QUESTION:
We are heading to FL next week to take a week long sailing course where we will also live aboard the 38' boat for the week. Our plan is to buy a boat that will allow us as novices to both learn to sail and eventually allow us to sail the oceans of the world if we choose to continue. I have read many times that we should buy the smallest boat that we think we can live with. I understand that philosophy from both financial and safety standpoints, however, I hope that we will enjoy the cruising life and want to continue it for many years to come. I would hate to buy a boat that would not fulfill our ultimate dream which is to enjoy cruising and touring the world.

I was hoping to gain some insight into your decision to move from the Sun Fizz onto the Cat after so many years. Our budget will allow for up to about $150K for a boat and necessary upgrades / refit and an ongoing net income of about 2000.00/mo. for Cruising. Anything you can do to help guide us into avoiding a dream killing mistake will be greatly appreciated.

ANSWER:
Congratulations on your decision to take a sailing course. I think that the 38' sailboat you will be staying on for this course is a good size to help you determine a comfortable size for you.

Although I agree with the idea of the smallest boat you can be comfortable with, I think that a house or even an apartment and all the space that provides, and a liveaboard cruising boat are so different that it's difficult to know just how small is small enough (or too small, for that matter).

When we started cruising in 1986, according to the Seven Seas Cruising Association survey Watermelon, at 39 feet, was a bit larger than the "average" cruising boat. Almost 20 years later I read the SSCA Commodore's Bulletins and see many, many boats in the 45' size range. That's a significant increase over that time period.

We decided on Watermelon because she was a "big" boat for her size - we had not expected to find as much in a boat smaller than 42 feet. However, that's because the galley was very small and the head was also very, very small. No shower, just commode and sink with a kitchen sprayer as faucet/shower. One sat on the commode to shower. Personally, I liked it. We could not waste water (we only had tank capacity for 75 gallons of water) and so this minimalist approach worked for us. The galley was a different problem, however, because I like to cook and didn't think I could possibly cope with just a two-burner stove. I became quite creative in producing meals with a minimum of equipment and facilities. The rest of the boat was very spacious and, as it turned out, ideally suited to our style of cruising.

Looking back at our choice and our life, I think that we made the right choice. The most important aspect of cruising is the maintenance of the boat so that it is always in good repair and ready to sail. The larger the boat, the more work and expense there is in maintaining it.

I am not particularly enamored of the heavy-displacement "true" cruising boats. As far as I can tell, for many people "heavy" is synonymous with "strong", and I'm not sure that's really true.

A heavy displacement boat provides the cruiser with more carrying capacity, so you can load up on all the "stuff" you can't leave behind. WATERMELON was a medium-to-light "racer/cruiser" and for many people it would have been a terrible choice. I've always said that it was the only blue-water boat we knew, so we didn't know any better. However, as we cruised, we found that the lighter displacement made her a quicker boat so our passages were shorter than the heavier-displacement boats. However, not so much shorter that we would have been willing to sacrifice comfort for speed.

Now for our present boat. [Link]

A sailboat was my idea. Peter was a powerboat person, but he adapted quite well to sailing full-time. For the distances we covered, and the budget we had when we started out, only a sailboat could have taken us as far as we went.

But it's 19 years since we left Boston, and our bodies and our lives have changed. We have grandchildren now, and with age has come medical realities we now have to face. Staying closer to the U.S. has become more desirable, and if we're not going to do long-distance passage-making, a power boat can work as well as a sailboat. And a power catamaran gives us more stability and room, and is more fuel-efficient than a displacement monohull power boat. I expect that we will cruise the U.S., the Bahamas (which I contend is some of the prettiest water I've ever seen), and perhaps the Turks and Caicos Islands. Perhaps this little (34 foot) boat is our last boat, and perhaps not. It's too early yet to know just how this new adventure will work out, but Peter is much happier. Although there is a lot of preventive maintenance associated with a power boat, it is not as physically demanding as a sailboat, and we are approaching the age when that is an important consideration. I would still prefer a sailboat, but after all these years it's Peter's turn.

I hope this has answered many of your questions. If you have more, please feel free to write again!

Fair winds,
Jeanne