Wanna be coastal & inland lake cruiser...HELP

[Marin]

Originally Posted by BandB

People who live long distances from their boats find themselves using them less and less. And trailering to the coast? You'd do that one time if you're typical.

Two really good points from BandB I think are worth heading, Coalman.

As a Boeing employee, we live outside of Seattle. We keep our cruising boat in the marina in Bellingham up near the Canadian border. It is almost exaclty 100 miles from our house to our boat. But... we use the boat year round, it's a big part of our lives, and we make the drive to and from the boat almost every weekend thorughout the year if my travel schedule permits. If we don't actually go out on it, we stay on it like a getaway cabin in the woods or whatever. In other words, we use it a lot despite the two hour drive to and from it.

There are a lot of boats in our marina with hailing ports in Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and a few states on the east coast. Most of these boats are higher end boats and I suspect the owners are paying someone or the local yard to look after them, keep them clean, and so on, because most of them look quite nice.

But they just sit for 10 or 11 months a year. They get used perhaps once a a year for a fairly extensive cruise, and then they sit again for the next 10 or 11 months.

That's a lot of money to tie up in moorage, insurance, maintenance, and so on with no return other than to be able to say you own a boat.

Regarding trailering long distances, like where you are to a coast, I think BandB has it right. It's a "few times a year at best" proposition. We tow our Arima up to the north end of Vancouver Island each year to go halibut and salmon fishing. It's a two-day trip and involves a ferry ride that costs several hundred dollars one-way and about ten hours of driving time.

We enjoy the hell out of it, but it's a once-a-year deal for us. It's too time-consuming and too expensive to warrant doing it any more than that. However..... we live a 45 minute drive from a fabulous boat launch on terrific crabbing and decent salmon fishing waters. So we still get a good bang for the long-since-paid buck out of our trailer boat.

[RCook]

Hi Coalman,

I don't know how I missed this thread until now, but:

You might consider the sort of path we took. Here in Utah, thinking of buying our first boat, maybe a 17' open fishing boat, we stumbled upon the C-Dory 22 Cruiser. Easy to tow, inexpensive to own and operate, seaworthy, simple, and yet very well-designed for a tiny cruiser. Over a few years our C-Dory took us from cruising Lake Powell to a summer in Southeast Alaska. I would highly recommend it as a starter cruising boat. After learning much about what we wanted in a boat, we have since moved up to a heavy but towable diesel 26-footer, on which we have spent many weeks on Lake Powell, and many months on the Inside Passage. About 44,000 nautical miles on the water so far.

Maybe a look at my book about how one could cruise the Inside Passage in a trailerable boat could help. Here's a taste:

Introduction

Have you ever watched a program on the whales, salmon, bears, eagles, and glaciers of Alaska, and dreamed of seeing the
wild and beautiful coast of British Columbia and Alaska for yourself?

How about up close and personal, in your very own boat?

In this book, we’ll describe how you could make that dream a reality, in a small (trailerable) boat.

If you’ve ever taken a cruise ship up to Alaska, along the way you may have noticed a few lucky folks poking along in their own boats, watching the whales, pulling in salmon or crab, or heading off to anchor in a secluded cove.

With a closer look at these private cruisers, you might observe that they’re not nearly as small as they appear from a distance. They might be affordable only with some really serious money. And then there’s the cost of fuel. So, you think, we sure couldn’t afford cruising like this.

But maybe you could…

Cindy and I have been lucky enough to spend more than 1,000 days cruising some 30,000 miles in our own small boats, mainly on the pristine waters of the Pacific Northwest. We aren’t wealthy, and we sure didn’t come into cruising as expert boaters – far from it. We were tent campers, who enjoyed fishing and liked being around the water.

We’ve wandered the Inside Passage as far as Glacier Bay, and floated in front of the great tidewater glaciers, while they calved huge chunks of ice. We’ve been surrounded by whales, porpoises, sea otters, seals and sea lions, dozens of eagles, and bears prowling the shoreline. We’ve feasted on succulent Dungeness crab, huge spot prawns, salmon, and halibut – all caught by us. In so many wonderful anchorages, we’ve been absolutely enchanted by the beauty all around us.

So how did tent campers become cruisers? While camping on Vancouver Island one summer, we decided to go out for a day with a salmon fishing guide. It was dynamite - beautiful, exciting, and great fishing too, all in a 16-foot boat.

Months later, we wandered into a boat show, thinking we could probably afford such a boat. We looked at quite a few, but none really knocked us out. Then we set eyes on a little cabin boat that really stood out from the crowd. It was a C-Dory 22 cruiser, not too much bigger than the fishing boats we were considering, but with a huge difference - it was designed for “camping on the water”. We spent several hours checking out every aspect of the C-Dory. After two more days at the boat show and lots of discussion, we were sold.

