Hardin Voyager & Morgan Nelson Marek
Roy,
At the risk of incurring the wrath of the traditionalists on this BB, I have been thinking about your post from yesterday afternoon. As I am interpreting it, you are new to sailing, meaning that you are learning to sail as well as planning your great escape. I have been focusing on the ''great escape'' aspect of your post, but ignoring the point that you are learning to sail.
We all choose how well we want to learn to sail, and as long as you are comfortable with your ability, and don''t get pounded too badly in a storm, there is no one right answer here. BUT if you want to learn to sail well, you will not be able to learn on the kind of heavy cruisers that you are contemplating. These boats make good second boats. They are not responsive enough to teach you how to finesse sail trim and develop good boat handling skills. I know that people have learned to sail on all kinds of boats, but it is hard (if not imposible) to really learn to sail well on boats like these.
I would suggest that you start out with a small keel boat, perhaps 26 to 28 feet and spend some time out on the water. Yes, you may loose a little money buying and reselling a smaller boat, but you will have better skills and, in the long run, these skills will make will allow you to use the engine less, and sail safer, faster and more comfortably.
I also question your time table. You might be able to get to a point by "2004 to sell everything and move on board" but that would be a real foot race to achieve if you were experienced sailors. With all due respect, you are not. The first thing you learn in sailing is that the surest way to get into trouble is to set deadlines. My sincere suggestion is to slow down a little. Try to identify the skills that you need to actually go off cruising, i.e. navigation, boat maintenance, procurement of supplies and food, sailing, weather, offshore medicine, and so on. Then set up a schedule to learn those skills. Take things one step at a time and don''t rush. to summarize, you are caught between two conflicting proverbs. Your haste is appropriate acting on the Welsh (or Scottish)proverb, "You are dead for a very long time." but it needs to balanced by the old saw that, "Haste makes waste."
Respectfully,
Jeff
(For the guy who noted that you don''t get pooped much on the Chesapeake, I agree, but I sure got pooped a lot sailing in the ocean in winter off in the Atlantic off the Georgia Coast. I know of what you speak! 8^)