Our friendly neighborhood yacht broker!
We have been receiving periodic follow-up emails from Staley, a broker at The Catamaran Company. Several months ago we made contact with him and gave him a loose outline of our plans. Since then he has been sending us updates and recent listings semi-relevant to our search. I’m not positive if these are custom emails or instead generated by some sort of database. Regardless I decided today to reply to his most recent one. Here is what I sent him..
Hello Staley
Thanks for the follow up.
Although I would like to be able to say that those boats are in our price range they are probably 100k above it. 🙁
We have been seriously looking at the PDQs on the market (both 32s and 36s). I only find one when searching your website. Several others are listed on various other sites.
Of course we have yet to step aboard one of these vessels, or any other cat since we have made our plans to go cruising (with the exception of a brief visit aboard a Gemini 105). As such our minds are still very open. Both the Lagoon 380 and FP Mahe are awesome looking boats!
Our estimated departure from Canada remains November 1st or so.
As I understand it if we were to purchase a boat in Florida there would be no sales tax payable so long as we leave the state within 90 days. Is this correct?
Do you have any experience in re-registering a catamaran as a Canadian-flagged vessel? I have read that a tonnage survey is required in order to do so. Is such a thing easily obtained in your area?
Thanks for your help!
Mike
We have a guest visiting us this weekend and staying at our house. We felt obligated to give up our bed to him (One of the final things we really need to sell. Anyone need a nice king-sized bed???) as we no longer have any guest-room furniture. Fortunately it’s going to be a beautiful, sunny day today and we will be able to hang out outside around the hot tub.
We are now acquiring Blog readers from all over which is very cool. I only wish I had a lot more exciting things to report. Rebecca commented that she felt most of the recent posts have been depressing. We promise lots of stories of Sangria, snorkeling and sunsets as we move forward.
Here we are sailing a Laser last October. Would a boat like this be large enough to live aboard??? What do you think Staley?
In talking to my cruising friends about your boat choice it seems you have to make a decision between one that is suitable for ideal shallow water anchorages – but does not have very good handling in big (stormy) seas for long voyages between islands or visa-versa. This seems to be a choice between a cat and a mono-hull. Are you thinking of going out on Lake Ontario before you finally set off to see what heavy weather sailing feels like in both types of boat? While I like to be encouraging it bothers me you have no heavy weather experience.
Do yourselves a favour and buy a proper “bluewater catamaran”. It won’t come cheap, but you get what you pay for. Have a look at the book by Chris White “The Cruising Multihull” It explains the design principles behind a stable and safe multihull for blue water ocean sailing. (hint: a Geminii doesn’t really fall into this category, hence the cheap price)
I have just found your blog and am currently reading it from the beginning. I appreciate all of your posts (even the ones Rebecca finds depressing). My husband and I recently retired and are currently in the process of selling our home of 22 years, downsizing our belongings to fit into a condo, finding a condo to rent in a different state and looking for a cruising boat. Even though we are excited about our goal, everything we need to to do get there is stressful. It is nice to know we aren’t alone!
Hi Bev
Try not stress too much. Enjoy the process!