That little boat turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made - a perfect choice for beginning cruisers. She was seaworthy as can be, built with quality, and very cleverly laid out to make the most of her 22 feet. Her cabin sheltered us from the weather, and had windows with all-round visibility. She had good cooking, eating, and sleeping facilities. With her 90hp outboard, she could cruise at 18-20 knots (21-23 mph), and travel 170 nautical miles (195 statute miles) on a tank of gas.

With this boat, we were able to spend peaceful weeks sightseeing on Lake Powell in southern Utah, then weeks and months exploring the Inside Passage of the Pacific Northwest.

The Inside Passage, a stretch of coast roughly 1000 miles long, runs northwest from Washington’s Puget Sound up to Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska. It’s called the Inside Passage because its waters are protected by countless islands, in a mostly unpopulated area often 100 miles wide from east to west. Roads reach only a very small part of this wild, out-there place. It’s some of the finest cruising anywhere.

If you really want to, you could do this…


How much will it cost?

If you can afford a reliable small boat, cruising the gorgeous PNW coast really is possible. It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.

Yes, the boat can set you back some serious cash – maybe $30K to $50K for a small or older cruiser, or $70K to well over $100K for one that’s new, larger, and more elaborately equipped. Boats certainly aren’t investments (except in your mental health and well-being), but if a new one strains the budget you can save a bundle by choosing the right used one. Upgrade a few things, take good care of it, and it should hold its value.

Once you have the boat, properly equipped and checked out, what will it cost to go cruising? Costs sure have gone up with fuel prices, but even with fuel at $4.00 a gallon, two people in a small boat can do a very nice cruise for $60-$90 per day. Some of the biggest cost factors:

How much time do you spend traveling at high speed? Especially in a heavier boat, going slower can double or triple your miles per gallon (and your range on a tank of fuel – handy for exploring remote areas). It can also reduce wear and tear, while increasing your enjoyment.

How much time do you spend at marinas, rather than at anchor?

How often do you eat at restaurants, rather than on board?

How much routine maintenance will you do yourself? Paying someone else to take care of your boat can really put a dent in your credit card.


What sort of a boat are we talking about?

You certainly could go cruising in a small sailboat, but sailboats aren’t our focus. In this book, we’re discussing small power cruisers, small enough to tow on a trailer. A larger boat that has to be kept in a slip will generally cost a lot more – partly for the boat, taxes, and insurance, partly for the slip, and partly for the wear and tear created by sitting in salt water all the time.

A towable Inside Passage cruiser is probably at least 21 feet long, and could be 26 or 27 without exceeding the typical 8½ foot maximum towing width. A 28 or 29 footer could be towable, but you might need a wide load permit.

For the PNW, a cabin is pretty much a requirement. We’ve seen a few folks cruising in open boats with enclosures, or boats with a cuddy cabin and an open helm, but we’d recommend a different choice. After all, a good part of the Inside Passage is known as the Rain Coast. Even if you stick to relatively sunny areas like the San Juan Islands, you will be spending some time in rain. A really functional, livable cabin, with good visibility all around, will make cruising a lot more comfortable and enjoyable.

In this book, we’ll describe boat designs, equipment, and techniques that work for us (or folks we know well). Of course, our suggestions aren’t the only way to do things, but we know they work for us. We’ll mention some brand names, so you can have examples of what we’re talking about. We do not imply that these are the only ones you should consider, or that they are the best – only that we or our friends have had success with them.


What skills and experience do you need?

Extended cruising of the Inside Passage is not without its challenges, but it certainly is do-able by mere humans like us. We learned step by step.

I had fished from skiffs with small outboard motors or oars, and done a little charter sailing in the Bahamas. Cindy and I had done some canoe paddling, but we knew nothing about owning and operating a power cruiser. Luckily for us, the C-Dory was an uncomplicated but very sound and seaworthy boat. It was a great learning environment - we concentrated on boating skills, not on stuff that didn’t work, or systems we just didn’t understand.

Before we took delivery, we attended the Boating Skills and Seamanship course put on by the Coast Guard Auxiliary. It cost only a few dollars, and couple of hours for each of six weeks – well worth it for us beginners.

For two years we were lake cruisers, staying out at first just a few days at a time, then working up to a couple of weeks. We built boating skills at Lake Powell, a low-risk and delightful place, with drop-dead gorgeous red rock canyon scenery. We learned what to take with us, how to load and provision the boat, towing, launching, docking, anchoring, boat handling in various conditions, and many aspects of living successfully aboard a small boat.

