Game plan to cruise.

[utchuckd]

I think I might be going at this backwards. Due to certain transitions and circumstances, whenever my house sells I'll be looking at possibly having the means to go cruise, but not the ability. Currently I'm landlocked, boatless, and my only experience is a learn to sail course 10 years ago. But after the sale of a family business, and the eventual sale of my house (whenever that may be), I'll basically have the ties to land cut and the funds available to hit the water, but no knowledge to go do it. So how do you get from Starting Point A) no sailing knowledge/experience, to Point B) cruising around coasts/islands, when you've already got the boat funds/cruising kitty stocked?

This is what I've got so far:

1) Buy a boat and live aboard and act like a cruiser, but just do day sails and work up to longer? Kind of a fast track, living off the cruising kitty while getting up to speed on the boat, but sailing every day and hopefully getting the skills built up quicker.

or

2) Move to the coast, get enough of a job to get the bills paid and leave enough free time to buy a boat and learn to sail it? Wouldn't be as hard financially, but would take longer to learn.

[TQA]

Buy a boat, move onboard, find some liveaboard cruiser to show you the ropes and take you sailing a few times. Get the books and read about stuff.

Cruising when you wait for good conditions before sailing is fairly easy sailing.

It is not rocket science.

You don't say where you plan to start this boating life. If the East coast on the Chesapeake or below then the ICW and Bahamas are a good and easy start. BUT if you are on the west coast it is a whole lot harder. Puget sound is nice but going South is tough.

Oh yes don't buy to big a boat. 30 foot is small 37 to 40 comfortable and anything bigger than 45 feet is going to get difficult for a singlehander.

[sailingdog]

You get there by cruising and sailing...

So get a boat... preferably a smaller cruising boat, say 30-35' LOA, and move aboard it.

Start by daysailing and getting to know your boat and its systems. Then work your way up to overnight cruises, week long cruises and then short open water sails, etc...

The better you know your boat and the better you know how to repair and maintain it, the better off you'll be. Learn all the systems on your boat and learn how to keep the boat running. You'll need to learn fiberglass, plumbing, electrical, mechanical and rigging skills.

I'd recommend you take at least the basic ASA 101 course again as a foundation and a refresher. If you can fit them in, take the ASA 103, 104, 105 courses.

Some books that I would highly recommend you get:

Dave Seidman's The Complete Sailor
Richard K. Hubbard's Boater's Bowditch
Larry & Lin Pardey's The Capable Cruiser
Don Casey's Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual
Nigel Calder's Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual
Don Casey's Good Old Boat
Beth Leonard's The Voyager's Handbook

[utchuckd]

I'm looking at Florida. Was thinking about the Gulf side but not so sure about that at this point. I had narrowed my thinking down to 30'-35'. But still considering a cat, especially if I end up living aboard.

[americancruises]

I have no advice to offer at all but that sounds awesome. I one day hope to be in the position to buy my own boat and go cruising. I might get my sons to learn how to sail so when I retire I can go exploring.

I live in New Zealand so there's lots to see in a very small space, highly recommended if you've never been here.

This is an excellent forum by the way.