This is my fallback plan for happiness if my wife leaves me. I’m thinking something no longer than about fifty feet, and no shorter than about thirty five. Used is fine, but I want something made in the last twenty years. Also, would a sailboat or motor boat be better for a novice? It would be used mainly around Hawaii, and the South Pacific. Also how much would it cost to anchor around Oahu? Am I a dead man if I get caught in a moderate storm?
If you want to experience boat ownership prior to buying, just stand in a cold shower with your clothes on while you flush your money down the toilet. 
How much money is invloved? All of it.
Seriously - It’s impossible to say how much money, but if it’s at least 35’ and operational, then it aint gonna be cheap. Here’s a website to help you out.
For a novice, I’d recommend whichever boat you want to learn about. There is much more to learn about sailing than powerboating, and powerboating is gonna be easier to pick up.
I have no idea what docking/anchoring/ball fees are gonna run ya.
If you’re caught in a moderate storm? Well that certainly depends on how bad a storm, and how good a boat, and what you do if in that situation. Obviously, it’s best to keep a keen eye on all weather in the area, and avoid the nasty stuff.
The best thing you can do as a new boat owner, is get educated. About everything from boat handling, seamanship, nav rules, weather, local operating area, etc. Two excellent resources for this is the US Power Squadron and US Coast Guard Auxiliary, both of which provide classes and materials on these things.
A boat that small is most likely not going to be able to handle the open ocean for any great length of time. It is a long way from Hawaii to anywhere in the south pacific.
As for sail vs. motor? Do you know how to sail? And I mean, do you know how to sail well? Could you rent a 35 ft sail boat and run it for yourself?
Also, have you ever spent time on a non-cruiseship boat? How do you handle the rough seas, and how about sea sickness? There is nothing worse than being sea sick- unless you are sea sick and you are 12+ hours from safe harbour. An interesting side note- when you keep puking after everything in your system is gone- you start to puke up blood and it has the consistancy of coffee grounds.
Well I was in the Navy and on a minesweeper for about six months of that time. However, I have few boating skills to speak of. However, this is more of a life goal for me (and has been now for about a decade). I’m thirty five and by the time I’m forty five or fifty I want to have my own boat to travel as described above (hopefully in the context of my wife and I each pulling down at least a 150 G’s per year as CRNA’s and living in Oahu). I’m “budgeting” no more than about 100K for the boat plus the GPS ect (that would be in 2004 dollars). I used to surf and swim in the open ocean when I was stationed in Oahu, and it’s my dream to get back there again (although at forty five or fifty I doubt it will feel the same as it did at 22). I’m thinking the boat would be used for cruises about the islands and occasional “monster trips” to places like Fiji during extended vacations.
Do I save a ton by buying the boat in Mexico or California and then cruising it over to Hawaii (this would probably necessitate hiring at least one experienced person to help)?
I disagree. Have you read Maiden Voyage?
Challenged by her German-Swiss father, an 18-year-old New York City bicycle messenger in 1988 became the first American woman, and the youngest person, to sail alone around the world.
She sailed a 26 foot sloop.
My husband and I recently sold a hybrid (Macgregor 26X), and while I personally wouldn’t sail it in the open ocean (it was fine for the SF Bay), plenty of owners do.
This is still high on my list of things to do when we retire. Sell everything and become boat hippies. Sail around the world.
Check out a local chapter of the US Power Squadrons and take some boating classes. Not only are the classes great, but it’s a nice way to hear stories from other boat owners. It’s helpful to hear others talk about mishaps and mistakes they’ve made. And often, it’s also downright funny. You don’t need to own a boat to join at all, and in fact, if you aren’t sure about what kind of boat you want, talking to the owners of various styles might help you narrow your choices.
Most of the members of the chapter we joined were a bit older than we were, but they were still a hoot to hang out with at the quarterly get togethers/dinners/parties, etc.
If you decide to sail, i don’t blame you, since fuel can be scarce in the middle of the Pacific.
A sailor friend told me that boats are not as overpriced as everything else in Hawaii, because people tend to sail them there from California, then decide they’d rather sell the thing and fly back. The sailing trip back to the mainland is considerably more difficult.
The size of boat you mention is probably big enough for a person to live aboard, but on the large side for single-handed use.
I hear that slips in Hawaii are very scarce, and those who have one will not give it up willingly, unless a lot of cash is involved.
There is a
[/QUOTE]
Story here
It’s not legal to dump sewage close to land, and I don’t know of any pump-out boats that go to around to anchorages looking for business.
