How of 'get aboard' a variety of boats?

[Prairie Salt]

Virtual boat shopping has been an interesting journey.

We live central prairies Canada so we expect to travel get further on our boat inquiry.

Chartering will probably happen, but we're not there yet.

Tips on how we could view and board a variety of trawlers? We're in no hurry, so annual events would be good to plan for.

Interested in used: 100K +/-

 

[CharlieO.]

We visited Banana belt boats in Anacortes. They keep the boats in the yard with a walkway going all the way around and you get to view at lot of different boats, nice to also be able to check the hulls also.

We made a mini vacation out of it and Air BnB'ed a boat to stay on at Cap Sante Marina also. That marina is also open to the public so plenty of dock walking to be had also.

 

[Rufus]

Given your location I'd begin with the Great Lakes area. There are lots of big marinas (and winter storage) facilities in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. Boats will be back in the water by early June. An early summer trip down through Door County, Wisconsin, Manitowoc, Racine, Milwaukee, Chicago...then Muskegon, St Joseph, Holland, Detroit...NW Michigan...then head home across the Mackinaw Bridge. Lots of boats...fair sprinkling of what you might be looking for. Of course, getting aboard is difficult unless you're looking to buy. This loop is a fairly scenic drive for the most part. The Lake Michigan car ferry "Badger" runs between Manitowoc, WI and Ludington, MI. I believe there's still a Spring boat show in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Trawler Fest used to be in Manitowoc, Wisconsin...not sure if it still is.

BTW, if you're in the buying mode, and not just tire kicking, sellers and their brokers will often get you into winter storage buildings to look at inventory. For example, our 440 Ocean Alexander i(https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s9/1989-ocean-alexander-440-green-bay-wi-$175-000-a-65779.html) is in that category in Green Bay. However, it sounds like you're currently just window shopping. It will be in the water at Sturgeon Bay in early June if it doesn't sell before.

(Chicago Boat Show is in early January...)

 

[sjisailor]

Two ideas, non exclusive. Visit a large boat show that has an in-water event. Trawler Fest, Seattle Boat Show, etc. And/or as CharlieO suggests, take a vacation somewhere with big marinas and yacht brokers (Anacortes WA + Seattle Lake Union) come to mind here in the PNW and have lots of trawlers. Boat mix would differ a lot by city.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. PS. Your multi-year plan is excellent. Good advice thus far BUT I don't think any of the above members have ever been to Winterpeg. A two week "boat hunt" mid January sounds like it would best fit into your idea of a search-cation. Plan for boat dense areas in Florida, Texas or California.


I would suggest a good buyer's broker who is willing to travel on your behalf (and expense). Perhaps they could gather a portfolio of listings in advance of your vaca' so you would have some prospects to see immediately on your arrival.

 

[Prairie Salt]

Greetings,
Mr. PS. Your multi-year plan is excellent. Good advice thus far BUT I don't think any of the above members have ever been to Winterpeg. A two week "boat hunt" mid January sounds like it would best fit into your idea of a search-cation. Plan for boat dense areas in Florida, Texas or California.


I would suggest a good buyer's broker who is willing to travel on your behalf (and expense). Perhaps they could gather a portfolio of listings in advance of your vaca' so you would have some prospects to see immediately on your arrival.

"Winterpeg"....well done.

Yup, a 'date weekend' is kind of what I am thinking.

Fly down to a big marina, have a connection that would help us just 'take a peak'.

My last two boats I bought through meeting people on a forum. Drove to Minneapolis and Cincinnati to get them.

 

[fgarriso]

Give Curtis a call.

https://www.curtisstokes.net/yacht-buyer-brokerage-service.html

 

[Prairie Salt]

Given your location I'd begin with the Great Lakes area. There are lots of big marinas (and winter storage) facilities in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. Boats will be back in the water by early June. An early summer trip down through Door County, Wisconsin, Manitowoc, Racine, Milwaukee, Chicago...then Muskegon, St Joseph, Holland, Detroit...NW Michigan...then head home across the Mackinaw Bridge. Lots of boats...fair sprinkling of what you might be looking for. Of course, getting aboard is difficult unless you're looking to buy. This loop is a fairly scenic drive for the most part. The Lake Michigan car ferry "Badger" runs between Manitowoc, WI and Ludington, MI. I believe there's still a Spring boat show in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Trawler Fest used to be in Manitowoc, Wisconsin...not sure if it still is.

