It's a sad sailboat story...

Yesterday we were excited to view a sailboat for sale in Everett. We had been in touch with the owner for a few weeks via email, text and phone. An older gentlemen from Chelan, (let's call him Jimmie,) who clearly was in love with his Rafiki, Bucket List.
We had to practically twist his arm to actually show us the boat. He loved talking about her and telling us how awesome she was; he was a great salesman.
He waxed on about the new Andersen winches, new sails, Brian Toss rigging, new galley, new running rigging, new cockpit enclosure, new electrical and plumbing. It went on and on and on, to the tune of a supposed $140,000 worth of upgrades.

Jimmie shared with us his dream of sailing her down to San Francisco under the Golden Gate bridge and anchoring off Ghiradelli Square. Since heart trouble a few years back his family has been pressuring him to stay on land and sell his beloved Bucket List.
He spent as much time sharing his dreams as telling us about the boat. We weren't sure he really wanted to sell. But he agreed to meet even though she wasn't "finished" yet. We assured him we could look past the grime of a PNW winter, or a refit, as quality always shines through.

So on Sunday morning at 10am we met Jimmie, in Everett, at a local coffee shop, to meet and talk about Bucket List. Somewhere in the conversation
Shay asked a pivotal question, "how long have you had the boat?"
Four years.
"From who?"
A woman in Kirkland.

Bells and whistles started clanging and screeching, the stars aligned and Shay realized that we knew this boat.
Four years ago we almost bought this boat.
This was Julie's boat. And almost ours.

It wasn't until we were in the car, following Jimmie to the boatyard that Shay mentioned this to me.
I was stunned. I was overcome with emotion and tears streamed out, my heart sank and I felt slightly nauseous. I quickly pulled myself together and joined Shay and Jimmie in the yard.
Standing in the pouring rain, looking up at the dirty, barnacle encrusted hull, it all came flooding back.

The famous semi-annual Fisheries Marine swap meet in spring of 2010 at 6am we were looking at some barely used, Henry Lloyd foul weather gear and struck up a conversation with Julie, a vendor, in the parking lot of Fisheries. She was selling high-end bits and pieces of gear and had a cardboard sign hanging around her neck that read, " Sailboat for Sale, Rafki, 1976."

We asked her about the Rafiki and before long we had exchanged emails and she promised to send photos. It all sounded so perfect... so destined.
And a great reason to get up at 4:30am and drive 90 minutes in the dark to Ballard, to look at marine parts.

Later that weekend we started a relationship that consumed the next month of our lives.
Julie was recently separated from a well-known naval architect who had bled her bank account dry by buying every bit of high end sailboat gear on the market. All this gear was either in her garage, on the boat or in her storage unit. Being a non-sailor gal she had no idea what to do with it all.

The sailboat was in the beginning stages of a full refit. Not sailable; as the rigging was not complete, the interior was not complete, nor electrical, plumbing, deck gear, etc. It was all in the garage, or the storage unit, and she needed to recoup some of her lost capital, by selling the boat and gear, while literally removing these memories from her life.
The sailboat represented betrayal and embarrassment, and the boat was her answer to recouping the funds that were sugar mamma'd out of her savings.

I offerred to help Julie inventory her equipment so she could better estimate it's worth. We were interested in the possibility of purchasing the Rafiki, but we couldn't tell at that time what we were even buying. It worked to both our benefits to move forward together and catalog everything.

I made spreadsheets of all the equipment: spools of line, clutches, jam cleats, winches, plumbing, ground tackle, much of it in new boxes.
We took a day and drove to her storage unit and inventoried that 8 x 10 space. She shared her heartbreaking story of loss and she told me all she wanted was to be rid of the boat (which was without even a name at the moment,) and move on with her life.
I took pictures of each item, attached it to my spreadsheet and later looked up anything online that we couldn't figure out. It took a huge amount of time and energy, but you had to see this boat to understand the draw it had. We also felt for Julie in her time of crisis, and felt obliged to help a sister in need.

The boat, this Rafiki, she was a beautiful thing. She gleamed.
Even tho she was floating in the slip looking more like a beamy powerboat at the time, she glowed.
Everything was shiny and crisp. We were taken under her spell. High gloss everywhere, as if she was just born from the boatyard, launched for the first time.

