My Wife and I intend to buy a 40 to 45 foot sailing catamaran in the future and sail off on beautiful adventures. The only thing stopping us is money. We don’t have any.
Our current plan is to pay off all debt, save what we can, and then sell off everything we own to purchase a decent cat. Yeah, we’re probably not getting top of the line unless we hit the lotto.
We originally bought a “training” sailboat, a Buccaneer 250, so we could learn, gain experience, and fill out our ASA logbook. We learned a lot from this $3,000 boat. We learned mostly about maintenance and the need for inspections before buying a boat. This boat ended up in the landfill after a year. You can read about that here.
We have since bought a MacGregor 26M. These are an oddity, in that it is a sailboat, but it also has a 50hp motor. We haven’t used it much, yet. That will hopefully change.
I’ll be adding what we’re looking for, and why. I’ll try to show you our thoughts on this whole process and what we think would work best for us. We have a plan (mostly) on how to accomplish our ultimate goal and will gladly share it.
I will add a way to comment and/or communicate with us directly in the future.
Here are some topics that we will explore:
Learning to sail / gaining experience — Mostly Ready
Money now to save in the future — Mostly Ready
Ideal size catamaran for us (couple sailing) — Mostly Ready
Upfront cost for money saving features (solar, electric engines, etc.) — Mostly Ready
Quality vs Price — not ready
Used vs New — not ready
Sailing in our 50s (wish it was sooner) — not ready
Our favorites — not ready