It’s not too soon to get started with some instruction, and a first boat. In the U.S.Power Squadrons or the Coast Guard Auxillary, there are experienced instructors who are more than willing to share their wisdom to help keep you afloat.
Bon Voyage,
rburget
[QUOTE=Roland Deschain]
Well I was in the Navy and on a minesweeper for about six months of that time. However, I have few boating skills to speak of. However, this is more of a life goal for me (and has been now for about a decade). I’m thirty five and by the time I’m forty five or fifty I want to have my own boat to travel as described above (hopefully in the context of my wife and I each pulling down at least a 150 G’s per year as CRNA’s and living in Oahu). I’m “budgeting” no more than about 100K for the boat plus the GPS ect (that would be in 2004 dollars). I used to surf and swim in the open ocean when I was stationed in Oahu, and it’s my dream to get back there again (although at forty five or fifty I doubt it will feel the same as it did at 22). I’m thinking the boat would be used for cruises about the islands and occasional “monster trips” to places like Fiji during extended vacations.
Do I save a ton by buying the boat in Mexico or California and then cruising it over to Hawaii (this would probably necessitate hiring at least one experienced person to help)?
Navy, eh? Longing for the peace and tranquility of life asea? Imagining the long swells rocking you to sleep? Well, here’s some things you can do at home to tide you over until you reach your goal:
- When commencing this simulation, remember to lock all friends and family outside, communicating only with A) letters that your neighbors will hold for two weeks before delivering; losing one in five; or B) E-mail that is held for three weeks before you get a “Dump” after you call your family.
- Surround yourself with people you don’t like; people who chain smoke, fart obnoxiously, snore like a Mack Truck on an uphill grade, complain to excess about everything from the weather to the amount of work “someone else” wants them to do and who use expletives like kids put sugar on cold cereal.
- Unplug all radios and TV’s. Cut yourself off from the outside world. Have the neighbors bring over a month old magazine or two every couple of weeks.
- Monitor closely all home appliances hourly. Record all vital parameters (plugged in, light goes on when door opens, bell goes ‘ding’ when cycle is complete, etc.). If not in use, log as SECURED.
- Do not flush the toilet to simulate the smell of 21 men sharing one commode. After that flush once daily.
- Wear only approved coveralls or the proper Navy uniforms. No special T-shirts, no shorts. Even though nobody really cares, once a week clean and press one uniform and wear it for twenty minutes, after which you must change back into your coveralls.
- Have the paper boy (no older than 10) cut your hair weekly, making it shorter each time until you are bald or look as though you have
tangled with a demented sheep shearer. - Work 18 hour cycles, sleeping only four hours at a time to ensure your body neither know, nor cares if its day or night.
- Listen to your favorite CD six times a day for two weeks. Then play music that causes your ears to bleed or acute nausea until you are glad to get back to your “favorite CD”.
- Cut a twin mattress in half, lengthwise. Either place it on the top shelf in a closet with the doors removed or enclose three sides with a roof. Either way, ensure that you cannot sit up in any position (approx. 18 inches is good) Place a dead animal under the sheets to simulate the smell of the berthing area.
- Two to three hours after you go to sleep, have your wife or roommate whip back the curtain of the sleeping area, shine a flashlight in your face and say “Oops, wrong rack.”
- Set your alarm clock for a snooze interval for the first hour of your sleep to simulate various alarms of watchstanders and night crew going off at odd times and waking you up.
- If you are unable to place your bed on a platform, put it on a rocking table to ensure that you’re tossed from side to side for the “sleep period.”
- Prepare a custom alarm clock that randomly sounds like a fire alarm, police whistle and a new wave rock band to simulate the various drill alarms on board the ship. Place an amplified speaker every 5 feet along the hall way and two in each room. Hide the On/Off switch.
- Prepare all food blindfolded, using all the spices that you can grope for (or use none at all). Serve the food in prison trays with not enough silver for everyone to eat at once. Remove the blindfold, eat as fast as humanly possible. Make more than can possibly be eaten at one meal, serve the leftovers as mid-rats two days in a row.
- Periodically secure power to the main breaker and run around the house screaming “FIRE IN THE MAIN SPACE, FIRE IN THE MAIN SPACE”. Do this until you are sweating profusely or you loose your voice, then restore power.
- Buy a gas mask, smear the inside with rancid animal fat and scrub the face piece with steel wool until you can no longer see. Wear this for two hours every fifth day, even to the bathroom to simulate CBR Training.