BTW, if you're in the buying mode, and not just tire kicking, sellers and their brokers will often get you into winter storage buildings to look at inventory. For example, our 440 Ocean Alexander i(https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s9/1989-ocean-alexander-440-green-bay-wi-$175-000-a-65779.html) is in that category in Green Bay. However, it sounds like you're currently just window shopping. It will be in the water at Sturgeon Bay in early June if it doesn't sell before.

(Chicago Boat Show is in early January...)

Great boat and great location. (to me) Definitely checks off a lot of boxes for us.

You are right that we are at tire kicking stage. At 56 my wife was just offered her 'dream job'. We plan for her to pull the pin at 61-65. I'm a self employed contractor so I plan to quit when my health forces it. : )

Lots can happen in 5 years.

This is fun so far.

 

[catalinajack]

Great boat and great location. (to me) Definitely checks off a lot of boxes for us.



You are right that we are at tire kicking stage. At 56 my wife was just offered her 'dream job'. We plan for her to pull the pin at 61-65. I'm a self employed contractor so I plan to quit when my health forces it. : )



Lots can happen in 5 years.



This is fun so far.

Wait no longer than you absolutely must. These pages are full of stories of folks who put off retirement only to have a life event dash life-long dreams.

 

[jleonard]

Wait no longer than you absolutely must. These pages are full of stories of folks who put off retirement only to have a life event dash life-long dreams.

What he said!!

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. fg. Re: Your post #7. I would NOT recommend Curtis Stokes. First and only impression: NOT impressed by his business approach OR his assessment of the "value" of our trawler. Complete lowball of our boat's value and seemed more interested in touting his business acumen than helping us. YMMV.

 

[Juliet 15]

I second Banana Belt Boats. It's a great setup, and the broker's on site are there for questions. I must have gone there 3 or 4 times over the years of our search.

 

[Comodave]

Great boat and great location. (to me) Definitely checks off a lot of boxes for us.

You are right that we are at tire kicking stage. At 56 my wife was just offered her 'dream job'. We plan for her to pull the pin at 61-65. I'm a self employed contractor so I plan to quit when my health forces it. : )

Lots can happen in 5 years.

This is fun so far.

We planned on retiring at 57 but then my wife got a HUGE promotion along with a huge pay raise. Catch was that she had to commit to 3 more years. After discussing it we stayed employed. I had my own business. Now we are approaching our 10th anniversary of retiring. Don’t wait too long. Go while you can still go boating. Unless you just want to sit and watch TV. Good luck!

 

[Prairie Salt]

Wait no longer than you absolutely must. These pages are full of stories of folks who put off retirement only to have a life event dash life-long dreams.

Hear ya! When we were 30 years old we sold our house and 'stuff' and took off traveling for a year and more. Everest base camp, rented Russian Minsk's in North Vietnam, mopeded (not a word I know) from north to south India, driving 4x4's on sketchy roads in Tibet during monsoon season...ect.

Then settled into family life style. My wife had our second child at 45. We still travel (all be it a bit more subdued than our 30's), we are the 'old' parents at our kids sports events, but we are enjoying this stage of life.

If in the end the Trawler dream doesn't pan out I won't be feeling like I missed out. I'm a deep dive type person and will invest in this until I figure it doesn't work...if that makes sense.

Our attitude now is we are not willing to 'sell it all' for a new direction. We learned that starting fresh in our 30's has long repercussions.....no regrets....just some financial long term resonance.

This dream must fit into a more strategic retirement plan.

