How To Buy The Right Sailboat For You

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Anyone can go out and buy any ole sailboat but buying a sailboat that ticks all the boxes for you might not be so straightforward. This video covers three top tips about how to buy the right sailboat for you. But before you watch it, let me share with you a quick story.

One of our coaching clients called us up asking about the navigational system we used and recommended. After we inquired as to what was already on the boat we discovered that the current navigational equipment was relatively new and more than adequate. It was in fact, over twelve years newer than the kit we have on Britican.

The boat owner wanted a whole new navigational system to ensure that it worked perfectly from day one. My husband Simon pipped up and said, don’t expect perfection. Simon then asked have you sailed the boat yet? Have you taken her out and anchored? Have you sailed in every direction just to start getting a feel for her?

The boat owner said he’d sail later. Now was the time to get the boat ready.

After six months of living aboard the boat with his wife and daughter, in a marina, and over $200,000 more dollars were spent he decided it was time to sail. Every week Simon urged the boat owner to stop spending money and start sailing. Instead of doing any short trips or trying to anchor nearby the owner just kept spending more and more money on the boat.

Eventually, the boat was ready and the new boat owner decided to sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Bimini, The Bahamas. Going into the open ocean and crossing the Gulf Stream isn’t an easy passage. Despite Simon’s recommendation to first sail around For Lauderdale for a week or do a coastal trip, the boat owner was set on making it to the Bahamas.

Do I need to finish this story? As I’m sure you guessed, the trip was terrible.

A variety of things broke on the boat, one being the rudder and by the time the family limped into Bimini they had packed up their things, got off the boat, flew back to the States and vowed never to go on a sailboat ever again. Bad for them. Good for whoever buys that boat next.

Buying the right boat is not about buying a boat and making it right. It’s not even about buying the right boat from the beginning. In fact, the boat shouldn’t really be the main focal point at all. When deciding to change lifestyles and become a sailing cruiser it’s far more productive to decide what you want your sailing life to be like and then work backward to determine what boat to get. And after you do that, get the boat that’s closest to what will give you the life you want AND THEN get out sailing immediately. You’ll have your whole future cruising life to get get the boat ‘perfect’.

New boat owners are falling into a common pit. They’re making the boat the end-game rather than the lifestyle. With that as my introduction, I will not hold you up any further from watching the how to buy the right sailboat for your video. Enjoy.