In our third year of cruising, friends in Seattle suggested that we tow up to Washington and meet them for a couple of weeks on the ocean. What an opportunity! A guided trip in the San Juan Islands and into British Columbia, expanding our envelope of skills and experience.

For our first ocean trip, we had to be prepared for many new things: tougher weather, bigger waves, huge tides, rapids, rain, fog, charts, navigation skills, and different kinds of fishing. We did our homework, and the cruise was a great success.

It was convenient that our boating buddies were leading the way, but with a cruising guide book and some common sense, we would probably have been OK in the San Juans. We planned ahead, and paid attention to what we were doing and how well it was working. As we ventured further north on subsequent trips, we encountered greater challenges with weather, waves, and distance. We took it one step at a time, learning as we went, rather than making great leaps beyond our abilities.

Over the next two summers, we spent six weeks cruising southern B.C. We had built up our skills to a pretty solid level, while both of us still held demanding jobs. Then came an opportunity to expand our envelope in a big way: both our employers were flexible enough to let us take extended leave.

We thought about it for a while, and decided to really go for it - a summer’s cruise in Southeast Alaska. It was incredibly wonderful, the experience of a lifetime. Since that first Alaska trip we’ve done many more long cruises, continually improving our skills, and loving (almost) every minute of it.

If you’d like to go confidently into the wilds of the Inside Passage, read on...



You can find the book, "Criuising in a Big Way" on Lulu.com (self publishing site), or on Amazon. Both offer a substantial preview.

[Coalman]

RCook...wow, your experience is just what I have been dreaming of and nearly exactly how you have achieved your 'great adventure'. I am so glad you saw my post and took the time to reply, very kind of you. Btw, I'm off to Powell this week for stripers and eyes. I have a 18' crestliner now with 150 hp outboard. Since I don't have a berth I will be truck camping at Halls Crossing. I'll post pictures. I'm working on jeep currently but I would like to communicate further about your experience in a few days. Thanks again! Are you still cruising, have you considered the great American loop? Cheers. Rick

[RCook]

Hi Rick,

Yes, still cruising, 2-3 months every summer in BC or SE Alaska the last 10 years. Thought about the east coast from time to time, and have done some charter sailing in the Bahamas, BVI, and St Martin area. But still drawn more to the wildness, beauty, critters, and fishing of the PNW. Happy to discuss further - send a PM with your email.

Enjoy Lake Powell,

[kolive]

Coalman, we started out in a 19' Starcraft with cuddy cabin. Cruised the San Juan's for a couple of years with it and trailered it to the top of Vancouver a Island like Marin for fishing. Great time. It was there I saw the Broughtons in the distance and decided we need to go there someday. The trawler bug bit pretty hard. So we bought our first trawler a trailerable trawler, an Albin 25. Great boat cruised all over in her and even fished from it. Check out our blog from 2010, princesslouisa2010.blogspot.com

Next boat was a Willard 30 and now we are in a Grand Banks 36 and I am shopping for a 16' towable dinghy for fishing, crabbing and exploring. We started this when I was 57, before that we were drift boat, canoe and kayakers.

[bayview]

Any advice on buying just doesn't make sense when you can learn and try different boats at places like this:

Anacortes Yacht Charters

[Coalman]

Originally Posted by kolive

Coalman, we started out in a 19' Starcraft with cuddy cabin. Cruised the San Juan's for a couple of years with it and trailered it to the top of Vancouver a Island like Marin for fishing. Great time. It was there I saw the Broughtons in the distance and decided we need to go there someday. The trawler bug bit pretty hard. So we bought our first trawler a trailerable trawler, an Albin 25. Great boat cruised all over in her and even fished from it. Check out our blog from 2010, princesslouisa2010.blogspot.com

Next boat was a Willard 30 and now we are in a Grand Banks 36 and I am shopping for a 16' towable dinghy for fishing, crabbing and exploring. We started this when I was 57, before that we were drift boat, canoe and kayakers.

Yes you path to cruising makes good sense to me. Start small and work your way up to larger and more comfortable cruising. I'm currently boating as compared to cruising in an 18' Crestliner with a 150 Yamaha 4 stroke, no accomadations but a good fishing boat. I'm Learning some lesson in towing boat handling, launching, etc etc. on Lake Powell. I'm truck camping at night which also helps me learn skills and reality of living in a small space and the need for resource conservation (battery power, water use, systems, etc. I'm in the first phase of a two year learning process that hopefully will prepare me for future cruising on a slightly larger towable cruiser and longer big water adventures. Thanks for the great example of your experience and path to cruising life. BTW I caught some nice SM bass and stripers this week as a bonus. Cheers

[boatpoker]

Get your last boat first and do it now. You lose too much money playing two footitis. Any reasonably intelligent person with some mechanical aptitude and common sense can figure it out. Sure there is a learning curve but look at all the idiots that do it anyway.

