sorry guys, been spending way too much time at cruisersforum

[popolarbear]

an old acquaintance of mine raised his kids on mid 20ft(26? sail) off the coast of south America.(Brazil?).
sail boat would be nice for long extended trips.  I also have acquaintance that rents 20-30ft sail boat once a year in apostle islands and Cruz's the great lakes. that would seem to be a good test run before running the open ocean.

[arcFlash]

That's fair, I didn't see that you had small boat skills. If you have the time, try and crew on with someone sailing across the Atlantic. That would be awesome and if you want trial by fire I think king Neptune will oblige you. The skills you would get in 3 weeks of crossing would be a lifetime in cruising and it would be a blast. I've done the night crossing in a sailboat from Bayfield to Houghton (~106 miles) and it was worth ever minute of experience I earned. The Atlantic has always been on my todo list and crewing on is the only why that's going to happen for me.

Good luck and if you need crew to cross the pond you ring me up.


Sorry arcflash, my minds made up about how we're going to go about this..having read about too many others who have done it, I am with complete confidence that I and my wife can also quick learn to handle a blue water cat.  Others may think it a gamble, I think with the right approach, it doesn't need to be.  I don't want to sail a small boat, I did plenty of that with the tippy 14', I want to sail a larger boat and will jump right on to learn that.  You know, even those that take those week long sailing courses still don't come away with much experience or many hours under their belt... I would imagine, with some good instruction, and owning our own boat, we will gain both in short order.  And if it takes years of experience as you say, and I do not doubt that as I'm sure the weather will bring you plenty of surprises along the way, then I think we should best be getting started on those years of experience as soon as possible.  So this will be the plan, spend some time with some experienced sailors, spend some time getting acquainted with the nuances of our boat, and hopefully, with mother natures cooperation, work gradually into the more demanding knots of wind and currents, and take it from there.

The boats we are looking at are well known for their ocean going capabilities, but also of a size that can be handled by 2.  We have been looking at well equipped 37 - 40' cats.  No experience other than about a year of reading, reading, reading, reading... reading, reading.  Oh, and that tippy 14' with the gybe and main.

One thing we do have tentatively lined up is going with some folks we know on a 40+' cat that they bareboat charter later this winter, but  I think if we own a boat by then, they might be joining us instead of doing the bareboat.

Fred
[/quote]