The Search Continues

It was a little depressing to find what we though was "the boat" and then to have to let it go once the survey turned up some issues.  But, just like riding a bike, if you take a spill the best thing is to get back on and keep riding (barring serious personal injury of course).

So last weekend we visited Newport, RI, and Salem, MA, to look at some more boats.  In all we managed to look at four boats on Saturday, they were, in order of viewing:

Southern Cross 31
Pearson Vanguard 32
Bristol 29.9
Ericson 28

We really liked the SC 31 and Bristol 29.9.  The Vanguard, while a beautiful boat, was just not set up in a manner that would allow us to live aboard, and the Ericson was a mid-1980s model with a pleather cabin top.  Not happening!

It was good to see that many boats in one day and we are learning a lot about ourselves and what we are looking for in a boat.  We tend toward the traditional, with a full keel, nice lines, and sloop or cutter rigged.  We are also looking for a boat with a less than 5' draft, as we would like to go to the Bahamas and the water can get "skinny" there as they say.

We also have found that we really love the state of Rhode Island, and decided that if we find a boat there it wouldn't be half bad to have to stay through a winter to get the boat in shape for the eventual sail south.  Another bonus is that if you keep the boat with a hailing port in RI, the purchase is tax free!  You've got to love a place that supports the boating community that much.

To that end, we are heading back to RI this Memorial Day weekend to look at a couple of other boats.  In searching on Craigslist this week, we stumbled upon a listing for a Down Easter 32, which is the same type of boat that we had the offer in on, but this is listed for about half that price.  So we are going to check it out.  We are also going to take another look at the Southern Cross 31, we really love the look of the boat, the practical layout, storage space, and great reputation.

One other item of note:  While in Newport last Friday evening, I surprised Trish by taking her on a sunset sail aboard the schooner "Aquindeck".  The really cool thing about that was that one of the crew members is a blogger that I follow, over at I Hate Shoes.  Scott, the blogger, recently quit his job working in a "cube farm" in Boston, sailed his boat down to Newport and is now working on the schooner.  A bold move and one I hope to follow shortly!  Anyway, check out his blog if you have the chance, it is well written and pretty funny at times.

Finally, a picture from our sunset cruise:

Re-Route

As first time "big boat" buyers, we decided it was prudent to have a survey before going through with our purchase, and boy are we glad we did.  It wasn't that anything major was wrong with the boat, but there were several smaller items, and one potentially larger item that would have kept us from sailing away in the near future.  For a boat at the top of our price range that still needed more work, it became impractical for us to go through with the sale, so we reluctantly backed away.

On the positive side, it was a great learning experience to go through.  The surveyor was very helpful and informative and gave us some other ideas of boats to look at.  In any event, this was the first boat that we looked at this year and there is the old saying that only fools rush in...

So now we are at square one again.  We still have the house up for sale, but we haven't received any solid offers, though a couple of people have expressed interest. 

It took a great deal of work and time to get the house to were it needed to be to go up for sale, and now that it is finally complete I sometimes find myself wandering around looking for something to do.  I should probably blog more when these feeling come.  It used to be a void that could be filled by TV, but we sold that.

Our dreams of freedom and living simply still live on.  As we've always said, if we don't find a boat up here (in the Northeast), and the house sells we will move south and get a start on our tropical lifestyle.