Aaron's blog

Our experience looking at sailboats is pretty thin given that we live in North Dakota, hence the goal to just look at a bunch right away.  But here is all of the looking we have done so far:

We were in Duluth just after Christmas 2017 and stopped by a couple marinas just to look around.  It was VERY cold so we would step out of the car to walk between the rows of boats on stands and then quickly return to warm up.  It was interesting to see some of the parts that had just been previously read about--keels, through hulls, rudders, weather vanes, and many more.

When we were at sailing school in Florida we were on their Dufour Gib'Sea 43 for 6 nights.  So we became pretty familiar with that model.  I was a little disappointed that we didn't do much looking under all the floor panels and just in general checking out the different systems.  On the last day two of the school's other boats were at the same dock so we went to take a quick look at those.  First a Gib'Sea 51 which was much larger inside than our 43-footer, and then the Island Spirit 37 catamaran.  The salon and cockpit on the catamaran were enormous.

For Easter this year we were up in Minot and one of Aaron's relatives said that they knew someone who was selling a sailboat on Lake Sakakawea.  They showed us a picture and we decided we would stop by the marina on the way back home to Medora.  There was still quite a bit of snow to trudge through but we found the sailboat there.  It looked pretty classy and I figured that the full keel meant it would be a solid boat but couldn't see much from the ground.  A few days later we got ahold of the owner and found out it was a Tashiba 36 that he brought up to ND after it had been damaged in a hurricane near New Orleans.  He described it as "the best boat between Lake Superior and the west coast."  Some reading online indicated that maybe he wasn't completely in fantasy land as it was designed by a legendary boat designer and built by a very well-regarded yard in Taiwan.  He said we should come check it out once it was in the water, and we did early in the summer.  His son was there too and we poked around into all the dark corners--very fascinating for Aaron.  We also took it out for a short sale that day.  Ultimately it was too expensive and not a great design for us.

In August Aaron was in Duluth with his father and brother on a motorcycle adventure.  They stopped by one of the marinas and talked to the salesperson who jumped at the chance to take them out on the docks to see 8 or so boats.  This was helpful for Aaron to see many different floor plans and conditions of boats, but also very helpful for his father to see what this crazy boat idea was all about.  The salesperson had lived on a sailboat in Key West for two years and talked about his experiences there too.  It was too bad that Anna couldn't be there but hopefully we can replicate that great experience at a few of the marinas that we visit.

We looked at our first sailboat today and thought we should tell you about what we’ve been looking for in a boat. In general, we think that a 35 foot monohull made in the 90s would be a good fit for us.

A broad category of sailboats is whether they are a "bluewater boat" or not. Bluewater boats typically feature heavier construction, a large keel (no fin keels), and thicker rigging. Basically they are designed to be safer and more comfortable in heavy weather conditions that you may not be able to avoid when crossing an ocean, but often sacrifice performance and cost. We currently have no plans to do any longer passages and will not specifically be looking for a boat designed like this, but would be OK with one.

Specific things we will be considering:

• Diesel engine: this is pretty standard, typically about 40 horsepower
• Aft cabin: when the main cabin is in the back of the boat you get a more square-shaped bed instead of the more common triangular ones in the pointy bow (v-berth).  Also a little better walking room. However, they lack the excellent airflow of a v-berth and take away large amounts of cockpit storage.
• Sugar scoops and walkthrough transom: sugar scoops are when the back of the boat has a flat "scoop" surface down by the water line, and the walk through transom is when you can step into the cockpit from the transom. This would be great for boarding the dingy, swimming, and getting Louise on and off.
• Dual helms: having two steering wheels makes the cockpit feel more open since you can walk down the middle to the back of the boat, but was not very common on models under 50 feet until the 2000s.
• Pilothouse models: these have an enclosed cockpit and seem nice but are pretty rare.
• Navigation electronics: we have a relative at Garmin who has offered to hook us up with discounted instruments so a boat with aging electronics wouldn't be a downside.

