Planet Geek

Evil friends and sailboats

Life. Don't talk to me about life.

It's not news that I've long wanted a sailboat. I inherited a love of sailing from my dad, but the last few years I haven't had much of a chance to exercise it. We have a small Hunter 140 up in Maine, but it is really too small for me to handle (I actually outweigh the boat). We're looking at replacing it with something easier to manage and that can take passengers comfortably.

The current top contender is a Hobiecat catamaran. The advantage here is that when the boat is sitting on the mooring in maine, it makes a -fine- swim platform :) Go out, lie on the trampoline and just hang out :) Can't do that in a monohull. Least not a little 14' fiberglass one.

Of course, my real love is in larger ocean-racing class boats. I have a particular weak spot for JBoats having sailed J-24's and J-30's while sailing at the Boston Sailing Center. In fact, the only time I ever took my father out sailing (incidentally also with my nephew - who is in that pic I pointed to above - was on a J24 in boston harbor. I even named my laptop 'Jboat' (we tend to use boatnames / types here at homeport, oddly enough) :).

Anyway, in chatting with a friend while at Lunacon I mentioned I'd love to get a J24, if I found one for, oh, around $5000. With a trailer. Ready to go. And wouldn't you know it, the bastard went out and found me one.

That's pretty close to what I was looking for. It needs cleaning, but doesn't look damaged. The one thing it lacks is a motor, but since J-24's use an outboard mounted on a sort of swinging platform on the transom, it's easy to mount any long-shaft motor to it.

Of course, the reality of it is... well, a) I don't have the money now. b) I'm not -making- the money I'd need to own that boat, and c) I don't have any way to tow that boat. Maybe if we still had the Suburban, but 3500lbs on a trailer really requires a truck of some type.

Alas. Maybe I'll just sell my motorcycle, buy that boat, park it in the driveway, and pine for a time I can really go sailing in it.

Posted by dbs at April 23, 2004 10:28 AM