Shay and I met with a shipwright. We talked about what it would take to put her back together. Her asking price was already at the top of our budget. But this situation, this boat, seem handed to us from the gods.

For weeks we talked to marine contractors, agonized over the spreadsheets, looked at our savings accounts and detailed out the project lists. It would take us probably a year to get her sailing, mostly since we couldn't afford to hire out everything. We could hire out the electrical, some of the rigging and tanks, and do the remaining projects ourselves. It would be long and hard, but she would be practically new when we finished.

We couldn't do it.
The project list was too long. The unknown expenses too risky for us at the time. We were worried she would sit in her slip, or the yard, and languish. Having an 80 year old home and two rental properties ate up our summer weekends. When would we sail? Would we end up like so many other project boats we saw in the boatyards, unattended and un-sailed, a dream gone mossy?

With heavy hearts we told Julie our news.
She was understandably disappointed. And so were we.
I gave Julie the spreadsheets, all the pictures, wrote ads for her to put online to sell the Rafiki and she game us a couple very nice fishing poles. We hugged and went our separate ways.

Flash forward 4 years. Yes, we've been looking for a boat for 4 years. (Well, 3 of those at least.)

The Rafiki is now called, "Bucket List," and owned by Jimmie.
He bought her and got her sailing. Put on the winches, the rigging, some plumbing and basic galley.
Took her a couple sounds up north a few times but mostly let her sit.
Her gloss was gone, her lines were covered in green slime, the varnish had peeled, the beautiful cabin sole was gouged and lackluster. She was older now.
The promise we saw of an elegantly clad, graceful maiden of the sea had not come to fruition.
When we entered the salon all we could see was hanging wire ties from unfinished electrical work, wood work that was sawed and holed, peanut shells littering every floor space and general unseaman-like work.
For a second we considered starting over. Taking out all the shoddy electrical and funky plumbing, the fuel tank in the hanging lazarette (?) and redoing it all. Was this our second chance? Our destiny?

But our hearts weren't in it. All we felt was sad. She did not feel like our home. We were not in love with her.

And Jimmie was.

We sat in the salon while Jimmie told stories of his love, of his dreams and the pressures of his family to sell the Rafiki. We knew she was not ours, but his. He said as much too. If we didn't buy it he would sail south.

When we left we both sat numb and quiet in the car. What just happened?
What lesson are we supposed to be learning? What is the Universe trying to tell us?

Was it a missed opportunity 4 years ago? Why did she come back into our life? We've been looking so long now that we are looking at the same boats with different owners and names? (sigh)

After talking it over, we still trust our decision of 4 years ago. She was too much of a project for us at that time. It was a year later that Shay needed spine surgery and we spent almost the purchase price of the Rafiki traveling to England for Shay's surgery.
She would have languished, both of them, as there was 16 months that would have been impossible for Shay to sail.

We're still not sure what type of lesson this sad experience holds for us. To take more risks maybe?
To trust ourselves since we have seen first hand that four years later that beautiful Rafiki is still not ready to go off-shore?

Or maybe it's just a simple lesson in how much attention any sailboat needs to be kept in good condition.

Maybe we should be looking at steel boats, they have no teak. I hear there is one for sale in Seattle.

Who are we?

Shay and Yona met on San Juan Island in 2000. Our second date was on a sailboat that Shay shared with a friend. We almost ran into an island on that sail, and Yona was very close to abandoning ship, but at the last second we pulled thru and made it back to the marina, where we ran into the dock instead.

Despite this we continue together, learning to sail and love and live together on our boat Holoholo and our 21' trailer.
In August 2013 we finally got married! On a sailboat of course - a 80ft Schooner - the Spike Africa with family and friends.

Our dream of cruising the world has been a jagged path. Buying a boat, losing a boat, buying another boat, becoming full time Nomads. Now we spend half the year traveling the USA in our little trailer. 

If you'd like to follow my YOUTUBE adventures you can here.  

Yona is the techie, nerdy (but meditative) one who loves to write and dreams of having a Star Trek like navigation station on her sailboat. She fixes things, does most plumbing, electrical and mechanical (can you say Diesel engine installation?) and anything that requires taking something apart, also navigation, research, and her superpower is being able to diagnose broken lawn mowers. 