We plan to keep the price under $50,000. This should be enough to get us in a boat that doesn't have any major issues, but will need some moderate repairs and updates. It seems usual to spend about 20% of the purchase price to do that, which for us might be things like adding solar panels, replacing batteries, painting the bottom, replacing ropes, etc.

We will need a dingy too, probably a 10 or 12 foot inflatable with a 10 horsepower motor.

So far we have left Medora at noon on Friday, October 12th, spent a night at Aaron's brother's house in Fargo, ND, and are halfway through a two night stay at Anna's parents' house in Rosemount, MN.  We had great goodbye parties at both of those places with many friends and relatives in attendance.

Our next stop is Indianapolis, IN to visit Mickey who we worked with in Medora.  We plan to spend two nights there and then cross off a few more states for Anna with a route through Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia on our way to North Carolina.

A couple weeks prior to Hurricane Florence we had chosen New Bern, NC as the first place we would start shopping for sailboats.  Some brief research made it seem like we would still find sailboats in good condition for sale there so we will check it out.  From there we will work our way south, stopping in areas that have marinas with boats for sale.  For example, in New Bern we found 5 marinas that each have about 5 listings of interest to us.

Our loose goal is to see 50+ sailboats over a few weeks as we don't have much in-person experience.  This will basically be an education phase.  As we start to narrow down our interests in specific features or models we will also be looking on Yachtworld, Craigslist, etc. and schedule some individual showings.

If things go well we envision that we could close on a sailboat by early December.  This could be anywhere from North Carolina down to Miami.  Then we would spend about one month cleaning, updating, repairing, and adding stuff.  Probably towards the end of that timeframe we would have the boat in the water and go on shakedown cruises on some days.

That would bring us to January.  We think we will spend some time in the Florida area building up our experience in relatively protected waters.  It would be fun to visit Biscayne Bay where we did most of our sailing school training.  Towards the end of February we may feel confident enough to make the 80 mile passage over to the Bahamas.  This would be our first (and only planned, other than the return passage) time being out of site of land.

In April we would return to Florida and begin the process of heading north up the east coast of the US.  Aaron's brother is getting married near Boston in early July so we will try to be there by then.  We haven't thought much about what happens after that.  Possibly we would head further north for a while and then retreat back down towards Florida as the fall weather sets in.

Needless to say, this is all subject to change!

I made it home. 6050 miles is the final count. The highlight of today was all the familiar earthy smells on the last 150 miles of I-29, closely followed by the nearly completely burned tractor/trailer I saw still smoldering west of Columbus. Also northeast SD was more scenic than I remembered it being although I have not traveled there more than a handful of times.

Sunday I departed at 6:40, shortly before the sun rose. I took highway 27 out of Miami which had a lot of stoplights but saw some non-downtown parts of the city that way. In Tampa I met my mom's friend from Medora--Howard--and had lunch with him at Tijuana Flats. I had a good burrito there and tried some interesting hot sauces. Of course the best non-backtracking route out of Tampa was a similar stoplight extravaganza as what I had in the morning so I didn't get as far as I wanted to. I spent the night in Ashburn, Georgia and forgot to watch my odometer but online maps say it was about 500 miles, with 1500 mile left to go.

Today I left at 7:15 and stayed on the interstate all day. I managed to make it 850 miles and am in Columbia, Missouri for the night. I drove through St. Louis and got a good view of the arch (from the highway) but not much else exciting happened. 730 miles to go tomorrow.

Saturday morning we slept in, and then took the bus over to see Lincoln Drive. It was Walter's first time taking the bus as previously he has just used his car, the trolley, or the MetroMover (overhead rail). So it was educational. Lincoln Drive is a bunch of fancy shops that all the rich tourists from around the world go to so they can get fancy stuff, and I realized I was sort of tired of being around all these classy people. I think Walter likes to people-watch more than I do, as pretty much everywhere we had gone in Miami was full of people dressed to impress, whether they were tourists or local well-off people. And of course I didn't pack any nice clothes so I felt a bit out of place.