- Study the owners manual for all appliances in the dwelling. At regular intervals, take one apart, put it back together (ensure that you have extra parts) and test it at the extremes of its tolerance to simulate PMS.
- Remove all plants, pictures and decorations, replace them all with
“inspirational” or “nautical” posters. - Repaint the interior of the dwelling every month, whether it needs it or not. Use only white, gray or shades of hospital smocks.
- To assure that you are living in a clean and happy environment, every week clean from to top to bottom, whenever and as often as possible, repeating your efforts. Work all day even though it is a three hour job. When complete, inspect your work, criticizing as much as possible. Never be satisfied with a good effort.
- Only plug in the TV once a day for four hours. Have your family vote on which two movies to watch then show different ones. Make sure the movies shown were ones that you walked out of in the theater.
- Every three weeks, to simulate liberty in a foreign port, go outside directly to the city slums while in your best clothes. Enter the raunchiest bar you can find, drink as many of the most expensive imported beers as you can in four hours. Hire a cab to take you home by the longest route possible, then over tip the driver after he charges you double because you were dressed funny. Lock yourself back in the dwelling for another three weeks.
- Repeat everything everyone says to you.
- Renovate your bathroom, build a wall across the middle of our bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level. Limit the flow to .5 Gal per min. Limit showers to 3 minutes and one per day.
- Buy a trash compactor, use it once a week. Store the garbage in the other side of your bathtub.
- Sit in your car for 8 hours a day in two 4 hour shifts with your hands on the wheel and the motor running but don’t go any where. Install 200 extra oil gauges, take readings on them every 30 minutes and log them correctly.
- Put a several complicated locks on the basement door, wear the key for one on a lanyard around your neck forget how to open the others and only use the key lock.
- Every so often Yell “MAN OVERBOARD PORT / STARBOARD SIDE” followed by RIGHT/LEFT HARD RUDDER! Sweep all the pots/pans/dishes off the counter onto the floor then, yell at your wife for not being “secure for sea.”
- Nail a 2" X 4" 12 inches up from the floor and 12 inches down from the ceiling across every door so that you have to step up AND duck to go through them.
- Put the headphones from your stereo on (don’t plug them in), stand in front of the stove tell no one in particular “stove manned and ready” stand there for three hours, announce “stove secured”.
- When the mailman arrives, step onto your porch, yell as loud as you can, “POSTMASTER GENERAL, ARRIVING” so that everyone in the house can hear you.
- Refer to everyone by a nick name or their initials I.E., WIFE, CHILD, JR.
- Mount sharp cornered lockers in the most traveled hallways in the house, leave just enough room for the children to squeeze by.
- Write a procedure in triplicate for task in the home. Have a friend check your work and make a minimum of 5 changes. When the new forms are ready, have your wife check the work and verify that the procedure is correct but make 10 changes anyway. Store them in binders on the opposite end of the house from where the task is performed.
- Install the furnace and A/C ducts to blow directly on your bed, set the controls so that they will cycle from hot to cold in a mater of seconds.
- Buy 50 cases of toilet paper, lock up all but two rolls. Ensure that one of these two rolls is wet at all times.
- Tell your kids to “go get you a can of relative bearing grease.”
- Paint the right half of the windshield of your car black, make your wife give you directions from the passenger seat and chart your position every 15 minutes.
- Ask for “Permission to Enter” when you go in the kitchen.
- Give everything an acronym.
- Collect and tell as many “off color” jokes as possible.
- Make plans with your wife in secret. Gather the family together to tell them what you plan to do. Do something else.
- Plan to get a whole bunch of work done around the house. Then announce surprise training on how to work the appliances.
- Study first aid until you can quote the book verbatim.
- This simulation needs to run 7 weeks to be effective. The exact date of the end of the simulation must be changed no fewer than 7 times, without your knowledge. This is done to keep you guessing as to when you can expect to get back to a semi-normal life. It is also done in hopes of screwing up any plans you have made or would like to make.
- Hide all the toothpaste and toothbrushes so when you wake your kids for the “next watch” you will get bowled over by their breath.
- Get up at 3 a.m., get in your car, drive around the block with the lights off for 6 hours. This will prepare you for late night small boat ops.
- Turn the heat up to 120 deg F. Try to wash the ceiling and walls while bouncing on a trampoline. This will prepare you for trying to clean up the paint locker on most ships.
- Place an open can of tuna in every pocket, inventory your freezer, triple count it. Fisheries boarding. Nuff said.
- Place a label or ID tag on every minuscule item (you know “Door”, “Door Knob”, “Window”, “Lightbulb”, etc.
