Newby from Lake Tahoe, Ca

So, no trawlers on Tahoe, and I'm not a boat guy (yet..).
My wife and I just returned from settling in our youngest to her Jr year of college in Savannah, and spending time down there on a friends boat made us realize living on trawler and checking out the areas we may retire in in the next few years may be a great plan (Savannah being one of them).

I'm browsing forums to learn about boats, livaboard pros and cons etc and I am enjoying the knowledgeable, civil discord.

What I have so far, seems a 31- 40 ft boat would be good for 2 of us, we like a solid, slower boat and want to be able to get to the Caribbean, so Trawlers vs faster ones seems the right niche. We want a queen size bed, like good exterior space as we'll be in warmer areas mostly after 30 yrs living in snow country.

I am planning to take a boat handing course as I've just driven friends ski boats an occasional sailboat on tahoe in my life, and wondering if anyone has tips on those.
for instance, there is one course in SF bay (passagemarine), that is 2 day course, but it's for handling up to 25ft boats, I wonder if that will be valuable, or I should try to find a place that has similar controls/drive type to what I'd end up in in something like a American Tug 34?

Thx for any thoughts!
Wade

There are schools for yacht-sized basic boat handling for those not interested in pursuing USCG licensing, that you can combine into a vay-cay if you wish. Sailing schools outnumber motoryachting schools by several orders of magnitude but if you sort the online data long enough you will find them. The low hanging fruit is finding an independent training captain, but then you need to find the boat to use. There was a recent thread you can search for where someone was asking about this and several East Coast schools were recommended - the issue is finding training on larger >25' boats where the boat is provided (or easily chartered.)

In Puget Sound the one I'm familiar with, Anacortes Yacht Charters does theirs - usually - on 36 foot Grand Banks trawler-style yachts, or a 38-40 motor yacht. Their standard program is three days, you can also stay on the boat at night for an extra charge, or even do a cruising program so long as you pay the captain's expenses while away from the dock. Plus side is once you train with them you are ready to charter with them on a reasonable sized vessel without further screening. I charter a yacht with (from?) them every two or three years for a vacation, they're a great outfit. This year we're going with a Bayliner 4788 because that's all that was available in our needed size range for our dates due to my dragging my feet, we'll see what that's like.

PS I'm just down the hill from you here. Working in Carson City. Welcome.

Welcome aboard. Maybe check out Southwest Florida Yacht Charters, or something close to that name, and see about chartering a trawler. I believe the do training. No affiliation.

This thread was the one I was referring to; there are other, older ones too. Use the search function at top.

Great thread, very accurate to my needs as well!
I'm reading it now, thx!