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January 17, 2010

The Plan

We bought our sailboat with seven-to-ten-year plan.

Years
Plan
Years 1 and 2
Sail our MacGregor 26M around Yukon's Southern Lakes, maybe taking a special trip to the East Arm of Great Slave Lake while we're at it. Get extremely comfortable with both our boat and life aboard. Take lots of courses, get lots of practice, and improve our sailing skills.

Years 3 to 5
Move to tide water, exploring the Alaskan coastline and sailing the Inside Passage to Vancouver and Victoria (and maybe beyond). Get comfortable with saltwater sailing and life aboard ship for longer periods of time. Take lots of courses, get lots of practice, and improve our sailing skills. By then, Jade (and eventually Halia) will be old enough to start acting as crew.

Year 6
If we like the cruising life, and everyone is happy with saltwater sailing, start looking for a blue-water cruiser. Upgrade as necessary. Get comfortable along the coast with a few jaunts further out to sea.

Years 7 to 10
Prepare for some extended cruising. Explore the Pacific and, maybe, beyond.


Of course, this plan is contingent on many stars moving into alignment. One of those stars is finding a suitable cruising sailboat and having enough money to buy it. One model that I've had my eye on, hoping that they'll go back into production, is the MacGregor 65. I love the interior and exterior design of this boat. Check out a few minutes of this (old) video and you'll see what I mean:


MACGREGOR 65 YACHT from Rod Williams on Vimeo.

Today, I found out that Roger MacGregor's very own yacht, the MacGregor 70 ketch "Anthem", is for sale for $250,000 USD.



Sigh. Five years too soon.

3 comments:

Clare said...

You don't think a 65 foot boat is too much boat? I would think that for blue water cruising you could easily do well with something in the 40 foot range. Especially if most of your cruising is going to be just as a family.

My dream boat is an Island Packet 44. I have to admit that I'm very partial to boats with Bowsprits, mostly because I love the looks of the lines.

Meandering Michael said...

Who knows how many kids we'll have by then? It's hard to find a 40' with a good configuration for 3 kids.

Also, it would be hard to find a 40-footer with those kinds of features, in that kind of condition for that price. So what if it costs a little more in mooring fees?! :)

Meandering Michael said...

Who knows how many kids we'll have by then? It's hard to find a 40' with a good configuration for 3 kids.

Also, it would be hard to find a 40-footer with those kinds of features, in that kind of condition for that price. So what if it costs a little more in mooring fees?! :)