Holy crap. Please tell me that is cut ‘n’ paste, not off the cuff.
Please?
Heh - I wish I could think stuff up like that. No - it’s an old .doc that floats around my work every now and again, origins unknown. Cracks me up every time I read it.
You’d be very hard pressed to find a reliable cabin cruiser that could take “monster trips” for under $100,000. If you want long range trips then you might be able to find a sailboat, but almost anything motor powered will not have the range (for that price at least). You could find an older cabin cruiser to cruise around Hawaii and that would be much easier to learn than long distance sailing.
But, you could look for something used on Yachtworld.com
Enter…nostalgia.
In about 1985 (I guess) I actually wore a dress and went to an interview at a little startup dotcom by the name of the Cobalt Group. A girl I knew worked there, writing code. It looked hopeful. I got a job in ‘data entry’. It was a fun job, 17 people, laid back, startup attitude - wear anything, work like crazy, play hard. The CEO would come to work in jams and flip-flops. Homescout and Yachtworld, that was us. Then we took on the Toyota account - web pages for every Toyota dealer (some generic, some personalized - to help support Yachtworld, which was going to go somewhere.
Well, first there was Toyota, then Honda, and…by the time I left a few years later, pregnant with twins…it was almost every car dealership in America, except the Big Three. By then, the company had become so big, it had become Corporate, and I wasn’t having fun anymore. But successful! Yachtworld had been sold, Homescout had been sold, it was all cars, all the time.
But I used to do the data entry for Yachtworld. You couldn’t BELIEVE some of those boats. Gold-plated bathroom fixtures. Six king-sized beds. Enormous dining rooms. A helicopter thrown in for ease of getting from boat to shore. A speed boat tucked into a special carrier in the back. Jet skis. All included. That was some fun data entry, I tell you. And these things were the used ones. The new ones were even more amazing.
$100,000?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… [pause] BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Seriously, you won’t be able to buy much of anything in the ocean-going boating world with $100,000. I looked at a couple of sites, and you could get a catamaran or a power boat built in 1967 for that kind of money. For the type of boast you’re looking for, try at least $400,000 but probably $600,000 to $750,000.
One of the problems with boats is that when you buy a new one you’re basically buying the only the hull. Engines, electronics and all of the interior furnishings are extra, and they essentially double the cost of a new boat.
An older boat is less expensive, but then you’re looking at possibly replacing engines (or doing a serious overhaul thereof), electronics and all of the interior furnishings, so again you’re doubling your cost. Most boats are either worked to death or hardly worked at all, neither of which is good for an engine or an interior, especially around salt water. Plus, with an older boat you’re looking at fixing (literally) a million tiny things, such as replacing worn or broken cleats, heads or refinishing\refurbishing teak. None of these are really expensive by themselves, but taken as a whole the cost is enormous.
I’m not a boat owner myself, but my dad has owned probably 9 or 10 boats over the years, with the last 4 of them being ocean-going sportsfishermen in the 50-60’ range. The old adage about standing in the shower and flushing money down the toilet is very, very true.
My best advice for you would be to find a bar near a marina and talk to some of the folks inside about it. I think my advice to you is spot-on, but I could always be wrong, and besides these people aren’t trying to sell you anything. Walking into a yacht broker with your knowledge is (no offense meant here) like walking into a jeweler and asking what a “carat” is.
If you’re talking about local boating in the area around your home marina, then you can get away with a smaller boat that requires less equipment. Figure (at the barest of minimums) $20,000 for a used 35 foot sailboat capable of onshore sailing around Hawaii. Price increases somewhat size, but really the price is dictated by the quality of the brand and the ammenities on board.
If you’re talking about blue water sailing FROM Hawaii TO other areas in the South Pacific, that’s a totally different ballgame. First, unless you’ve got a ton of money to burn on fuel, you can forget about a motor cruiser (at today’s prices, figure almost a dollar per mile). For bluewater sailboats, you need to purchase one of the more ruggedly buit brands, which cost significantly more. You’ll also need a lot more equipment, especially navigation/electronics that you don’t need on a daysailer. Tentatively figure (again at a minimum) - $150,000 for a 35-40 ft used (as in 10-20years old) bluewater sailboat that’s in average shape. Also figure that you’ll need to spend about $15k-$20k in maintenance each year (rule of thumb is 10%-15% of the boats value).
All this being said- there are some folks that have gone around the world in boats that proabably cost less than $10,000. But, notwithstanding the creature comforts these boats lack, you’ll be pushing your luck if you find yourself in the middle of a hurricane in one of these boats.