Shay jumped out of the rat race for an early retirement so she could focus on drinking Cerveza's in Mexico, collecting rocks and sailing hard over, water rising over the toe rail. She does most all projects to near perfection, loves tools and nature, and longs for a queen size sleeping berth. Her superpower is her Sagitarian ability to be cheerful in all situations.

We both love to travel, adventure and immerse ourselves in nature. This wouldn't work without our third companion. Earth. And all the beauty, diversity and wildness she shows us everyday. 

We are eternally grateful fo the opportunity have and share our adventures!

Change & Letting Go & the Freya Cutter

The Freya Cutter turned out to be very interesting. The owner sailed quite a bit and really had a mind towards safety in his rig. I apprecited the little extra’s like the permenant boom brake that had a line leading back to the cockpit. Shay however, didn’t like her. The layout did have a couple issues but I could have lived with it I think. Neither of us were excited about her in the end, and to tell the truth I forgot about her a few hours later. 

After returning home I sold the last piece of furniture from our house.

When it came time to let go, I had a surprising reaction. A wave of saddness washed over me and I wanted to lay myself across the credenza and hug the old thing. It inhabited the front entrance to our house and was used for dish and silver storage; flowers were placed on it during the summer time; pictures of our family were spread across the surface. 

Reflecting on this strong reaction to a piece of furniture, I realized how emotional challenging selling our house, moving from our small town, and not being surrounded by all the stuff fthat makes up a house has been. (There is no room in a trailer, even for pictures or artwork!)

It’s amazing how being surrounded by all your “stuff” creates a feeling of safety and security. I know this is an illusion, a lamp can’t create security. A credenza doesn’t make  me feel safe. I know I project this onto my home and my belongings, but remembering this during stressful times when life feels out of control, is fairly challenging for me.

One of the reasons we both have been attracted to Buddhist philosphy is non-attachment to stuff. Neither one of us is typically attached to belongings, as we discovered on our trip to England. While we were gone for a month we missed absolutely nothing from home, nor our home even. We only missed Mowgli and our friends. 

We certainly enjoy any belongings we have, but we don’t need them, feel defined by them or care what others think of them. We enjoy function. We appreciate beauty but prefer the beauty of nature: the view of Mt. Rainier in the morning, the magic blue color of the sea at dusk. These joys are far more valuble than a couch.

However the past couple months of transition has been very difficult emotionally. What I find that I miss is our art; paintings, pictures, pictures of family and special items. And of course our house, our yard, living in Enumclaw, laundry room and garage also. We can’t be gypsy’s while living in Enucmlaw and forced to do yard work and house projects every weekend! 

It’s werid having so many confilicting emotions over the change. Happy that we are moving forward and out from under that physical drain of owning an old home. Life is easier now, no lawn, garden, house to clean. It takes less than 30 minutes to clean and organize the entire trailer! Our weekends are now free to play and shop for sailboats, be lazy and visit friends.  I look forward to the summer when we can spend our free time sailing and sailing and sailing!

I knew this transition would be hard, but it’s difficult to know exactly how it would effect us, and in what ways. Like learning how to live half out of your car since the trailer is too small to store everything. Shopping every 3 days due to a tiny fridgerator, using a small shower with small hot water tank, small closets, small, small, small.

I think this is a good transition to living on a boat. Getting used to dealing with small and with all the tanks and systems aboard. These are good things ultimately and just an inconvienence right now until we become adjusted.

Still, I am sad at the loss of a lifestyle. We will never again own a home in Enumclaw, close to our good friends, where I know everyone in town by first name, from the pharmacist, to the grocery clerks and bank tellers. 

Our life is not so sheltered now, it feels more insecure, transitory. Which is what we need to learn to love: gypsyness. To love the freedom of a simple life, being a rebel to this excessive consumer based society. To choose purposely to live for a passion, to rely on oneself for happiness, find what is at the center of one’s self and life when distractions and attachments are stripped away.

This has become a spiritual lesson. Who am I, who are we without a house? Without our stuff? How will we handle this transition? Will it ever feel safe and secure like our old way of life did? Instead, will something else arise that is infinitely better?

