newbie - potential wannabe

I have never owned a boat. I only recently learned what the “Great Loop” is, and am very intrigued (but as a retirement trip). I am still 10 to 15 years away from retirement, so that trip would be some ways off. In the meantime I am living in landlocked central Illinois. I am within a one or two hour drive of the Illinois River and two or three medium sized lakes (10,000 – 20,000-ish acres).

I like the idea of having some accommodations on a boat (and some semblance of fuel efficiency) more so than going fast. I also think I would enjoy the ability to actually “go somewhere” on a boat other than just around circles on one lake.

Given my location, my desires, and my limited boating experience; I am intrigued by the idea of a “Pocket Trawler” that could be trailered to the boating locales I have available. From my research, the loop has been done in this size boat, though a lot of people seem to suggest something over 30 feet for the loop.

Welcome aboard!
I was in your situation two years ago, looking at boats with my wife thinking ahead of the time we would be live aboard. And than we found our first boat, got it earlier than expected but a blessing for gaining experience. We found our slip on a river and enjoy exploring it and spending time anchoring in desert coves.
Don't worry too much about going somewhere, on rivers or lakes there are always remote,places to explore and when you will your preferred spot like we did you will enjoy going there, drop the anchor and enjoy time passing by.

L

pzindy said:

Given my location, my desires, and my limited boating experience; I am intrigued by the idea of a “Pocket Trawler” that could be trailered to the boating locales I have available. From my research, the loop has been done in this size boat, though a lot of people seem to suggest something over 30 feet for the loop.

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Yes, you can do the loop in a "Pocket Trawler". However, if you want to tire of boating quickly, then trailer a boat back and forth all the time. Whatever the time required to drive from your home to a marina, then add time to hook up a trailer, to launch a boat, to pull the trailer out, to retrieve the boat, to unhook it at home. We lived on a lake with nearly all trailerable boats but outside of bass fishermen who wanted to fish other lakes, there was very little trailering. The two dealers we knew well, sold trailers with only about 10% of the boats they sold.

Yep. You wouldn't think trailering and launching (and retrieving, and. ..) would be that much of a big deal. I can say though, moving up from trailering and buying a slip made more difference to our boating habits and frequency than anything else.

Here's the boat we started with, a C-Dory 22 Cruiser. Sleeps three, simple and seaworthy, Easily trailered with a mid-size SUV, easily launched/retrieved, fuel efficient on the road and on the water. Very low cost of ownership and operation. Took us from big lakes (Lake Powell, for instance) to the San Juans, to the BC coast, and even two months cruising SE Alaska.

Not the biggest or most luxurious, but very functional. Terrific starter cruiser.

RCook said:

Here's the boat we started with, a C-Dory 22 Cruiser. Sleeps three, simple and seaworthy, Easily trailered with a mid-size SUV, easily launched/retrieved, fuel efficient on the road and on the water. Very lost cost of ownership and operation. Took us from big lakes (Lake Powell, for instance) to the San Juans, to the BC coast, and even two months cruising SE Alaska.

Not the biggest or most luxurious, but very functional. Terrific starter cruiser.

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pzindy,
Welcome to the site.
Now this post by Mr Cook is a very sensible suggestion.
When learning how to drive a boat my first biggest lessons were concerning 'Windage' or the effect of wind upon your boat when learning how to pull into jetties/boat ramps.
A nice low profile helps eliminate this and shallow draft will get you into some fantastic quiet places to sleep overnight / weekends and best of all away from bigger boats !!

C Dory 25 and Rosborough 246 come to mind. They both have a full head and galley (each are small but doable). Very easy to trailer with an 8'6 beam and outboard power.

Appears you have lots of time before becoming serious as in spending many dollars for your boating dream. Meanwhile, there are many boating opportunities with minimal expense.

