Any boaters here?

[Pete Judd]

Mine, and hold a 100 ton master, with sailing and towing.

 

[vabiker23518]

Have a 76 Columbia (30') beater that we sail in York River and Chesapeake Bay. Has a gas, 30HP 4Cyl "Atomic 4". Easy to work on.

 

[Looking4new]

I have had over the years a 19?? wooden runabout with a 25hp Johnson pull start motor. I graduated from that to a 19?? Crestliner (fiberglass) with the same Johnson and upgraded to electric start 1974 40hp Johnson. The current boat is a 1986 Carver Montego 26' with a 260 hp Merc I/O.

 

[Piston]

So Tom,
Do you have a boat too, or just interested in others?

Tell us about your boating background


If I ever hit the lottery, I'm going to custom order my dream boat, a 55' Fleming.

 

[Pixguy]

So Tom,
Do you have a boat too, or just interested in others?

Tell us about your boating background


If I ever hit the lottery, I'm going to custom order my dream boat, a 55' Fleming.

Just a 55' ? Why not buy Tiger's?

 

[Piston]

Just a 55' ? Why not buy Tiger's?

Well, I would, but I really want to be able to handle it myself, with no crew.

Otherwise, I probably would have already bought it :laughing:

 

[sseelhoff]

When I lived on the coast, we had a 19' Hunter for many years. Wife got tired of sailing, so we purchased a 20' Key West. Still crewed on a friends Tartan sailing races every weekend off of Hilton Head after we sold the sailboat. Also built and paddled a Sea Wolf kayak in the local rivers.

Spent several vacations under sail-Grand Banks and Berry Islands in the Bahamas and Florida Keys. Best vacations of my life.

Really miss being on the water every weekend. Keep threatening to buy another kayak or paddle board for the local rivers, but haven't been able to find the time. (And SWMBO is not on board with my plans-her life is dedicated to the equestrian pursuits).

 

[coobie]

My wife fishing on our pontoon boat.

 

[Loren49]

First boat in 1982 was a 23 ft sailboat. New boat is a 1980 27ft Cape Dory sailboat which we've enjoyed since 1986. Home port is Chaumont Bay on Lake Ontario. Major adventures were year long trip via the Eirie Canal to the Hudson River, then NYC, turned left and Mount Desert Island on Maine Coast, then in September headed south, Florida Keys via ICW then a 6 week trip to the Abacos (Bahamas) in March and back up the Coast to Home. (2000-2001) In 2004 taveled out the St Lawrence River to Nova Scotia and then back to Maine (stored boat there or school year) then back home via NYC in 2005. In 2008 (now retired) we left in October and traveled the east coast to the Florida Keys and back home by end of May.

Also many days of cruising Lake Ontario and the Thousand Islands area of the St Lawrence River.

My suggestion is go small, go now! It will not be the same trip when you're 65 and the perect boat does not make the perfect trip.

Loren

 

[BLUE ME]

My back yard.

 

[dmccarty]

The wifey and I are actively planning to sell off some, or all, of the land to buy a 50ish foot trawler and go off to see the world. Crazy idea but our county is about to explode population wide and I don't know if we will want to live here anymore. We could still have our Bubble of Sanity surrounded by the insane but it just might not be worth it.

We know what boat we want and we are ticking off the list of training we need to do while we wait for the kids to get out of the house. :laughing: Lots of things could prevent us from getting the boat but it is a goal. We have met the builder, the designer, owners and we can't wait to have the boat....

Later,
Dan

 

[Coyote machine]

Spent time, lots of it as a youth on CT coast, learning to sail Bluejays, Falcons, Lightnings, and crewing for many sailboats in the harbor, and off the docks of my best friend's dad's marina. Used Boston Whaler's like crazy to go to the beaches, to tow water skiers, travel between various Yacht clubs, to go fishing, goof off, etc.

Finally bought my first motorboat in 2007, a 22' Mako Bayshark, with 200HP Optimax saltwater motor. Rerigged and wired it for sound. Put an electronics box up under the T-top and finally dumped the Opti for the 2012 Yami 4 stroke 225HP. What a difference! Great for tubing, fishing, waterskiing, whatever.
Also Old Town Tripper 17' fiberglass canoe, and a Sears aluminum 12'? left here by former owner of my property.

Would like to get back to sailing too.....

 

[KiotiJason]

The wifey and I are actively planning to sell off some, or all, of the land to buy a 50ish foot trawler and go off to see the world. Crazy idea but our county is about to explode population wide and I don't know if we will want to live here anymore. We could still have our Bubble of Sanity surrounded by the insane but it just might not be worth it.

We know what boat we want and we are ticking off the list of training we need to do while we wait for the kids to get out of the house. :laughing: Lots of things could prevent us from getting the boat but it is a goal. We have met the builder, the designer, owners and we can't wait to have the boat....

Later,
Dan

Hi Dan,
We are planning the same thing!
We bought a 40 footer about 4 or 5 years ago so se can get a feel for cruising and the boating lifestyle.
Our next step us to hire a cruiser and do some island hopping and make sure that we are going to be ok with long range cruising. If that all goes as planned we will sell up and by a smaller property and get a trawler style cruiser and live aboard. We'll bats the "master" plan. Good luck with your dreams it looks like you can really get some bang for your buck over there here the boats are still over priced.

 

[brin]

Spent time, lots of it as a youth on CT coast, learning to sail Bluejays, Falcons, Lightnings, and crewing for many sailboats in the harbor, and off the docks of my best friend's dad's marina. Used Boston Whaler's like crazy to go to the beaches, to tow water skiers, travel between various Yacht clubs, to go fishing, goof off, etc.