 

[Comodave]

We almost quit our jobs back in the late 90s to move to California and live aboard. But we would have had to give up the defined retirement from my wifes job so we stayed in Tucson. Good thing we didn’t quit the jobs then because it would have screwed up our retirement completely. Like I said above we ended up staying 3 years longer but it was well worth it.

 

[PM]

At the risk of starting a big discussion...

People often talk about chartering for a week or two as a way to get to see different boats. But I sort of take exception to this solution. The O.P. is looking to spend about $100,000. A decent boat budget but none of the boats he finds for charter will be close to that amount, probably 3X that amount. Not a great idea to look and enjoy a few half a million dollar boats when you only have a fraction of that available.

Chartering a boat is expensive.He could easily spend a quarter or more of his budget chartering a couple times.

I realize he is not exactly ready to buy yet but putting himself on a chartering plan will likely add a year or more to his buying plan. Can you take two charters in a summer? Not easily.

pete

 

[Prairie Salt]

We almost quit our jobs back in the late 90s to move to California and live aboard. But we would have had to give up the defined retirement from my wifes job so we stayed in Tucson. Good thing we didn’t quit the jobs then because it would have screwed up our retirement completely. Like I said above we ended up staying 3 years longer but it was well worth it.

Her new job adopted her 22 year pension. Perfect fit for her skillset with education opportunities, 4 years she will be earning double what she is now and its located a 15 min walk from our house. As you say....will be worth it.

 

[Prairie Salt]

At the risk of starting a big discussion...

People often talk about chartering for a week or two as a way to get to see different boats. But I sort of take exception to this solution. The O.P. is looking to spend about $100,000. A decent boat budget but none of the boats he finds for charter will be close to that amount, probably 3X that amount. Not a great idea to look and enjoy a few half a million dollar boats when you only have a fraction of that available.

Chartering a boat is expensive.He could easily spend a quarter or more of his budget chartering a couple times.

I realize he is not exactly ready to buy yet but putting himself on a chartering plan will likely add a year or more to his buying plan. Can you take two charters in a summer? Not easily.

pete

Agreed. I think chartering for a week is more about getting a feel for the experience, not as much about boat shopping.

I like the idea of finding a AirBnB in a big marina. Fly down for a weekend, walk the docks, do some sight seeing. Informal.

Is there a common Looper staging point? Seems our budget and dream is connected closer to Loopers than big boat marinas. But, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

FYI....its -13F this AM.... = motivation.

 

[Choices]

Curtis Stokes was the listing agent on our boat, and we bought it despite of him. I would be hard pressed to do any deal he was involved in.

 

[CarlF]

Getting in boats will only take you so far because you don’t really know what you are looking for.

So I would use boat shows and listings to get a maximum list of six boat brands that interest you.

Then next summer walk around marinas looking for one of those brands with the owners aboard. Stop and say something like “That’s a beautiful boat. I’ve been considering a “fill-in-the-blank” for my next boat. Have you been happy with her?

Cruisers love to talk about their boats. Among the questions you can ask are things like “what other boats have you owned or considered? Why did you chose this? How do you think the build quality of those boats compares to yours? What sort of cruising do you do? What problems have you had? What do you wish you could change? What do you like best? And so on

In the process you’ll learn about the boat and a bunch of similar brands. You’ll also learn about things that you have ‘t thought about - such as “replacing the fuel tanks is a massive job”. Or, “the deck leaks are a constant annoyance”.

Do this a dozen times and you’ll have a short list of boats to shop - and likely your first cruising friends.

 

[Bacchus]

Do you have a written list of Must Haves, Want Haves, and Don't Wants?
If not I'd take the time to take that step seriously.
First define your cruising style... where, how long (time & distance), accommodations desired for you & yours as well as others? Layout preferences, room for dingy, toys, etc
Then develop the Musts, Wants & Don't Want lists and have your wife do the same independently. Then discuss, compare, combine and compromise (at least on some items just do it her way!)
The above provides a great check list for virtual and actual walk throughs.
When talking to owners about what they like / dislike about their boat choice be sure to discuss THEIR cruising style... an ideal feature for some may be unimportant or undesirable for YOUR style.
Then plan some mini vacations to explore boat shows and sales of a few choices that seem to fit your lists from virtual tours.
Good luck w you search... 2 tips
1) Make the search fun vs a chore
2) Don't wait too long... nothing wrong with having your boat selected and secured so you can "make it yours" and start w some wkend / week long cruise vacations to gain experience.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. PS. I'm surprised no-one has suggested this thread yet: https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s3/boat-search-101-a-14905.html
LOTS of good information there going back almost 9 years BUT still applicable today.