This path is leading us down a life-changing adventure and I only need to care for today, this moment, the next step. Learning to let go of control or the illusion that I have control, and trusting the universe, is a lesson I’m sure will take a lifetime to achieve. For now I will attempt to surrender to not being in control, mourn the loss of a lifestyle, welcome my new home and way of life, and wait to see what spring brings. 

The wood horse year and the Seattle boat show

There is fabulous energy going into this new year and it's the perfect year for healing and transformation. I found a wonderful article that sheds light on all the benefits of the coming year, which I'll place at the bottom of this post. 

The past two weeks have been the most intense transformative and healing weeks of my life! It's been hard work but most days I am up for the challenge. I'm also doing a detox/cleanse for the next 2 months, so I'm committed myself to this healing process. I'm excited to see where I'll be in April!

For the first time in over a year I've been able to walk longer since my pain level has decreased. This has allowed us to thoroughly enjoy the Seattle boat show. We even went both weekends!

View from the deck of a 26 Million dollar power boat, looking at seattle.

We had a great time and met a number of wonderful women in the boating community. It started a couple weeks ago, when we decided to enlist some help with our boat search. Not with a broker as we have been down that road a few times. This time we contacted a well known marine surveyor, Lynne Reister. It was awesome to meet her and we are hopeful she can help us find our boat! There are a few on the horizon and we'll let you know how it pans out. 

We also met Linda Lewis and some of the women from the NWMB (Northwest Women's Boating) group. I know Linda will be a great resource for us. We plan on attending a class she's giving on radar this spring. She does private instruction also and Shay's made hints that a docking lesson on our new boat might be in order. Her seminars were great as she was full of great ideas for couples handling a boat and how to better communication aboard. I especially enjoyed her ideas on docking and line handling. 

Shay also attended the women's day at the boat show and met Carol Hasse and Nancy Erley and listened to some great talks about sail plan options and off shore sailing. 

There were some great deals on gear and we did succumb to purchasing new life jackets with built in harnesses. Later, we were talking to some women from NWMB at their knot tying booth about life jackets. One of them shared a story about when her life jacket inflated in a MOB practice and the pressure from the impact bruised her boobs quite severly. She cautioned us that for training or testing purposes not to tighten the jacket too much! Food for thought for all you women sailors. 

We found some great product to look into also.

H2Out is a renewable dehumidifier that you stick anywhere. Drawers, closets, anywhere. I really liked the idea, but the prices at the boat show were steep so I think I'll buy some online and give them a try in our trailer since we have plenty of need right now.

The other product was an interior liner for boats. It looks like wood slats but was just plastic. I imagine you could paint it or stain it. It was in the V-berth and really finished out the space. There's a picture below if anyone knows the name of the product let me know!

It's been a really fun time for both of us and it feels like we are finally enjoying the benefits of living a simple life. One of which is TIME!

We have whole weekends to have fun, relax and enjoy life. This is a new practice for us as its been years since we had this opportunity.

We're hoping this translates to lots of time on the water very soon!

Wood Horse Year Info

http://westernschooloffengshui.com/2014/01/2014woodhorse/

Dreaming, Mold & Old Nautical Charts

Lately, I have been dreaming of putting things away. 

I wake up from dreams of searching for something in drawers or the (one) closet, or of constantly putting stuff away. Small space living adjustment, I guess.

Our small space living learning curve continues into 2014!

Last weekend we found black mold growing under our matress. The plywood frame and half the top layer of our latex matress was spotted black and very damp. 

Measuring Hypervent in our living room/kitchen

Quite immediately we needed to learn the best way to treat the matress and plywood in hopes of saving both and then purchase some Hypervent at Fisheries Marine. Hypervent is a plastic Swiss cheese product about 2” thick with an anti-fungal material on one side. It is sandwiched between the plywood and matress and provides a layer of air for circulation. Expensive stuff at $10 a foot!

After reasarching mold abation and calling our mattress store, we decided upon hydrogen peroxide followed by vinegar, sprayed on everything moldy. We then placed our heater and fan 3 feet away for 8 hours until very dry. We had to leave as Shay was having a reaction to the mold, so we vacated for the rest of the day.

