saw a sailboat passing and said, "Man we gotta do that one day." Later that night, one too many beers, and we vowed that someday, we'd do a sailing and surfing trip on our own boat. I kept the idea in the back of my mind and over the years it slowly got pushed towards the front. This past summer working at Stefano's I met Nicole Vecchio (yeah, she's kinda badass).
Over one too many drinks I confessed my desire to do a sailing trip and she immediately replied, "I'm in." Steve, the owner and our boss at Stefano's, has been sailing for about 10 years now. He said to the wife, "I'm buying a sailboat.", chased one halfway around the Caribbean and now lives on it during the winter in the Virgin Islands, crews boats in the off seasons, and works harder than anyone I know in the summer running the catering company and four restaurants that he owns. Steve has been an instrumental part in saying, "Get out there and do it. Get off the dock." We've heard lots of people that buy boats and never leave and we didn't want to be those people. Every time we'd stress about lack of funds or having trouble finding a suitable boat, Steve would show up with some article, or what not, talking about people doing incredible sailing trips with virtually no money at all. If you think you can't do a trip like this, just keep us, and these guys, in mind.
We started looking at boats in September on our few and far between days off. We'd have less than 24 hrs and be headed out in the car the entire time looking at boats in different regions. Long Island, northern NJ, and MD just to name the big spots. Here's a few of the boats that we looked at and found unsuitable. Most of the time it was something majorly structural wrong with the boat that the owner had made no mention of. Seldom we found that the boat just wouldn't work as we had such, well, low standards (a diesel engine, self-righting, no major structural defects, and a reasonable asking price considering the market). I didn't want to put up links to these boats as the owners are still trying to sell them, but they're all still out there for what seemed like obvious reasons to someone with relatively little to no experience.
1975 Pearson Alberg 35. This boat was used for charters throughout the Cheasapeake and was said not to be a project boat in bold capital letters. Upon our arrival we couldn't even find the boat because the photos were of when she was looking a little more spritely. The boat we saw had been demasted, stripped of her paint on sides and bottom, had a cracked solar panel, and multiple soft spots on the deck, some quite large. Needless to say I didn't feel like coring an entire deck to go sailing. The owner was asked $15k. If the boat had been in near perfect condition this price would have been acceptable.
1974 Cal 34. Again on paper this boat looked pretty good. Sure it needed some brightwork, but we'd planned on doing that for any boat we picked up. There were a few areas of minor wood rot belowdecks, it had the original Ferryman diesel engine (ran rough), the sails weren't new, and it smelled awful. When I asked the owner if he was flexible on price he said absolutely not. $15k. Not worth it with that engine. We moved on.
1972 Allied Seawind II. This was a serious possibility. The boat was in pretty good condition, the engine had been a repower to a westerbeke some 15 years ago, the sails were in good condition, the rigging looked sound, and the only thing we could find truly wrong with the boat was that there were multiple leaks in the windows. This was a brokered boat and asking $19k. When we asked the broker if offering $10k was out of the question he said he'd happily talk the owner into selling it for around that.
1980 Rival Moran 34. This was a weird situation. We were digging in a boatyard and the guy that owned it also owned the boat in the slip right next to it. Good situation for the buyer. We didn't ask to see it, but he was dying to show it to us. It was solid as a rock and in sail away condition. At the start of the conversation he said he was asking $35k with a broker the following week, but said he'd do it cash in hand for $25k before the broker. I had him down to $18k in 15 mins.
1973 Pearson 33. This boat would have been a possibility. Sailing wise all the gear was good except for the support beam for the mast. It was fractured a bit. After getting home and looking into it, this was found to be a problem that would deteriorate further and needed to be repaired. It was an expensive repair. Asking $12k.
We saw multiple other boats that were outrageous. Tartan 34's on the hard with no interior and a engine that hadn't been run in god knows how long with an asking price of $20k. But we also saw some really great boats at reasonable prices that were just out of our budget. In particular we found a 1970 Pearson 33 that had sound rigging, brand new running rigging, 7 sets of crispy sails (it was someone's weekend raceer), a full propane galley, and a Yanmar diesel that was only 9 years old. The asking price was $17.5k. If we had more money, this would have been our first pick of boats. I wrote all this just to point out to the people that think you need $100k to do a trip like this, that you really don't. You just need to get off the dock.
