Have You Bought a Boat Yet?

So have you bought a boat yet?

If I had a penny for every time someone asked this we’d be able to buy…well, a newer boat.

But it is a good place to start and the answer is No, not yet.

We have been living in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia to be exact, for the past 5 years and have spent a lot of that time saving money and probably even more time researching boats.  Well Rick has been. To be honest I am pretty happy to go along with each iteration of his and have watched the 5 year progression from production boat (think Beneteau and Jeaneau) towards boats built for strength and with proven ocean going capabilities (such as Alubat’s OVNI, Southerly and Hallberg Rassy). We are not talking a new boat here.  This is a close to new production boat or a 10-20 year old pedigree boat.

During that time we have chartered boats in the Mediterranean to trial them for their ease with short-handed sailing (OK, it was primarily for fun) and have flown to Sweden, Venice, Portugal and Barcelona to look at boats that are on the market.

So how close are we? Hmmm, how long is a piece of string? After a few months settling into post expat life in Tasmania, Australia we are almost ready to head back to Europe with Turkey as our first stop where we will start the hunt in earnest.

Why not buy a boat in Australia you ask? Partly because we are not yet finished with Europe.  We have cruised in Australia, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea back in 1989-91 and while the idea of tropical paradise is always appealing our focus is to explore more of the Mediterranean Coast. There are certainly more boats to choose from over there particularly of the sort we are now more drawn towards.

So watch this space and we will keep you informed as we go.