The next morning Will met us at 9am to sign our Charter paperwork given that we were going to take the boat out for an extra day of sailing the Charleston Bay. Will remained on board while we moved the boat from its slip to the outside face dock. This way it would be easier for us two novices to dodge the array of boats within the labyrinth of slips. Will jumped off and Lisa and I were large and in charge of a 44' catamaran for the first time. Since sailing is sailing, we decided to get in some more docking practice. We took about 10 turns at the dock, trying to perfect pulling a large boat to the dock close enough to step off, but far enough to not destroy the transom. Needless to say some approaches were better than others. Lisa gave the phrase "coming in hot" a run for its money. But in the end we both had several successful docking attempts.
Once we mastered our docking skills we set off for a little sailing. We departed against the current with a 15kt wind off our port side moving us over the ground at around 6 kts. Before long we started running out of water and needed to tack. Since a catamaran takes a little wider angle to tack, we transitioned through about 110 degrees and were racing with the current. The winds didn't really change, but our ground speed jumped to 10 kts and higher. The motion of the catamaran is different than a monohull and some people don't care for it. However, Lisa and I sure do appreciate the ability to make lunch without losing all the cookware at 10 kts. Not being heeled over 20 degrees has its advantages.
We returned to the marina, practiced docking a couple more times then Will met us to take the boat back to her slip. After we secured "Dream Cat" we jumped in the car and headed to downtown Charleston to celebrate my birthday. Future cat plans may have been the "big" topic of discussion.
I received the contract for a brand new FP 40 Lucia and was negotiating the add-ons while I was on my last trip to Slovakia. I wanted to wait to sign until I returned from the ASA 114 course. Well the best laid plans never survive first contact and buying a boat is no exception. Will offered up a nice FP Lavezzi that happened to be priced really well and was in a marina right in Charleston. The three of us drove over to take a look. It was a nice boat and the price was such that Lisa and I could almost pay cash for it. That is a very good selling point for a boat. However, we also found a Broadblue 435ST for sale in Oriental that same weekend. We have liked the Broadblue cruising catamarans ever since we started looking. When the company moved away from cruising cats to their performance models we gave up purchasing one. The used Broadblues are rare, like Antares, and they stopped making new ones in the 40+ range. But here was one for sale, literally 5 miles from where we keep Starjewel. We had to check it out. Early Sunday we jumped in the car and drove to Oriental. We drove past our apartment in Fayetteville to go to Oriental. All together Sunday was 9 hours in the car to look at a boat for 1 hour. Ahhhh, boat buying. You have to love it, if you don't you will drive yourself crazy looking.
But wait there's more.... We consider Antares to be the gold standard for 40' liveaboard catamarans. If we had a million dollars lying around we would have the factory build us one, no questions asked. So as I'm doing my check of Facebook what do I find? An Antares for sale a mere 4 hours away from our Apartment. Well, it's kind of an Antares. It's a PDQ 42'. PDQ was Antares before they were Antares. It's almost the same boat, just 2' shorter at the transom. It is a 2003 model so it's quite a bit older, as boats go, but it's also listed for $410,000 (within the boat budget, of course). Every other Anatares I've ever seen for sale is $750k or higher. For boats 5 years old. These things hold their value.
So as of this writing Lisa and I are in a conundrum. Do we get the; 2007 FP Lavezzi that we can almost buy outright, the 2010 BB 435 that is a great find, or the 2003 Antares that is the oldest, but best original quality? The new FP Lucia is off the table right now with these 3 boats on our mind.
We've started getting insurance quotes and trying to secure financing. Our Washington house has sold and we have an accepted offer on the Colorado house so we should have plenty for a down payment and make our mortgage reasonable.
Decisions, decisions. I can't wait to see what we end up with.
Once we mastered our docking skills we set off for a little sailing. We departed against the current with a 15kt wind off our port side moving us over the ground at around 6 kts. Before long we started running out of water and needed to tack. Since a catamaran takes a little wider angle to tack, we transitioned through about 110 degrees and were racing with the current. The winds didn't really change, but our ground speed jumped to 10 kts and higher. The motion of the catamaran is different than a monohull and some people don't care for it. However, Lisa and I sure do appreciate the ability to make lunch without losing all the cookware at 10 kts. Not being heeled over 20 degrees has its advantages.
We returned to the marina, practiced docking a couple more times then Will met us to take the boat back to her slip. After we secured "Dream Cat" we jumped in the car and headed to downtown Charleston to celebrate my birthday. Future cat plans may have been the "big" topic of discussion.
I received the contract for a brand new FP 40 Lucia and was negotiating the add-ons while I was on my last trip to Slovakia. I wanted to wait to sign until I returned from the ASA 114 course. Well the best laid plans never survive first contact and buying a boat is no exception. Will offered up a nice FP Lavezzi that happened to be priced really well and was in a marina right in Charleston. The three of us drove over to take a look. It was a nice boat and the price was such that Lisa and I could almost pay cash for it. That is a very good selling point for a boat. However, we also found a Broadblue 435ST for sale in Oriental that same weekend. We have liked the Broadblue cruising catamarans ever since we started looking. When the company moved away from cruising cats to their performance models we gave up purchasing one. The used Broadblues are rare, like Antares, and they stopped making new ones in the 40+ range. But here was one for sale, literally 5 miles from where we keep Starjewel. We had to check it out. Early Sunday we jumped in the car and drove to Oriental. We drove past our apartment in Fayetteville to go to Oriental. All together Sunday was 9 hours in the car to look at a boat for 1 hour. Ahhhh, boat buying. You have to love it, if you don't you will drive yourself crazy looking.
But wait there's more.... We consider Antares to be the gold standard for 40' liveaboard catamarans. If we had a million dollars lying around we would have the factory build us one, no questions asked. So as I'm doing my check of Facebook what do I find? An Antares for sale a mere 4 hours away from our Apartment. Well, it's kind of an Antares. It's a PDQ 42'. PDQ was Antares before they were Antares. It's almost the same boat, just 2' shorter at the transom. It is a 2003 model so it's quite a bit older, as boats go, but it's also listed for $410,000 (within the boat budget, of course). Every other Anatares I've ever seen for sale is $750k or higher. For boats 5 years old. These things hold their value.
So as of this writing Lisa and I are in a conundrum. Do we get the; 2007 FP Lavezzi that we can almost buy outright, the 2010 BB 435 that is a great find, or the 2003 Antares that is the oldest, but best original quality? The new FP Lucia is off the table right now with these 3 boats on our mind.
We've started getting insurance quotes and trying to secure financing. Our Washington house has sold and we have an accepted offer on the Colorado house so we should have plenty for a down payment and make our mortgage reasonable.
Decisions, decisions. I can't wait to see what we end up with.