Pzindy, we are doing just what you are thinking about. We have a 28ft Donzi Z275. We bought it last winter in Indiana, spent the year doing some interior remodeling. We have taken her to several lakes near us to learn how to park, drive and provision the boat. I would like to suggest you read " Great Loop Side trips. The Stobbs have done it. If I am correct they are one of the founders of the Great Loopers Association.
".https://www.amazon.com/Great-Loop-Side-Trips-Adventures/dp/0966914058

Also we went to boatersexam.com and took the Safety Class.

Then we started crawling over every boat we could find in our budget and learning as we went along. We started out thinking big, but got smaller as we discovered the expense of a bigger boat. If we like living on the boat, we many end up moving to something bigger in the future. Who knows. My brother Doug has never owned a house, he has always lived on a sailboat, which is presently located in Puerto Rico (calibra). My sister Georgia and her husband are selling their sailboat in florida which has been their home for several years and are now in the market for a 42 ft trawler. I am excited by the fact that we could go on cruises together. How cool would that be. Read, talk, visit other boaters. The right boat will come along when you are ready to take the plunge. Welcome to the forum. Living the dream is great[emoji3]

Welcome aboard TF
Agree w comments so far. ..CDory and Rosboroughs would make a good start to see if you like the life style.
There are lots of opportunities for shorter cruises than the loop that a trailerable makes possible.
I'd suggest looking up US Power Squadrons to see if there are any within a readonable distance.
They offet many excellent training programs and an excellent way to network w folks w similar interests.

pzindy,

Good points above.

First, I totally agree with BandB. Trailering sucks and I'd be out of boating if I had to trailer. Second, a small easy to handle boat makes sense that you "can" trailer when you want...... but

You didn't say where in central Illinois but there are several good marinas there. I've got a few boating buddies in that neck of the woods. I'm familiar with Hamm's by Peoria and Spring Brook over by Marseilles. One a bit bigger than the other, but both a nice place to put your boat.

Find a marina that you like and put your boat there for the season. Enjoy the marina life, you'll learn a lot from others, and the Illinois river is great to explore and can even get some locking experience. And you can trailer for the occasional lake run.

Also, I could argue to get a boat with some speed, not a full displacement hull. If the small trawlers can get up and got, that would be great. But, I suspect you're still working so boating time is precious and you only have a few days off a week to boat. So, making much more than a 20 to 30 mile trip in a slow trawler will be a pain.

Now, whatever you get you will still need some serious training. Even a 25 ft boat is a BIG step from no boating experience. And you'll want to take a course or two (online is easy).

Keep us posted.

Sparks5501 said:

Also we went to boatersexam.com and took the Safety Class.

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Wifey B: Boater Sex Am. Oh my. Safety Class for Safe Sex? Actually might be a good class because there's a tv show "Sex Sent Me To the ER."

Darn, I went to the site. So disappointing. It's Boaters Exam. Who would have thought such.

Sparks5501 said:

Pzindy, we are doing just what you are thinking about. We have a 28ft Donzi Z275. We bought it last winter in Indiana, spent the year doing some interior remodeling. We have taken her to several lakes near us to learn how to park, drive and provision the boat. I would like to suggest you read " Great Loop Side trips. The Stobbs have done it. If I am correct they are one of the founders of the Great Loopers Association.
".https://www.amazon.com/Great-Loop-Side-Trips-Adventures/dp/0966914058

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Wifey B: So many people never even think of all the side trip. We plan on looping several times with different side trips each time. I was so ready just now to order the book but then it wasn't available on Kindle. It's only on paper. Yuck.

We've done many of the trips but still high on our list are the Ohio, tossing in on that trip the Monongahela, Allegheny and Great Kanawha Rivers. Then the Upper Mississippi, the Lower Mississippi, the Missouri. The Upper Black Warrior. Then one day the parts of the Erie and the Champlain that we couldn't do in our loop boat due to height. Then up and around and down the St. Lawrence to Montreal and beyond. The Upper Delaware to Philadelphia is on our list too. Then the Arkansas River.

Thing is, we've done many but always so many more to explore. Still far more than just a quick loop out there.