A proposed route...

With sailing, plans change with the wind, literally!
We have encountered so many cruisers that have made plans to meet friends and family in certain locations but have been unable to get there in time due to engine / repair issues or just for lack of a weather window.

As such, the best we can do is tell people where we think we will be going to and when and let them decide if they want to be there at a similar time. Fix a firm caveat on that though...we might not ever get there!

The issues with sailing in the Caribbean like many other places in the world is the weather systems. In the Caribbean, we have a good weather window from 1st December to 1st July. Then it becomes hurricane season and not so much fun being in your floating home that moves like a tortoise (relative to a hurricane).
So people tend to 'winter' their boats for hurricane season by pulling them out the water and going back to the US or Europe etc. The Caribbean gets a little quieter during the off season.

As such, our plan, now that we have splashed (yachtie talk for getting the boat into the water), will be to go up the windward islands, then as high up the leeward islands as possible in a 2 month period before turning around and coming south again. It would be good to get to the British Virgin Islands, but it is fairly tight considering we still have a lot of learning to do on the boat and would then need to get her back down to Grenada (ish) by July.

But it is not a race! Sally and I were thinking about going up there quickly and coming down slowly.

Without having given it too much thought, our proposed route is as follows:

Leave Grenada at the end of February
Carriacou for a few days
Union Island
Tobago Cays
Canouan
Mustique
Bequia
St Vincent
St Lucia
Martinique
Dominica
Guadeloupe
Montserrat
St Kitts and Nevis
Anguilla
British Virgin Islands in about end of April (although looking at the above list, we will probably never get there as we are in no rush and want to enjoy all the places we look to sail to)

Whatever we don't see on the way up, we will try see on the way down.

But as with all sailing, this is very weather dependent. If the wind decides to blow in the wrong direction for 2 weeks, we could spend 2 weeks there.

On the way back down, we would like to go to Barbados. I reckon that this will be in about July.

After that...who knows!

We have a yacht...

And we shall call her Orion!

Orion, often referred to as The Hunter, is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous, and most recognisable constellations in the night sky. Its name refers to Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. - Wikipedia

When we first saw her online, she ticked almost every box for us. Plus, she is in Grenada!

Something was indeed written in the stars, for in November of 2011, I bought Sally's Christmas present. It was a star in Orion's Belt. The thought process being that as we cruised with nothing but the stars to blanket us, we could look up and try and find her star in one of the most visible constellations. 

It was a heck of a gamble buying one way flights to come to a foreign country to look at a boat, but it was well worth it, for she is beautiful.

She is a 1979 Tartan 37 Centre Board. 

There is all the cruising gear onboard that we could need, including a monitor wind vane for long passages.

What a relief to finally have a boat. She cost us a packet and is slightly older than what we had originally set out to buy, but the previous owner has looked after her incredibly well. Buying it from Mike Young (from Vermont) was a tough exercise as you could just see the emotion in his eyes. He was a VERY reluctant seller. What a great guy too. He spent hours showing us all the additions and tweaks that he had made to the boat. How they all work and what goes where. We are very grateful to him for his help in teaching us all about her.

Although she is 33 years old now, Orion has spent most of her life in fresh water or on the hard. The first 20 years she was on Lake Champlain in Vermont. The sailing season is only about 4 months of the year up there and the rest of the time she was wintered on the hard. 

Mike and his wife Joanne bought the boat in 1996 and got her cruising ready to sail down to the Caribbean in 2000. After sailing her down there they kept her out the water and would use her for 4 / 5 months of the year. As such she has very little wear on her. Hull is in great condition as are the sails.

We are very excited to get aboard and start making her ours. Mike has left us a ton of stuff on board and we need to get our heads around what goes where etc.

We have got some work to do on her, like paint the bottom and sort out a few issues with canvas while she is on the hard, but looking even more forward to getting her onto a mooring and chilling out!

A Buying Methodology...

Consultant speak for "how we intend to buy a boat'!

As we plan on jumping off to the Caribbean and starting small, we have had to take a different approach to sourcing yachts.