 

[mvweebles]

Do you have a written list of Must Haves, Want Haves, and Don't Wants?
If not I'd take the time to take that step seriously.
First define your cruising style... where, how long (time & distance), accommodations desired for you & yours as well as others? Layout preferences, room for dingy, toys, etc
Then develop the Musts, Wants & Don't Want lists and have your wife do the same independently. Then discuss, compare, combine and compromise (at least on some items just do it her way!)
The above provides a great check list for virtual and actual walk throughs.
When talking to owners about what they like / dislike about their boat choice be sure to discuss THEIR cruising style... an ideal feature for some may be unimportant or undesirable for YOUR style.
Then plan some mini vacations to explore boat shows and sales of a few choices that seem to fit your lists from virtual tours.
Good luck w you search... 2 tips
1) Make the search fun vs a chore
2) Don't wait too long... nothing wrong with having your boat selected and secured so you can "make it yours" and start w some wkend / week long cruise vacations to gain experience.

This is intellectually great advice. I say it like that because as I read it, I immediately thought of the journey TF member Hippocampus took. Coming from a serious offshore sailing background, he had a defined list that led to a Nordhavn as an affordable compromise (an Artnautica was his literal dream boat). After a year of intense searching, he and his wife decided on a Nordic Tug 42 and appear to have adapted their cruising plans to a more coastal/dawdle cadence. Though I must add thar while the boats - a Nordhavn 40/43 and a Nordic Tug 42 are seemingly substantially different, they share many commonalities, not the least of which being a pilothouse/sedan layout.

Best success to the OP. My wife and I planned to cruise in the 2000 time frame when I had a killer job offer. I spent over 15 years working at something I really enjoyed and proved quite lucrative. I will add that the intense flame go cruise has dimmed a bit so will be interested to see how the story evolves as we are hopefully single-digit months away from taking off.

Peter

 

[Prairie Salt]

You bet.

That list changes and the compromises are tough.

Purpose is to Snowbird Bahamas or Keys. That's the main focus. Not saying further travel hasn't been talked about, but we are sticking to the meat of it.

I started out looking at 50'-60' boats. Then went to 35'-40' boats with the headspace of "less cost = more opportunities". 40'-45' seems to be where I am landing.

My wife and I have done plenty of travel together and luckily when it comes to this type stuff we are on the same page as we've had 27 years of making mistakes.

One of our favourite boats at this time is the Bayliner 4588/4788. I realize saying that there are many white knuckles on the armchairs right now.

Its not a very inspiring to look at, but really like the design.

- water access - We really enjoy swimming and paddle boarding when on the water. An accessible swim platform is important.
- Galley up - cooking together is also very important to us.
- Fly bridge - no big ladder from main area to flybridge.
- Main Cabin - not too fussed about how big it is. Just needs to have access to both sides of the bed.
- At least 150-200G fresh water
- Engine room - love the access of a Defever 44, but willing to compromise.
- a compromise that I feel I can make sitting here in kitchen and not on a dock is the exterior walk way for docking. I'd rather have more living area.
- Like the idea of putting dingy on a hard top rather than off the swim platform.

State of the Onion.

