I was thinking (when we still owned Tulum IV) about how easy, fun and stress-free buying another sailboat would be (when we sold Tulum). I’m not sure about you,,,but I’ve now realized that it’s not going to be all fun and games buying this second boat,,,,,cause we have to be able to afford it and we need to be able to get most of what we want,,,,or be prepared to keep looking. There are factors at work that are often out of your hands when buying a boat or buying another boat: the boat’s current owner (mindset), the boat’s quality and current gear (some or all of which will need to be upgraded), your financial position (most of the time you need to have 10% of the OFFER in cash just to make a viable offer), the time of year (on the east coast), your knowledge and availability to look at boats in your local area or in areas where the boats might be (we’re not going to look at a boat in Ventura right now) and many, many other factors. In the last year, me and/or hotwife have probably looked at more than 25 different boats, often finding the “one” only to find out it’s got a deal on it, it’s been built in the backyard 30 years ago or that it still has black iron tanks and needs a complete tank job. As I know, there is no perfect boat unless you have one custom-built with each and everything built perfect and you don’t have to worry about money. For the rest of us, most production boats won’t be perfect but need to be as near to perfect as possible for what you’re going to use it for.
And that last line of the last paragraph is what you need to focus on when buying a sailboat- what are you going to use it for and what are you looking for from it? In our case,,,,,we’re doing everything but can’t buy a boat that’s built to do everything, so we’re gonna do the best we can. We know that after I retire the whole family will move on the boat for several years at a dock in the US,,and it will serve as our floating home/condo. We’re hoping that after several more years, we take off into the wild blue and coastal cruise for several years in warm places. And, I know that I want a boat that has the ability to safely transport us across oceans,,,because we might get the yin or yang to head over to Greece and Croatia for a season. We’ve also discussed heading home to the West Coast of the US the easy way (vice bashing back up the entire coast of Mexico), which is a very long and involved sail through the South Pacific, to Hawaii and finally back to Cali. Luckily for us, we’re flexible so our plans can change and we’ll bend with our plans. We’re headed out to look at the Aleutian 51 this morning. She might be suitable, she might not be, but we know some of the things we’re looking for so we have a bit of an advantage in that. I’ll put my thoughts into words this evening along with some pics.
Remember why you sail,,,why you voyage,,,,why you travel?