But there was a Tesla "store" there where I got to check out the Model S and also a stripped chassis. And speaking of nice cars, there were plenty that I saw out on the streets: several Ferraris, a McLaren, Bentleys, Maseratis, Porsches, and BMWs and Mercedes as plentiful as Fords and Chevys are in ND. I guess I like looking at cars and Walter likes looking at people.

After Lincoln Drive we were going to go to the Marlins game but we had only used the awesome pool area for about 30 minutes and I wanted to spend some time there relaxing so I could be ready to head out of town at first light in the morning. So we did the pool and hot tub thing for a couple hours and then got a pizza and some beer to enjoy on his apartment balcony high above the city (23rd floor). And we watched a movie about Jackie Robinson after that--it's a good one.

On Friday Walter and I drove out to the Shark Valley visitors center in the Everglades. We got there about 2 hours before the next guided tour so glanced around for alligators (there were none) and drove a little ways to the Big Cypress Preserve where we watched a film about the cypress forest ecosystem. There were no alligators there either. Back at Shark Valley we went on the guided tour and learned all about the "river of grass" and saw a bunch of blue herons and other birds. Also we saw some baby alligators that were about 12" long. Depending on the season apparently there can just be tons of alligators everywhere, but not now--there were hardly any.

Then we went to a Miccosukee restaurant nearby and ate frybread burgers and a sample of alligator. Alligator is no good to eat but the burger was. Also behind the restaurant was a big alligator so I did get to see one (oh we saw a dead one on the side of the road too).

We headed back to Walter's apartment to clean up and then went out for some drinks with his sister and some of her teacher friends. We walked a ways back to the apartment and saw many interesting and bustling bars along the way.

Thursday I arrived in Miami at 3:30. I took a toll road this time so it was a pretty quick trip to right downtown where Walter lives. I met him and we headed up to his apartment on the 23rd floor (50 Biscayne is the building if you want to find it on a map). Then we headed up to the 54th floor to check out the view even though it is very nice from his own balcony, and to check out the infinity pool and view of the bay from nearer the ground. It is a pretty classy building and a great way to spend a few days in Miami.

We took the MetroMover around a loop and stopped to look at all the fancy open air restaurants and bars near the marina and Heat stadium. After that we drove over to near Midtown to a biker bar called Wood and had a beer and some tacos. Lots of bikes there, and a good variety of them. Then we drove to Ocean Drive and walked along there checking out all the restaurants and clubs--almost all of them have tables out on the sidewalks and it was a very lively atmosphere.

On Wednesday I walked over to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park and looked at the fort stuff there. There is a beach there too so I took a look but didn't have my swimming suit with. Then I went to the southernmost point of the continental USA where there is a big marker saying "90 miles to Cuba." According to the maps I've looked at the Navy base is further south but I guess it is close enough. I put on my swimming suit and swam at the southernmost beach but the water had poor visibility so I didn't stay long. I drove over to the state park with my swimming suit on this time and jumped in the water but quickly realized I should be snorkeling if the water has 30+ foot visibility.

So I rented a snorkel set and saw many different bright and colorful fish. It was like a real life Finding Nemo. The biggest I saw was maybe 30 inches long but it is tough to tell because everything looks magnified. I also saw some live conch shells.

Then I went back, cleaned up, and walked to the Sunset Celebration that they have nightly. It is a street-fair sort of thing with some jugglers and stuff, and a great view of the setting sun. That was on the far side of town so I stopped in a few bars for drinks as I worked my way back home.

My feet feel like they are at their limits with the combination of being in soaked boots for two days in a row, walking around more than normal, and walking on the really rough beach. Not bad yet but close to blisters in a few spots and they are sore all round.

Tuesday morning I did laundry and checked out the nifty outdoor hot tub with a waterfall. Then I departed at 11:00 for Key West. The drive was pretty uneventful except for when I really wished I would have taken a toll road instead of taking a highway through town and hitting a bunch of stoplights. Oh and rode through rain twice and quickly dried out except for my boots.

The sun was setting and the sea was nearly glassy as I drove through the Keys which made it a very beautiful drive. I got a motel room in the old town area and walked over to the main road to check out the nightlife. I saw many interesting things…