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Originally Posted by morganmike
After all, what's the worst that can happen, that we've got to come back and get real jobs? (OK, not the worst, but disability, illness & injury can strike anyone, anywhere, anytime. Might as well get some cruising in before that happens.)
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Great post, Morganmike. We wish you the best with your plans. I think what you are planning is very doable.
If you look around the web, you find others with similar plans who are either just about to go, are cruising, or who are back from cruising. There's good stories and not-so-good stories. The one thing I'm learning from their tales is that expensive and complicated breakdowns sound more like the norm than the exception, even if the systems soaked up months or years of work and investment in advance. Until you've motored 1,000 miles, for example, it's hard to tell how your engine and drive train will hold up.
I still really like the Herb Payson books, starting with his first called
Blown Away. He and his family started in what seems like a different era, the 1970s, but they had an excellent attitude. They sailed a wooden boat with a frustrating engine on a very low budget with kids for a lot of adventures. I really think a cruise with a brand new boat with perfect systems can fail if the attitude is wrong, and a cruise with less-than-perfect everything can succeed fantastically with the right attitude and previous experience. (Caveat: I think it's pretty rare for attitude to overcome inexperience with cruising or boat maintenance, but...).
On the "worst that can happen list," one of the most frightening for me is health insurance. If you sail with no health insurance, can that be unfair to one's extended family? Both my wife and I come from large families, and if we got into a serious/expensive health issue with no insurance then they would feel the need to contribute. Even if we successfully rejected the help, it would be a real strain on everyone. In reading the SSCA and other forums about cruising health care insurance, especially coverage for only extreme and expensive needs, I think it could be worth the cost to prevent the "worst case" from occurring.
Good luck, and have a great time both now and in the future. Right now, I'm going to try and rouse the family into a daysail with me, even though it's only 36 degrees outside at the moment...
Jim H