The Beginning

As you’ve probably heard if you’re reading this, we finally bought a boat.  I should say another boat, since we still own the first one, but this is THE boat – a 48-foot catamaran.  If you know us, you’ve heard us talk about this for some time.  In fact, we’re about 3.5 years into our 5 year plan, and the idea predates the plan.  You may think we’re 18 months early, but we’re actually right on schedule because the plan is not just to own a boat, but to live aboard and cruise extensively.  And in our more candid moments, you may have heard us mention circumnavigation.  The boat is capable, whether we are remains to be seen.

So where should I start?  The beginning?  Where is that?  This is not one of those simple ideas that can suddenly issue forth from the subconscious fully formed.  This is a culmination of our life experiences.  It is the practical application or our ideals and philosophies of life.  It is the embodiment of our faith.  It is what we were made for.  It is a journey that had no beginning and likely has no end.  This is who we are.  At least we think it is.  As you’ll see, we’re still trying to figure the whole thing out.

Buying a boat is never a good financial decision.  They’re expensive to buy, expensive to own, and hard to sell.  But we’re trying to buy something else, and hopefully it will prove much more valuable.  And what is money good for anyway if not to chase your dreams?

If you’ve never tried it, moving from the path of easy affluence to that of hard work and simple living doesn’t come naturally.  Folks are usually striving in the other direction.  Both are probably equally difficult.  Being “successful” and achieving “the American dream” are always upwards on the scale.  Sitting here, I can’t think of a single person who has been recognized as successful for going the other direction.  To most readers, the idea is probably preposterous.  Okay, it might be preposterous to all of them, but I trust some might at least have a sense for what I’m driving at.

So, what’s wrong with us?  Beats me.  Seriously, I know better than attempt to articulate that in one sitting.  Bear with me, and it’ll trickle out on its own.  Suffice it to say that this dream is an amalgamation of many different ideas and desires.  Some of which we may not even completely understand.

So let’s begin with the boat.

I found the boat while searching through listings on the Internet, as I am wont to do, or was.  I was looking for catamarans in Florida between 44 and 50 feet.  The length being what I thought we could handle and could also handle us, Florida being where I live.  Obviously, there are more boats beyond Florida, but I had the sense, nay, the expectation, that the boat would find me, not vice versa, and I was in Florida.  There are many, and I pored through them methodically.  Some I’d seen listed for years and would skip these out of habit.  Some I would skip over due to some combination of age, designer, or price.  Some piqued my interest enough for me to read the listing, and then were discarded upon failure of some aspect of my analysis.  Many were interesting, but all eventually failed.

When I first saw her listing, I was struck by the number of things about the design that were done correctly.  Engines in the middle of the hulls.  More fuel than water, both also in the middle of the hulls.  Watertight crash boxes forward.  Triple-spreader rig with inner forestay and running backstays.  Sacrificial keels.  Very narrow hulls with acceptable bridgedeck clearance (one can never really have enough).  I can count on one hand the number of production designs that have some of these aspects, and none that have all.  This of course was a custom boat.

A custom boat is one where a client contracts a designer to build a boat to meet his specifications.  The client is usually very experienced, has lots of money, and knows well what he wants.  Through a series of discussions, the designer learns what the client is looking for and the two work out a design that meets the client’s desires and his compromises (since a boat is nothing if not a study in compromise).  The design is then taken to a builder, and eventually a single boat is made.

A production boat on the other hand is built speculatively, attempting to capture a large segment of the marketplace.  There are marketing people involved, doing research to determine what features sell best.  While a custom boat is designed to satisfy one highly experienced person, a production boat is designed to satisfy a thousand people.  Then they are mass produced, with the necessary emphasis on controlling costs to maximize profit.  You may well imagine that the results can be less than ideal.

In addition to the design, she had the right gear.  Generator, watermaker, hot water heater, large battery bank with stacked inverters, full instrumentation with hydraulic autopilot, forward looking sonar, EPIRB, liferaft, etc.  This was serious stuff for a serious boat.

But saying the right things in the listing is not enough.  She was built in 1991 and time is hard on boats.  Pictures are the quickest way to get a rough estimate for a boat’s overall condition.  Inexplicably, and very suspiciously, her listing had very few pictures and they were of dubious quality.  While interesting, the listing did not identify the boat as a serious prospect.

I’m pretty choosy.  I take these decisions very seriously.  Up to this point I had actually called a broker and gone to look at exactly one boat, and that was over a year prior.   The story of Katie Rose will have to be told another time, but the short version is that while we agonized over the decision, someone else snuck in and bought her in the span of a weekend.

This new boat continued to rattle around in my thoughts for another week or so.  I found myself looking at the listing again, and this time I followed a link to the broker’s website.  The broker had his own listing for the boat there, which was the same as the one I had seen, except that this one had pictures.  Glorious pictures.  This boat was in good shape.

I went home that night and told T that I had found the boat.  Knowing full well the gravity of the statement, she asked if I was sure.  I claimed 90% confidence, which was somewhat remarkable for never having set foot on her.  It was time to call the broker.

Thus began a long and frustrating process that has ultimately ended with us owning the boat.  It was four months from offer to closing and we experienced many emotions throughout: fear, anxiety, longing, etc.  But in retrospect I think I can say that doubt never played a significant role.  Some may think that a contradiction, but one can have fear about what he is about to do and yet have full confidence that it is the right thing.  Is it risky?  Yes.  Is it foolish?  Perhaps.  Will it change us forever?  I hope so.