• First we sat down and discussed what we THOUGHT we wanted from a yacht based on what we planned to do with it and where we wanted to go. Cruising, not day sailing. Comfort, safety, space, performance, turn-key, etc - We soon found out that there is no such thing as "turn-key" when it comes to things that float...
• Then we identified a specification that met our requirements. Deciding on all those features like size, build, equipment, specification, pedigree etc
• I subscribed to Yachting Monthly Magazine and a number of online newsletters
• We started reading blog postings of Lin and Larry Pardey, Beth and Evan, Morgans Cloud, Mahina.com and other such authors and evangelists
• The Q&A with my parents increased 10 fold as we drilled them for information
• We started looking at boats and models that we knew of. Generally UK or South African designs. This expanded to US and Canadian boats as we realised that most UK / South African designs were mainly in the UK / South Africa. Buying in the US, you are better off looking at US designs
• We viewed a number of yachts in our nearby vicinity (of London / Solent) to learn more about boats, speak to owners, brokers etc. You can read a million books, articles and magazines but there is no substitute for actually stepping on board to take a look first hand. We were surprised just how many yachts looked good online and were far from it in reality!
• Online shortlist - created a Excel spreadsheet of a number of potential yachts in our proposed jump off area. Listing out kit it has and does not have. Pro's and Cons to provide a tool for side by side comparison
• On the list we identified nice to haves vs necessities. A radar is a nice to have in my book not a necessity, whereas a bimini (awning) to keep the sun out the cockpit is a necessity in the tropics. Sure you can get one made, but it will cost you thousands of dollars and weeks to accomplish
• We worked out that a cheaper boat with less spec, will often cost more in the long run than a more expensive vessel with all the kit. This even more so if you consider the time involved. Also remember that kit does not tend to affect the overall resale price of the boat. Just because you added a $5000 dodger does not increase its value by $5k...unfortunately
• Arranged viewings with those on the shortlist. All this involves significant time and expense as we hire cars and trains and aeroplanes to do this...The boat is getting more expensive by the day and we have not even bought one yet...
• We would view each boat and weigh up the options. Every boat has its value. Some however are just not appealing and don't fit the criteria. Others need more than just a polish and would be "project boats" for a long time before we could set off. Too long in some cases
• Every now and then you find the right boat but at the wrong price. As we are in a buyers market (the American economy - and the world economy - is in a poor place at the moment) we have considered a few yachts with prices in excess of our budget. Sometime a seemingly cheeky offer is accepted with the right timing and the right seller
• The most difficult part is realising that whatever you spend on a boat, you will spend an additional 40 - 50% on getting her cruising ready. I never thought about this until this was called out by my parents and seconded by John Neal - from Mahina.com. I started doing the math...no dingy, + $1000. No outboard engine for dingy, + $1000, no self-steering, + $2000 etc etc - THAT affected the boat budget!
• When we found one that we did like on paper, but it was far away, we made a few calls to the owners / brokers to find out all about the boat and what the condition was of the big ticket items Namely - the engine, hull, rig, sails etc. An engine rebuild can costs tens of thousand. Delamination on the deck costs thousands to fix. Chainplates are a mission and costly to replace etc
• If we liked what we heard we would go away and research the make, design. There are loads of forums with information from owners. Also some have websites dedicated to the design. We also emailed owners to ask their advice and what to look out for when considering the boat
• If all was to our liking, we would then make a preliminary offer. "Based on the information you have provided I would like to offer you $X for her...subject to viewing, survey and sea trial"
• If the offer was accepted, we would make our way to the boat and view her
• We would have a full survey done and would do this every time from now on. Preferably with the owner present for both the out the water survey and the sea trial. Together we can identify and discuss in an open forum any issues with the boat and it adds a bit of realism to the deal
• If there are any major issues that will require additional capital that you have not budgeted for, negotiate with the seller on price

This is us...

How did all of this start? I cast my mind back many months ago. I think it was a thought process and a conversation about "what do we really want to do?'. A sailing adventure was one of the first things to cross our minds. It stems from an element of adventurous inkling and the fact that we had both worked pretty hard in London for the last 8 years as Management Consultants, accumulated houses, shares and other such material things but really had nothing to show for it.

With that in mind, Dylan and I decided to go off on a Caribbean adventure that has been months in planning. We have put our jobs on pause, sold most of our possessions to fund this excursion with many people thinking that we are nuts (I tend to agree!).

I have just marked my 25th birthday, finally I can hire a car abroad and in the UK with no excess - yet I can skipper an 8 tonne yacht in high seas with no qualifications, experience or age restrictions!! Dylan is looking forward to his 31st winter.

Our ambition is to buy a yacht on the East Coast of the US and sail around the Caribbean, ensuring we are out of the hurricane belt when the time comes - soaking up as much of the Caribbean sun as we can adding a stack of stamps to our soon to be overflowing passports. Very similar to Management Consulting, we are being thrown into a completely new experience with semi inflated arm bands - its going to be sink or swim (literally!)

Our preparations currently include a reading list consisting of the sage words of Lynn and Larry Pardey - The Cost Conscious Cruiser and The Embarrassment of Mangoes by Ann Vanderhoof.

The advent calender we have counts down the days to our departure rather than to Christmas - each chocolate marking a day closer to the start of what promises to be an amazing experience...

The purpose and intent of this blog is to keep everyone updated as we go on our adventure. We shall be taking Miss Mac with us and will update when we can. This is the first post of hopefully many many more...