Finally bought my first motorboat in 2007, a 22' Mako Bayshark, with 200HP Optimax saltwater motor. Rerigged and wired it for sound. Put an electronics box up under the T-top and finally dumped the Opti for the 2012 Yami 4 stroke 225HP. What a difference! Great for tubing, fishing, waterskiing, whatever.
Also Old Town Tripper 17' fiberglass canoe, and a Sears aluminum 12'? left here by former owner of my property.

Would like to get back to sailing too.....

Hi Dan,
We are planning the same thing!
We bought a 40 footer about 4 or 5 years ago so se can get a feel for cruising and the boating lifestyle.
Our next step us to hire a cruiser and do some island hopping and make sure that we are going to be ok with long range cruising. If that all goes as planned we will sell up and by a smaller property and get a trawler style cruiser and live aboard. We'll bats the "master" plan. Good luck with your dreams it looks like you can really get some bang for your buck over there here the boats are still over priced.

You fellas might want to check out this link before you commit to a boat.....My Mrs. and I would go this route if we decide to cruise....for many reason..

SEAHORSE MARINE

 

[MacLawn]

Been on boats all me life! Canno' remember I was so young. Been all over the pacific, as much as 45 days at sea at one time, but that was courtesy of me uncle...

I have 3 boats now, 18' Sea Ray outboard, 14' DuraCraft 15 hp Johnson, and 15' Mad River canoe. Time, time's wha' I'm needing.

 

[sldva00]

I've got a Flats Cat 21 with an E-Tec 150 by Evinrude. I've never considered myself a boater, just a fisherman who happens to own a boat. I enjoy fishing the flats of South Texas, don't go offshore. One day I'll get another boat to go offshore in. Sold my first boat (Gulf Coast 180 with an OceanPro 150 by Evinrude).

 

[nybirdman]

We have a 16.5' center console with a 40HP Johnson two stroke for fishing the great ST.Lawrence river and Black Lake.Used to be into canoes and kayaks but sold them off.
Great walleye and bass fishing in our area.

 

[Rhinohio]

Entry level 20' Party Barge with 50hp Merc Bigfoot. Our acreage is 4 miles to the boat ramp on the Ohio River.



Mike

 

[Garandman]

My wife and I met sailboat racing in Marblehead MA and I proposed via spinnaker the night before the USS Constitution visited. Now we have a Melges 24 in Boston Harbor but seldom race. We live walking distance to the harbor.

We also have an inflatable dinghy with a 6hp 4 stroke and 15hp 2 stroke.

 

[dmccarty]

You fellas might want to check out this link before you commit to a boat.....My Mrs. and I would go this route if we decide to cruise....for many reason..

SEAHORSE MARINE

:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

This is exactly who we are looking to build our boat! :shocked::shocked:

Have you been spying on us Brin? Dang it! I knew I should have kept wearing the tin foil hat!

We met Bill, the owner of Seahorse, at TrawlerFest in WA last May. :thumbsup: He is a US citizen but now lives in China building Diesel Ducks. Bill has a website devoted to Diesel Ducks irregardless of who built the boat though most of the discussion is about his boats since he has built most of the fleet. Forums

Looking at the various boat designs out there, I can only find two designs that I think are worth buying to cross oceans. One is the Dashew FPB boats and the other is the Diesel Ducks. The Dashew boats start at $2.5 million :shocked: so that dog dont hunt. :laughing::laughing::laughing: A Duck is a weeeee bit cheaper. The Dashew boat is fast for a trawler type boat with decent fuel burn and fast is a danged good thing to try to move around weather systems.

A guy on one of the trawler forums made it to Ireland last night from the Azores. He sailed across the Atlantic to the Azores and continued on to Ireland. He had great weather getting to the Azores but he got pounded by a series of lows getting to Ireland. He is sitting in port now and I suspect still sleeping. Early in the trip to Ireland he had a few course options as the lows moved in, go back to the Azores, head east to Spain or Portugal or head north to the UK or Ireland. He kept heading north though he would have to head NNE to keep the waves on his stern. Eventually, as he moved north, he was out of course options, he had to head to the UK or Ireland. The Dashew boat would have allowed him to beat the storms to port and minimized his time in bad weather. He really got pounded his last 24-48 hours with steep, 12-15 foot seas.

We got lucky in WA and spent a day bringing a Diesel Duck back to Seattle from the TrawlerFest. These things are now Space Ships. The sail boat my dad had in the 80's had a VHF radio, depth sounder, compass and paper charts, the boats today have radar, forward scanning sonar, AIS, weather fax, GPA, electronic charts, auto pilots, etc. This is great stuff but expensive. The boat was a pleasure to handle. We got lucky and unlucky though. The weather was Chamber of Commerce beautiful which was good and bad. :shocked: It made for a great trip but we wanted to see how the boat would handle it rough conditions. :laughing::laughing::laughing: The owner of the boat said something about the great weather to my wife. She said yes it was beautiful but she wanted some more wind and waves to see what the Duck would do. :thumbsup:

The owner brought the boat back from China last year across the Pacific. They went through some storms with 30 foot waves with no problems. Right now he, another Duck, and a guy who helped bring the boat across the Pacific are in Alaska buddy boating. What they are doing is pretty amazing.

Bill and George Buehler the boat designers are working on a new design that is more affordable. It is basically the 382 model which is 41 feet long but they will cut off the integrated swim step to allow the boat to be shipped in a cradle that takes up the space of a standard shipping container to minimize shipping costs. To keep the boat cost low the new boat will not have as much teak, stainless steel, etc. I think Bill and George have decided to call it a Puffin. It looks like a Puffin and Puffin got my vote. :laughing: Bill is trying to get the boat to the US for $350,000.

The guy that just got to Ireland is in the same size boat and another boat like his just finished crossing the Pacific and arrive in Australia.

Later,
Dan