Sailboat Buying Guide For Cruisers – Digital

Description

So you want to buy a Catamaran or a Monohull? And you’d like to do some longer-term sailing trips and potentially make the boat a fulltime home? You’ve come to the right place.

We want you to get the right boat for the right value so that you can make your sailboat and sailing dream come true. And we’re hoping that during the course of your sailboat buying journey, that we can help to entertain, educate, inspire and eventually connect with you at a beautiful tropical anchorage.

This is who we are…

If you haven’t bumped into us before – My family consists of my husband Simon (British), my daughter, Sienna (age 9 at the time of writing) and me – I’m Kim (American). In 2013 my family and I sold all our possessions, purchased our sailboat Britican (British and American put together) and headed out to sea. The rat race wasn’t working for us so we decided to find another way to live.

So let me tell you why I wrote this Sailboat Buying Guide…

The sailing community is full of great people. The people who work in the sailing industry (boat brokers, sailing service professionals, marina managers, etc.), however, are often disingenuous, corrupt people.

New and old sailors are getting ripped off all the time. And the place where they get ripped off the most is when they purchase a boat.

So, a big issue that new sailboat owners have to contend with is paying way too much for a boat and/or getting a boat that isn’t in the condition as advertised or expected.

The next biggest issue is information overload.

There’s so much information nowadays that it’s hard to figure out what you need to know and when you need to know it. That goes for buying a sailboat and transitioning into the cruising lifestyle.

Buying a sailboat is NOT like buying a car or a house. In both those cases, the consumer is far more protected. And changing lifestyles from land to sea is not something that most people have done before. There’s a massive learning curve on both accounts!

That being stated, this guide will outline ten steps to buying a boat for the purposes of cruising long term (6 months +).

This guide will help you to clarify your thought process, ensure you avoid making mistakes and it will certainly help to save you money. Ultimately it will you’ll provide you with a clearer perspective about some of the issues involved with buying a boat and transitioning to a life on the sea.

10 Steps To Buying A Sailboat – The RIGHT Sailboat

• Step 1: Understand Your Big Picture (12 Questions and loads of options to help you define EXACTLY what you’re aiming for)
• Step 2: Prioritizing Your Requirements For The Right Boat (35+ variables to consider that will make your boat the RIGHT cruising boat)
• Step 3: Understand Boat Ownership Costs (A list of over 90 potential cost areas broken down into costs to buy the boat, costs to get the boat ready for cruising and finally, costs to maintain and service the boat. It’s a great help for budgeting and making the unknown costs known.)
• Step 4: How To Study Different Sailboats & Cruisers (from home)
• Step 5: The Importance Of Getting Out Sailing & Gaining Experience
• Step 6: Finding Potential Boats To Buy & The Important Questions To Ask (At least 10 questions you should ask about the boat before spending any time making plans to view the boat)
• Step 7: Create A Strategy On Boats To Buy & View Them (A 50 point checklist on what to look at and why you’re looking at it)
• Step 8: Sea Trial & Survey (What to do during your sea trial)
• Step 9: Negotiating The Terms Of Sale (Don’t ever offer asking price!)
• Step 10: Buy The Boat (The process involved in taking possession of your new baby).

Buy the book today 🙂