What is your End Game?

[chrisncate]

Good thread, watching with interest.

[BentSailor]

I'm just past thirty here, so my end-game is (hopefully) far enough away it will involve flying cars

With that in mind, whilst we love sailing & are hungry for quite a bit of adventure in the years to come, we both accept that it's not likely to be on sailboat. As people far wiser and experienced than I have already pointed out, at some point the spirit might be willing but we cannot convince the body to join in the fun. I don't like to dwell on the concept, but it is a practical matter that suggests I'll be running the end-game from a more stable platform surrounded by a less capricious environment than the ocean I love.

That said, if I can still afford it after the years of adventure, I'd like to be close enough to those capricious seas that I can look over it and remember when the game was far more exciting

[MedSailor]

The opening moves of my game looked like a bluder, but in retrospect it is all starting to look like a gambit....

(anyone here actually play or study chess???)

I'm in the middle game now. Got the perfect girl, got a great boat, got a job and lots of financial creativity that is allowing me to built the cruising kitty.

The plan? Produce two offspring (first is on the way), get them out of diapers and sail off to circumnavigate Australia where I spent some time growing up. The plan is to have the kitty set up so that we don't have to work for at least 5 years and I expect to leave before I'm 40. I work in health care, so I do NOT take my health and youth for granted. I plan to play when I'm young. If I have to I'll work when I'm too old to play.

What did I do for the dream today? I strengthened my relationship to my wife, as I do every day, as she is and will be the crew I trust my life to. I also went to work and earned some coin, some of which was deferred to the kitty. I also logged on to Sailnet to stoke the dream.

What will I do for the dream tomorrow? I'll log on to Sailnet again (for good measure) then cast off in a small craft advisory with a forecast of rain because I can't wait another weekend. I need to sail....

MedSailor

[killarney_sailor]

We are in a different situation. We are in the middle of a circumnavigation and will be leaving for the second half in about a week. We should be back in North America in July, 2013. So we would appear to be in the end game that many people would want. We have been thinking about what next. We have agreed that we are not in the many year circum nav club (met one couple who completed theirs in only 18 years); nor are we in the keep the boat in one tropical locale for many years.

We doubt we will keep our current boat - it is just too big and complex for the Great Lakes (vane steering and watermaker come to mind) and it also represents a lot of money floating there. We will have a boat but it will be much smaller and we want to travel on land too. We would like to spend time in South America, China, parts of Africa, and many parts of Canada. We have not been keen planners so far and likely will keep it that way and see what opportunities present themselves.

We visited a farm in New Zealand and my wife decided that it would be really interesting to own a hobby farm. Have to check in with me at various stages over the next many years since the end game will be changing often I suspect.

[PBzeer]

When it's getting warm, go north. When it's getting cold, go south. Repeat, until I can no longer do it. Now, if I can just get my butt in gear and get out of this comfy little cocoon I find myself in ...

Certainly the downside to stopping to work. It seems harder to get back out there, after having done it before. Especially as I'm in a good place, with good people at a good marina. And though I've been looking forward to getting back to cruising, it's harder to break away than I expected.

[Flybyknight]

I'm 77, and have concluded that TIME is a rider that breaks us all. We have a Cape Dory 25 that stays on a trailer at home (Southern Delaware) in the winter, and gets trailer-ed to the venue of choice in the summer. We did the Delaware Bay / Atlantic Coast regimen, now we plan on doing some gunk holing in the Chesapeake this summer, out of Whitehaven. Plan on celebrating our 51st wedding anniversary at an upscale B&B there. Next year we'll try Maine.
In the Spring it's fly fishing, Summer-sailing, fall upland bird hunting, and winter it's wood working. (You should see the bright-work on my boat) Life is good.

Dick

[MattSplatt]

Future pirate hearrrrr. ;-)

[ebs001]

When I read the thread heading I assumed that it meant what am I going to do after sailing/cruising. My time line for winters is sail-cruise in until it's physically too demanding. Then trawler-cruise until it's too demanding. The RV-cruise until it's too demanding and then move into a retirement residence in my late 90s and reflect on my cruising days.

[Minnewaska]

Not an end game, but an Atlantic loop is on our bucket list anyway. We don't really aspire to circumnavigate.

Our bucket list would be a north Atlantic crossing to England, down the coast into and around the Med, Cross again to the Caribbean, then work our way back to RI. Stop plenty along the way, even fly home for holidays. Wife is a British citizen so hoping that makes some of the European Union issues easier. Not sure. Spring to the following Fall perhaps. Doable.

[Tim R.]

We are currently in the midst of our 5 year plan to sell the house, buy a cruiser, move aboard, build the cruising kitty, learn/equip the boat. As you can see by my sig, we have accomplished quite a bit.

We both are professionals and spend/invest our money wisely. Luckily, my wife is in the business and handles all of that and she has done a fantastic job. Our current plan(could change any time) is to start with the canadian maritimes, head to key west and the abacos. Formulate a plan to cross the pond and sail hte Baltic, british isles and the Adriatic. Then who knows. Our kitty should allow us to sail 3-5 years depending on how much we spend on side trips.


We are bringing the boat up to almost new spec. We are doing all the work ourselves so we will know how to repair/service when needed.