markedly changed our
boat's character, and the recent surgery has markedly changed my shoulder's
character.

I'm now in active rehab, with PT to start in a week. The main thrust of
that PT will be to re-educate the teres major and part of the latissimus
dorsi (which were relocated to over the shoulder to allow lifting where the
infra- and supraspinatus had failed in two prior operations with
accompanying infection) to do something they never had before.

I'm able to do virtually anything I used to do (in the last several years,
post first operation-failure), as far as I can tell, so will likely begin
going to the boat for final stuff. The target is to reliably place my hand
above my head in an unstable environment (find a handhold when it's bouncy,
e.g.); once that's achieved, it's provision, sea-trials and cut the cord.
We're hopeful of early next year.

In the meantime, I'm rehabbing two stinkpots for sale, finishing emptying my
home for sale (one option contract in place, and a purchase contract
pending). Lydia's been out of hers for 6 months, now, living in a cottage
about the interior space of our boat without the second cabin or head.
While I'm doing my exercises, I'm going to also be studying for my Ham and
code license, researching the remaining stuff (like windlasses!), getting
familiar with the navigation suite we got to go along with all the paper
charts, etc.

So, not only have we bought a boat, we're very close to shoving off. Those
of you who were supportive throughout that period know who you are - and so
do I :{)) and appreciate it.

The ones in the other camp, I ask the same questions I did of BS Bill. If
you can't answer them in something close to our experience/destination ...

.... well, I guess I won't be seeing you out there, after all :{))

L8R

Skip, rehabbing as fast as I can in order to begin refitting again, and
Lydia, still salt-mining away to keep the kitty fed

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her

"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a clear
night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize that you are
quite alone on a great, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the
general scheme of things you are merely an insignificant speck on the
surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-sufficient
as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one
that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly
appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin

In article ,
"Skip Gundlach" wrote:

I'm now in active rehab, with PT to start in a week.

CONGRATS!

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/