[Coalman]

Wow, what a surprise i had this evening when I came on this post from 2014. Crazy - right. It was wonderful to read everyone's great and thoughtful advice. Well let me get those of you that are interested, how it all worked out.

Since 2014, I'm here to tell you that the dream is still alive and well. As it turns out, every one of your valuable pieces of very good advice is appreciated and I'd like to say thanks for that. I followed it in some form or another while keeping my eye on the ball and working toward realizing that, this is going to take a lot of work.

The hardest task was to convince my wife that a whole new lifestyle would be fun even though it involves us spending some big money, learning new and unfamiliar skills, uprooting ourselves from our home, family and friends and basically putting everything we had worked towards the last 40 years behind us for awhile. As you may expect her answer was an emphatic "no thanks honey, that doesn't sound to good to me". well i guess ill leave discussion for another future date and maybe move on to an easier subject. It was a long time before we talked of that again. I'm going to rethink this a bit more I guess.

Well to make a really, really long story shorter and more bearable for you, I'm going to just give you the highlights of my now, quest, rather than just the dream I have. So here goes.

Until present, it is important to tell you that I have read and re-read every book written on the subject of boating and even discovered a thing called The American Great Loop, a 6000 mile circumnavigation of the eastern United States. Well, that sounds good but, the problem is we are not boaters, never had a boat and don't live by a body of water any larger than a municipal reservoir and I do not have permission to do that...yet. In the mean time:

2014: I waited for my wife and her girlfriend to finish training and walking 500 miles across northern Spain on what is called the Camino De Santiago or The Way.

2015: I was talked into becoming a Pilgrim, as the people that walk the Camino are known as. From time to time I brought up the subject of boating...delicately.

2016: Fate intervened but took it's sweet time in the process. Our daughter and grandson moved back home and at the same time we bought a camp trailer with the notion of traveling around the country. We did, and talking about boats too. Coincidently we drove to and camped in Key West FL.

2017: We traveled around the US and camped along the way but always steered a course so we would be at or along the coast and by some beautiful boats, water and marinas. We became Peeper's and drove to New England to see the Fall colors.

2018: I brought out my chip to cash in at this point and told my wife that I had made reservations for us at Trawler Fest in Baltimore and AGLCA Fall Rendezvous. We even chartered a trawler with captain for the day. Still camping. In negotiations now, she agreed if I would spend 3 months in southern France before walking the Portuguese Camino De Santiago, only 400 miles long, again to Santiago, Spain she would go to Trawler Fest and the AGLCA Fall Rendezvous at Joe Wheeler SP, AL . She's coming around to boating now.

2019: After she caved to the soft pressure and agreed that it might be fun to do some boating so we stated looking for a boat. We found a Monk 36, single diesel engine, aft cabin Trawler. On December 17th I hired a surveyor and we went to N. MI to do a personal inspection of the boat while in heated storage. Our buyers broker met us there. We all agreed it was as advertised and extremely seaworthy. We made an offer to secure the deal and then waited, and waited, and waited until May, so the ice could get off Lake Michigan. After the on water survey we bought our first boat. we hired a captain and first mate to train us how to handle a single engine boat. After practicing what we were taught, cruised N. Lake Michigan and N. Lake Hurron.

Starting in early June, 2019. We started the Great Loop.

2020:For the remainder of 2019 until March 2020 we cruised our boat from N. Michigan to Key West, FL. 3,300 st.mi

So dont let your dreams be forgot, persistence is your friend

Rick Marshall
Elaine May

Monkster36@hotmail.com

[Bacchus]

Rick
Great to read "the rest of the story" I'm assuming you will be continuing your loop adventures. Taking an extended time (years) to do it is the best IMO. Im not a looper but have done a lot of cruising in the NE & Great Lakes and have talked to a lot of loopers that rush through that area in one season. There is just too much to see and do in some spectacular fresh water cruising grounds.
Nice when a plan comes together.

[Coalman]

Originally Posted by Bacchus

Rick
Great to read "the rest of the story" I'm assuming you will be continuing your loop adventures. Taking an extended time (years) to do it is the best IMO. Im not a looper but have done a lot of cruising in the NE & Great Lakes and have talked to a lot of loopers that rush through that area in one season. There is just too much to see and do in some spectacular fresh water cruising grounds.
Nice when a plan comes together.

We woul like to spend time in Erie, I was born in Lorain and have family in the area

[Pete Meisinger]

You are being far to cautious before buying a smallish boat. (under 30 feet) Join up for some courses, buy a boat now, don't wait two years.

pete