09-21-2008
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Member
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Charleston, SC
Posts: 61
Rep Power: 4
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Buying a boat
Hi, all- I'm new to this forum, but I've been reading for quite a while (and a bit overwhelmed with all of the info out there on this subject..). All the choices, in general, seem to be about what you want kind of sailing you want to do, but our main goal is to learn as much as possible (so as many sail configurations, including spinnaker, would be great). Many of the guys teaching the sailing class I'm currently enrolled in (US Sailing's start sailing right) are gung-ho about the Buccaneer 18's, but all of them seem rather old (70's-80's), and have "issues" that don't make them as appealing as maybe some of the newer Laser's I'm reading about (like the Vago or Bahia), even though they are more racing/performance-intended.
In a nutshell- my wife and I would like something reasonably priced (upwards of $5000 maybe-- less would be great, but could spend a little more if needbe. The goal is to learn to sail, with a possibility of racing to speed up that process a bit. The long term hope is to buy a much larger boat and do some cruising when we near retirement age (8-10 years from now, so there's plenty of time). We live in Arizona, so most of the sailing will be on lakes with shifting, puffy wind conditions. We are both fairly fit, strong swimmers, etc... so the frequent capsizing that I've seen while racing seems like a fun way to figure out how to optimize speed on a boat (I don't mind getting wet).
I'm sure that this has been asked before (perhaps hundreds of times), but I've tried the search feature on this forum and it doesn't yield any results...
Do you guys have any suggestions?
Thank you!
Ray
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