I saw the /sons of Neptune/ thread lately and found it quite inspiring, even though I haven't been much into boats and sailing before. So I'm a total beginner atm. Probably going to make more money than average in the next ten years and not planning on a family life any time soon so I though I might as well keep on traveling and get a sailboat to sail it around the world after saving a bit of money.
How much money do you think a good boat for that might cost?
What licenses might be needed? I heard just sailing doesn't require a license, but the radio would.
Is it a completely shit idea?
How much money would it take me per year to pay for everything?
Also general sailboats I guess
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>>971618
>Sail around the world
>How much will a good boat cost
This is REALLY hard to answer, there are a number of questions you will have to ask yourself and factor in. What are your demands, for example, on things like speed, comfort, size and so on.
Will you be sailing alone or bringing a crew? If you're bringing a crew you'll need to pay more initially for a bigger boat, but you'll probably be able to find people willing to split all maintenance/running costs with you, possibly making it cheaper in the long run.
Do you intend to do extended offshore cruising or will you hop between ports? Most modern boats can cross an ocean every now and then, but for staying away from land/ports for extended periods of time you'll need more systems to be self-sufficient with regards to water/power, bringing up the price of the boat and the running cost.
With regards to licenses, and without knowing where you're from, you generally aren't required to have any more than the VHF certificate. That said, I would strongly recommend taking courses/classes in boat handling, navigation, weather, safety and so on. Also, consider crewing on a boat(s) for a while. This will allow you to gain (and soak up from others) experience that will prove invaluable on your own boat later, you'll receive pointers from captains and other crewmen with more experience than you, and so on. Have a look at Crewbay.com or Findacrew.net and browse there for a while.
With regards to money, there are plenty of cruisers who share their budgets online or on blogs. Costs vary wildly depending on where in the world you provision/get work done on your boat. It also depends on how much you cook yourself/eat out, how much you fish, how big your boat is, how much maintenance it requires, and so on.
Well regarding comfort and size I'm not too picky. I went from hiking to bike travelling and now this is my next plan, I think I can get along with a relatively small boat. I'd like to travel long distances (e.g. the whole world) so it should still be able to do cross an ocean from time to time.
Also I'd like to travel alone with the option of taking someone else with me from time to time so it would need to easy enough to handle for one person alone.
Hopping from port to port is less my intention than to ge to places away from civilisationsand spending time there.
I'm from Germany so I guess there will be more licenses needed for me as always but I was thinking about learning basic sailing in the next few years.
What kind of boat types might be sufficient in that case for my plans? Is there a type that can be handled by one or two people that can travel longer distances if needed?
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>>972466
I understand.
I'm a multihull kinda guy, but with that said I'll share some of my experience/information with you. Take it with a pinch of salt, these are my opinions and experiences, and the "facts" that I've been able to source from various online forums, fellow boat owners and crewmen.
It doesn't really matter how big the boat is, if it's set up correctly then it can be single-handed. Conversely, a 30-footer can be impossible to single-hand if the right equipment isn't on board.
I'm talking about stuff like bow thrusters, self-tacking jibs, self-tailing winches, autopilots, halyards and reef lines being lead into the cockpit and so on.
So the trick is to find a boat within your price-range that has all of these things, or can be equipped with all of these things after you purchase it.
With that said I will give you a few pointers to boats that continuously pop up in these discussions, and I'll tell you my personal opinion of them.
For starters I'd want a boat above 30 feet for crossing oceans and living aboard. Not only will it be faster and more comfortable, but safer as well.
I know there are several Island Packet boats that are held in high regard among "live-aboarders", both solo and couples.
From what I can gather (I have no personal experience with these as they don't appeal to me), they are well-built boats with great sea-keeping abilities.
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>>972571
Here's a great example for sale: http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1986/Island-Packet-38-2779680/Brunswick/GA/United-States#.V262I_l96Hs
Note a few things about it;
1) It has furling headsails and a furling mainsail, and all the halyards, furling lines and sheets lead to the cockpit. This means that you can increase or (more importantly) decrease your sail area without leaving the relative comfort of your cockpit in adverse conditions.
2) It has a deep cockpit that can be fully enclosed, and has a hard bimini. There's also a chart plotter and a VHF so you don't have to leave the helm should you be hailed or need to look at charts.
3) It has a full keel. This means that the keel essentially starts just after the bow enters the water and ends with the rudder in the stern. The advantages to this are a boat that is much better at keeping a course and doesn't get knocked around as much when the seas are coming in from behind you. Also, claims have been made that in the event of a grounding a full keel is much less likely to break/shear off, which makes sense. The disadvantages are that it's much less maneuverable and that it makes the boat a lot slower because of the huge increase in wetted surface (more drag).
4) The freeboards are high and the hand- and toerails on deck seem excellent, should you need to get up on deck for some reason in adverse conditions.
All of these things make the boat easier to handle and thereby safer in a long-range cruising scenario. Furthermore, it has a generator, a watermaker, waterheater, ability to receive emails and weather reports offshore and a great suite of navigation equipment.
I could go on.
It won't be a fast boat, but you don't sound like you're in a hurry.
>>972574
Other brands/names to look out for are:
Hallberg Rassy, Najad, Swan and Oyster. These are fantastic quality and very popular, so they tend to be expensive.
Catalina, Pacific Seacraft and Caliber also make good boats in the "Island Packet price-range".
With all this said, people sail around the world in anything these days. Jeanneaus, Beneteaus, Hunters, Hanses and so on are common sights in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) these days; a decade or two ago nobody would dream of leaving the coast in one.
Weather forecasting has improved greatly, and there's a very real ability to be connected to the internet while in the middle of an ocean and download live weather reports, so boats no longer need to be built for the "worst case scenario" just to do some offshore sailing.