Do you have a written list of Must Haves, Want Haves, and Don't Wants?
If not I'd take the time to take that step seriously.
First define your cruising style... where, how long (time & distance), accommodations desired for you & yours as well as others? Layout preferences, room for dingy, toys, etc
Then develop the Musts, Wants & Don't Want lists and have your wife do the same independently. Then discuss, compare, combine and compromise (at least on some items just do it her way!)
The above provides a great check list for virtual and actual walk throughs.
When talking to owners about what they like / dislike about their boat choice be sure to discuss THEIR cruising style... an ideal feature for some may be unimportant or undesirable for YOUR style.
Then plan some mini vacations to explore boat shows and sales of a few choices that seem to fit your lists from virtual tours.
Good luck w you search... 2 tips
1) Make the search fun vs a chore
2) Don't wait too long... nothing wrong with having your boat selected and secured so you can "make it yours" and start w some wkend / week long cruise vacations to gain experience.

 

[mvweebles]

You bet.



That list changes and the compromises are tough.



Purpose is to Snowbird Bahamas or Keys. That's the main focus. Not saying further travel hasn't been talked about, but we are sticking to the meat of it.



I started out looking at 50'-60' boats. Then went to 35'-40' boats with the headspace of "less cost = more opportunities". 40'-45' seems to be where I am landing.



My wife and I have done plenty of travel together and luckily when it comes to this type stuff we are on the same page as we've had 27 years of making mistakes.



One of our favourite boats at this time is the Bayliner 4588/4788. I realize saying that there are many white knuckles on the armchairs right now.



Its not a very inspiring to look at, but really like the design.



- water access - We really enjoy swimming and paddle boarding when on the water. An accessible swim platform is important.

- Galley up - cooking together is also very important to us.

- Fly bridge - no big ladder from main area to flybridge.

- Main Cabin - not too fussed about how big it is. Just needs to have access to both sides of the bed.

- At least 150-200G fresh water

- Engine room - love the access of a Defever 44, but willing to compromise.

- a compromise that I feel I can make sitting here in kitchen and not on a dock is the exterior walk way for docking. I'd rather have more living area.

- Like the idea of putting dingy on a hard top rather than off the swim platform.



State of the Onion.

Esteemed TF member Kevin Sanders just took his 4788 from Alaska to La Paz - something more than 3000 nms along a fairly rugged coast. The 45/47 has some limitations, but perfectly capable for the type of cruising 99% seek.

Read more here.

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64956

Peter

 

[SteveK]

One of our favourite boats at this time is the Bayliner 4588/4788. I realize saying that there are many white knuckles on the armchairs right now.

white knuckles you say.
either one is a lot of boat for the size.

 

[Pcpete]

My question to the op is “where do you think you want to go?” Are you thinking the Great Lakes, doing the Great Loop, the Gulf Coast, Baja California or the Pacific Northwest and possibly going to Alaska? All of these are very large areas but by no means a complete list. One could spend years in the San Francisco Bay and deltas. Is this going to be your full time home? What is your experience level? Never been on more than a rowboat or deep water sailor? How “primitive” of a boat will the Admiral accept? Is a dishwasher a must have? What about a washer and dryer? What about hosting family and guests? How ambulatory are you? Getting on and off is decidedly different with different designs. What’s your tolerance for sudden repairs not covered by insurance? How much can you do yourself?
All of these are factors in the decision tree that need to be winnowed down. In our case, we live and are going to stay in the Pacific Northwest, our kids are raised and love to go with us, we like to fish and aren’t ones to climb onto a CHB or Grand Banks type configuration. After 29 years with a Sunbridge configuration boat, the Admiral declared she was tired of looking at peoples knees and ankles out the window. The command bridge needed to be accessible, the master bunk had to be accessible from both sides and basic privacy for us and guests. I showed her a 45’ pilot house that she said was too big. The list quickly distilled to the 38’ Bayliner. It met all of the criteria except getting to the command bridge. The ladder was vertical. It took me about a week to come up with a modification that changed the angle to that of a step ladder and retained the access to the port hatch without much intrusion in the cockpit. We found one that had the extended hardtop that was priced right considering things that needed to be addressed, like the black water system. When we look at other boats it reaffirms that we made the right decision for us.
At the same time we have a couple in our Yacht Club who are on their fourth boat in as many years. Each has been an excellent boat and a great configuration. Just not quite right for them. It’s been, I’m sure, a very expensive proposition.