[johndproctor]

Hello one and all,

My name is John and I live in paradise! The Port Stephens area of NSW Australia.

My love of sailing started when I was 16 and found out I could sail for free courtesy of the Royal Canadian Navy Sailing Association at HMCS Star.

However, a University education (B Sc EE), marriage, family, moving to Australia, career etc all got in the way of getting on the water. That was rectified in 2001 when I bought a Jeanneau 37.2 ex SunSail Raitea. I kept the boat for several years sailing in the Melbourne VIC area and sold her (a mistake!) but having the bug and later moving north to the Port Stephens area I bought a Bertram 25' for fishing (I can hear the boos already). Well my circumstances have changed again and I am in the market looking for a sailing catamaran (sanity has returned).

I will be looking for something in the 34' to 40' range capable of offshore cruising. So far the designs I am favouring are the Prout Snowgoose Elite, and the Dean 365. Both are good seaworthy boats. A different boat but also interesting is the Gemini 105Mc just because there are so many of them they have stood the test of time.

That is about all except I am also a Licensed Ham VK2DLP and I have since retiring from corporate life in 2003 spent about 2 years doing professional marine electrical/electronics installation and consulting as well as 5 years in Apple computer support. It keeps the grey cells ticking over!

That all for now. Hope to be on the water soon.

 

[tdw]

Always nice to see the odd Australian pop up. Hello.

I can well understand your boat choices. If I lived on PS I'd be wanting to spend as much time as possible loafing around the Broughtons. Probably my favourite place on the NSW coast. I'd even be very tempted to go for a stinker but if going sail definitely a multi.

Question is of course how far offshore do you want to go or is it mainly coastal ?

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

Always nice to see the odd Australian pop up. Hello.

Theres often an odd Aussie on here. Very few normal Aussies, anywhere...

 

[johndproctor]

There is nothing odd about Aussies. I will say after a trip back to Canada in January and February of this year (-16C and -18C) that there is something odd about Canadians. Imagine all that wasted time not being able to sail It reenforced the decision I made in 1977 to migrate to Australia!

To answer the question I will be wanting to sail up the coast and then on to Vanuatu, New Caledonia and off to Samoa. So island hopping I guess.

I have physically looked at 2 boats so far in Australia:

1. A very clean well built aluminium Crowther 36
2. A clean Simpson 11 in GRP

The Crowther was too small and cramped internally and the Simpson needed about $30K worth of upgrades and about 3 months of my time before being able to take it offshore. With the upgrades needed it took it out of my price range.

I know I can't get everything I want but seaworthy and roomy I need. Obviously electrical and electronics doesn't faze me but I am not looking for a project boat either.

I have seen two boats on yachtworld.com that look the goods a Prout Snowgoose Elite 37 and a Dean 365 Oceanliner. Both designs are very similar and elicit strong support from their owners on sailnet. The only problem is the boats are in Ireland and Portugal respectively.

Also given the prices I just can't seem to shake the idea that the Gemini 105Mc might do the trick. Yes I will need to upgrade some things on one to do what I want to do but you just can't get past the low cost and the fact that there are so many of them built! I also look at the comments of owners and they seem happy with the boat.

When I bought my Jeanneau I imported it into Australia and the shipping from Tahiti to Brisbane was $10,000 USD. Thirteen years later it is $27,000 USD from the east coast of Florida to Brisbane and $50,000 AUS from Gibraltar to Brisbane and those sorts of shipping costs put a real dint in the budget Especially when you have to pay GST on top of that too!

So there you have it. I'm still looking....

 

[johndproctor]

Well it has been awhile since my original post but success! I purchased a Peter Snell designed Easy 37 catamaran. It is well built and the surveyor who is a professional catamaran builder said she was in excellent condition. I had her up in Brisbane QLD for awhile to get the standing rigging updated (an insurance thing here in Aus). Got a crew together and she is now down at Port Stephens. I have been going through her and fixing up and updating some of the systems and this summer will be getting used to her handling characteristics.

The only thing I can say is I should have done this years ago!