Here’s a few online magazines that will have some good basic info:
http://www.cruisingworld.com/index.jsp
http://cruisenews.net/index.php
In '85? Did Toyota have Al Gore working for them? :dubious:
Like the Big Boat sales person told the prospect: "If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it!
If you find something you can afford take lessons, learn how.
I would swear that I’d seen quite a number of used cabin cruisers in the forty foot range for around $50,000 (the thing is that I no nothing about their quality ect). However, it sounds like we are talking about a sail boat (hopefully with a nice out board) and lots of lessons. Plus we are talking a good deal of extra dough for Loran, GPS, radio ect.
How about the buying on the Western coast of Mexico especially the Baja area to save money? Also lets say I wanted to take a trip to Fiji from Oahu via Kiritimati (Line Islands), Manihiki ( Northern Cook Islands), and Tutuila (American Samoa) what would be the average difference in trip time between a cabin cruiser and a sloop given average winds, and weather conditions? Also what do you think about going to the South Pacific to actually buy the boat? My cousin is a CRNA who owns a house on Vanua Levu (Fiji) and she paid the equivalent of $40,000 US dollars for the place. It would go for about $175,000 right here in Indiana and probably close to $400,000 (or more) on Oahu. Maybe it’s not far fetched to believe that boats down there (or perhaps in Tonga or one of the Samoa’s go for a good deal less than the states). For that matter I’ve heard you can get some really good deals in Florida because of all the people who buy boats and then go bankrupt (now that would be a monster trip. Imagine Saint Augustine or Key West to Oahu via Cape Town South Africa since I probably couldn’t afford the canal and am too much a coward to face the Drake Passage by myself.
Also, I don’t think any boat that I can afford will be safe during a Hurricaine (certainly not with me at the helm). I just don’t want perish in the first run of the mill storm with fifteen foot seas that I face.
$50K sounds low, really, really low. You could probably find something seaworthy for around that price, but I’d guess it to be at least 10 years old. And, I wuldn’t expect too many creature comforts. I’d ballpark and agree with others, you’re looking at $200K-$400K for something comfortable. One that I’ve looked at many times in thinking about something big enough to handle blue water and be comfortable, and small enough for one person to man if necessary is the Catalina 42 , a quick Google search showed at least 2 used ones selling on the East Coast in the $150-$175K range. If you plan on looking at used boats, find yourself a Salty Dog and take them with you for inspection of the vessel.
If you’ve never sailed before, you might want to see about purchasing something smaller to tink around with over the next few years (that was sort of one of the purposes of the boat we just sold.) And you’ll definitely need to take classes, or read up on/study all sorts of things, including basic safety/’rules of the road’, sailing, marine electronics/engine maint., piloting, weather, celestial navigation, and more. There’s a lot to know, but it’s all very interesting, and sailing is just plain fun.
At the very least, do this. For the kind of money you’re talking about, it would be best to just hire a marine surveyor for boats you’re seriously looking at. Your insurance may require it anyway.
Get familiar with hull materials if you haven’t already. Your best bet is probably gonna be FRP - and for goodness sake don’t buy a big 'ol wooden boat because the price was right.
One of the strange things I’ve noticed about used boat prices is that they do not seem to depend on the location. You might think that because Mexico or Fiji has a cheaper cost of living, that the price of boats should also be cheaper. You’d be wrong, unfortunately. I figure this is due to the fact that there are only a limited number of boat builders worldwide (and they are almost all in developed countries) and they sell their boats at the same price, regardless of where they ultimately get delivered.
You might find a deal in a far away location because the seller may have had enough of the boat and is very motivated to sell it- and doesn’t want the hassle of moving the boat to a better marketplace.
As far as average trip times: A sailboat in the trade winds can average about 130 - 180 nautical miles per day. A cabin cruiser probably does around 350nm. However that doesn’t mean that a powerboat can complete the trip in half the time. The range on your cabin cruiser is probably around 1000nm. In the south pacific, depending on where you are, you may not be able to sail “as the crow flies” because you’ll need to divert to gas up.
I’ve heard the cheapest place to get boats is (probably eastern) side of the Panama Canal. Apparently lots of folks with dreams of sailing all over make it that far and then give up. No cite for this tho.
Best way to simulate having a boat: Get a small paper shredder. Every time you feel like boating, take a $100 dollar bill and shred it. Humming “Anchors Away” or oa sea chanty ptional.
Brian