Lessons Learned: Finding a Boat
How to become a Sailor in Under 25 Years
Aug 03, 2024
Previously… There were people living on boats! Sailboats, powerboats, big boats, little boats, all kinds of boats. We began talking to people on boats about boats. They told us stories of their past journeys to places far, far away—really far away. That was when that crazy idea we had took on a whole new meaning. We needed a boat.
Our search for our first sailboat was off to a rocky start. We didn’t find a boat right away, but we did find an ocean. On it, there were many boats to look at.
We did a lot of travelling that summer; not just to see boats, but also to visit family and friends, and to show our Malamute on the dog show circuit.
Our old veggie-fueled truck saw many miles, but ultimately, pulling that travel trailer over those steep mountain passes in British Columbia in the heat of summer was too much for it. The string of breakdowns began as a trickle, and before long turned into a torrent; a very costly torrent. In August, we found ourselves in the small town of Chase, in the north Okanagan, where I replaced our engine. In retrospect, it seems that I was being groomed for the life of a cruising sailor.
We learned from sailors the immutable fact that ‘cruising’ is defined as repairing your boat in exotic locations.
Our truck broke down near Falkland, which is about 30 miles from Chase. I had a niece who lived there, so I contacted her. She invited us to her house and said she had a friend who could help, so we had the truck towed to her friend’s shop. The next day, another friend took me back to our trailer and towed it up to my niece’s driveway, where we set it up.
I made a deal with my niece’s mechanic friend. Since he didn’t want to work, I proposed that I do the work in his shop. In lieu of cash payment, I offered him some amplifiers and recording gear that I had in storage. He agreed and the deal not only saved us money, but helped us with our downsizing efforts as well.
We learned from looking at sailboats that if you intend to live on a boat, minimalism is a must. You must downsize.
DO WE BUY A BOAT OR DO WE BUY A TRUCK?
Logically, we needed a reliable vehicle and it had to be able to tow our home (our travel trailer). We needed it to find a boat, but we also needed it for life in general. On the other hand, we didn’t really need a boat, but we wanted one. We wanted a new life.
If we spent all our money on a new truck, we wouldn’t have the money to change our life and we would just return to our old life. Sometimes you have press ahead and just defy logic. I bought a used engine and with the help of one of my brothers, soon after, it was fully installed.
My brother and I made a deal that when my truck was road-ready we would follow him home to Quesnel and I would help him convert his motorhome to run on vegetable oil.
When we arrived in Quesnel, (a couple of hundred miles to the north), autumn had taken a firm grip and we knew winter was on its way.
We finished the vegetable oil conversion in a couple of weeks and then bid him farewell and embarked on the eight-hour drive south to the lower mainland area. As we parked our trailer in the campground in Langley, the crisp autumn air filled our nostrils, and the sound of crunching leaves filled our ears.
The next morning, we were bound for Kamloops to bring that old car-hauler and its cargo to the coast to put it into storage there; so we could continue to downsize.
THEN I BOUGHT A VEHICLE ANYWAY
There we were, well into the chilly autumn mornings of October when the truck started acting up again. The problem was the glow plugs, but I was fed up, so we started looking for a quick trade-in. It was a hard sell. Nobody was interested in a Franken-Truck. That is until one day, when a young salesman at a used car lot in Surrey saw it and was intrigued. He was smart enough to see the potential, but dumb enough to ignore the warnings from his senior colleagues. We struck a deal and drove away in a Ford Explorer with all the bells and whistles.
With all our travelling that summer, and all the expensive repairs to the truck, our financial resources had taken a significant hit. I started looking for a job and before we knew it, our trailer was set up on the Sunshine Coast, and we were both working again.
The hunt for a boat never ended though; since we were maintaining a continued presence on the coast, we had easier access to boats. Additionally, thanks to winter settling in, sellers were becoming softer on their prices.
We learned that if you persist you can have your cake and eat it too
My shifts at my new job were four days on and four days off, perfect for boat hunting. Between July and December of that year, we looked at a lot of boats; we looked at sloops, we looked at ketches, and we looked at cutters; They were made of fibreglass, wood, aluminum, and even ferro cement. We learned a lot from looking at all those boats. We learned about boats, we learned about sailing, and we learned about sailors. We also learned about boat brokers.
After all that, we were still no closer to being sailors, but we did know what we wanted in a boat. We wanted fibreglass; we wanted a cutter rig; we wanted diesel power; but most of all, we had to have a blue water capable boat; and we wanted it cheap. We made ourselves a checklist.