[artbyjody]

Livin:

You'll find some VERY opinionated advice on this subject (all rightfully so). There is a majority that did it right and never tell the stories of how much wrong it took for them to get that way, there are others that defied tradition and somehow - managed, and then many others with varying experiences or accumulated from stories of others that put the fear of god in them so they somehow managed to make it ok...That aside...

I live by the mantra - if you can dream - it can be done. Worked well for for me, but I do due diligence in becoming as aware of as the many pitfalls as there are glory points... The Ferro Cement....Honestly - you are not going to find a deal there... for starters they are heavier than pigs with their families riding as cowboy. As another poster pointed out - it was a dream backyard Popular Science DIY trend - not many got it right and if you are paying less than 10K for one - I can assure you the reason why it less than 10K is that is the cost to hire someone to tow it and scrap it at your local garbage dump.... And before you go Reid's schooner Ann is ferro - it sat in the water for years - somehow still floating but he had everything donated to him to begin with...your budget is most likely not to include gifting...Furthermore - most ferros are in the 36 foot + range and rightfully so for the weight / displacement drawbacks of using that material for design...


NOW: You have a place to dock that is free and that saves on average anywhere between 1200 to 6K a year on moorage fees. Good start.

You haven't sailed solo on any boat of any decent size (I state 25-30 foot)...what you find is that sailing longer distances means having better tools to do it... Celestial navigation is great but last I checked the stars never warn you about a freighter barreling down on you at 20 + knots... and if your skies do that - you can supplement your income as actually being a real physic...At minimum you need GPS, a Charter (sure use paper but eh in todays world why?) and most certainly a radar system...preferably all integrated (2K to 5K)

So here is you rub... you didn't have 18 or 20 years to dream this up - your not that old and the boat you end up owning will be older than you (respect your elders as they say as they have different ideas for you)...

So here is something realistic:

Buy a 27 footer and get it out there... figure out your wants - likes - desires and dislikes... trade out - trade - up.. But 10K ...your a young man - you have time - work summer jobs and where you are at - there are plenty of crewing opportunities and marinas that you do side jobs or a real job to earn the mullah and get discounts on stuff...slow down - sailing is about getting somewhere as slow as possible but fast enough to get there before retirement...

However, you can make anything happen - but there is a fine line between insanity for the sake of pretending to be sane, and the line between sanity and common sense for you....

best of luck....