Possible or unrealistic

[Alohaey]

Aloha everyone

I'm a 28 swiss male student, currently studying in Tasmania. I'm obsessed with the idea to sail around the world sometime. Since quite a while now I started to make up this plan where I'm going to buy a boat (around 10'000.-/150'000.-) at the end of my degree and sail back to Europe from Tasmania. My partner plus another friend would join me on this trip. One of the most important thing for us is that we are able to buy a boat in Australia preferably in Tasmania and sell it for the same price somewhere in Europe (Spain, France, Italy). All of us have yet no sailing experience at all. However we have a time range of 2 1/2 years at least before the journey starts. I know there are a couple of sailing clubs in town which we would start to join to get our sailing experience and licenses (do we need any and which one's?).
As you can read from this, we all are very new to sailing but there is just this urge to do it. How reasonable do you think this idea is? Is it cracy to think that we can buy a boat in Australia and sell it for the same price in Europe? Is it just rediculous to assume we can gather enough sailing experience in 2 1/2 years to be fit for such a trip? Love to hear your comments.

Thanks heaps in advance
Aloha


PS. The route I was thinking is cruising up the east coast of Australia, passing Papa New Guinea, through the indonesian islands, up the street of Malacca. Then heading over to the southern tip of india and over to the Maldives. From the towards Sudan up the red sea and into the Mediterranean Sea.

[chris_gee]

First of all you like the idea. Lets see if you like sailing. 3 days of feeding the fish off the coast of Tasmania may change your mind. Let alone those of your companions.
10-150K is a big range. You probably need to think 100K up properly outfitted.
Second boats going into the EEC need something like a certificate of compliance with their standards which while not impossible may be hard to get unless the boat was built there or regularly imported.
You also have to pay VAT unless you leave it in Turkey or something.
Australian prices are not cheap and if you add VAT you probably won't break even. You will also be unlikely to recover the full costs of upgrades let alone 10% brokerage.
You may be better to buy a European boat sailed out before they have to pay duty. The only way I can see to do that safely is to lease it until you reach say Singapore or arrange to buy it elsewhere. The former seems unlikely as you may sink it in the meantime.
I don't think you need a licence but you would need the knowledge something like the RYA courses give you. That might be possible in 2.5 years.
You won't break even.
You could do it low cost by crewing for others if you acquire the knowledge and experience to be useful.
I suggest you try sailing first then look at the issue in a year.

[tdw]

Man you are opening yourself up to a fair degree of ridicule but....

Without going into the plus's and minus's of the plan be aware that the chances of you buying a boat in Oz and being able to sell it for the same money back in Europe are not good. Fact of life, boats in Australia are amongst the most expensive in the world to begin with and once you have flogged the poor thing from here back to Europe you'll definitely be taking a hit on the price.

As to your own abilities that will depend on how much you can cram in over the next couple of years. You'll need at least to do some navigation and radio courses plus some basic silaing instruction. In all honesty just get out there and get some experience first. It's a nice thought but really pretty dumb to say you are going to do this without ever having been sailing. For all you know you may suffer from chronic sick seasickness or you may be the the greatest natural sailor of all time. You'll either love it or die of dehydration bought on by projectile vomitting from Hobart to Hades.

So yeah, the idea is pretty dumb but then a lot of us got the bug in much the same way. Some of us stayed the course, some of us gave it up as a bad joke and some of us are still plotting and planning.

Nostradamus I'm not , but good luck anyway.

btw, I do hope the $10,000 starting price was a misprint.

[JohnRPollard]

Start small. Learn to sail in a basic course. Offer to crew on local race boats. Read, read, read. Take a more advanced course that includes navigation and radio skills. Charter a cruising boat for a 2 week vacation.

If you're still game, look at your budget and plan accordingly. A sailboat capable of extended ocean passages is expensive. Don't plan to make any money off the buy-sell routine. Plan to lose a fair bit, especially when you factor in the cost of equipment. Sailing rarely pays for itself (that's why most of us have real jobs).

If the costs are too daunting, consider finding passage as crew on somebody else's boat. There are many cruisers out there looking for crew on the extended ocean legs. It's unlikely three of you could get on one boat (unless it's a larger yacht), but you and your partner may well be able to get on one together. IF you have some solid sailing skills, or other useful skills (cooking?), your chances of getting aboard will be much better.

Good luck to you, and welcome to SailNet!!

[chucklesR]

How about the simple answer,

Possible yes, but unrealistic.