Last weekend after picking up the Hypervent, we again tore the bed apart, cleaned and set it all to dry before installing the Hypervent.

Since the bedding and foam take up half the living room, leaving one chair to sit in, we set the portable air cleaner on high and left for the afternoon. On our return we put everything together, nice and dry with airflow underneath now!

We’ll check it next weekend and see how the matress is doing. I hope we don’t have to cut out the backing material to save the latex mattress.

We keep on kicking ourselves, as we should have known better and taken care of this before it became a problem. 

The good news is that our storage unit is clean and fairly organized now. In our forced time away form home, we took half the stuff out of the storage unit to access a couple pieces of furniture that Shay wants to sell which was of course, at the back of the unit.

We reorganized quite a bit, so now we have access to files, sailing gear (wishful thinking that!), and tools. 

Micronesian Nautical Chart

One of the other forced days out we visited the Burke Museum and found this nautical chart made long ago in Micronesia. It's called a stick chart and it's made from reed or sticks and shells or stones. They were used for navigation. The reeds can depict currents, and the shells islands. This really blows my mind. What sailors they must have been! 

As far as sailboat shopping goes, it’s quite depressing. The two boat we were considering seem to be slipping away. Shay is in an indecisive mood these days. Since I have been dealing with a lot of knee and body pain I haven’t really been full of energy and so have been fairly apathetic myself. All in due time, I guess. 

I have the beatles song running thru my head, Turn!, Turn!, Turn!. 

A time to be cold and a time to rain; a time to sail, a time to dream of sailing in the sun:

A time to be unsure and a time to be confident; and hopefully the time to buy a sailboat will soon come!

Meanwhile we continue with mold patrol.

Our Plan

Currently we don't have a plan that satisfies most people who ask.

We've learned that trying to predict more than a few weeks ahead is pointless. So I can tell you that in general we spend the winters in Mexico on our sailboat, and the summers traveling the US in our trailer. 

The rest just happens. 

I can say that this journey ended up being much more spiritual and healing than I every imagined! We have changed fundamentally since 2017 when I first started this blog. 

Our values, goals, relationships, all shifted as we stepped away from a common lifestyle and embarked into the unknown.

This blog is about mostly my (Yona) process of integration. Sharing my thoughts, feelings, challenges and joys as we travel this great earth. 

Thanks for being here!

Written in 2017

We've always said, the "Sail Away Plan" does not rule us. At any time we can adjust the plan to suit our budget, comfort levels, and health.  This said, we do have a secret desire to escape conventional living for an alternative lifestyle. (This does not include trailer living.)

We chose cruising. Sailboat cruising for now. Where we end up depends on life. However, the dream is to sail to Mexico for a few years where we spend our winters enjoying the warmer climate and the summers back in Washington, working, upgrading our rental homes (sold!), sailing with friends and living in our little trailer. After that, if we still feel brave, it's west to the Pacific Islands and still west to New Zealand and Australia.

Hopefully we will get to spend a good amount of time traveling by land in these awesome countries. Shay has eluded to the possibility of buying a goat farm and settling down in New Zealand. I would love to see the Great Barrier Reef.

We don't have a dream of sailing around the world, although if that happens, I'd love to sail the Med. Since pirates stand in the way of that happening now, I think we'll stick to the Pacific Basin.

For now we need a sailboat. And lots more practice. And then some more practice sailing around Mexico. We'd be happy with that for now. Or in 2 years time.

As I don't intend to live in this trailer for much more than that!

Our Checklist

1. Remodel House - Check
2. Buy Shay a new back - Check
3. Sell House - Check
4. Buy Trailer -Check
5. Sell belongings/Store the rest - Check
6. Move into Trailer - Check
7. Buy Sailboat- Check
8. Sail Sailboat- Check
9. Refit Sailboat- Check
10. Ability to afford good tequila- all the money went to the boat!
11. Sail sailboat to Mexico- Check

Through the looking glass

Many sail blogs begin with the journey, when a couple or family push away from the dock and begin a long anticipated cruise to Mexico, the Caribbean or around the world. 

For us, however the journey has already begun. Long before the cast off, it's still years away, and it's been years since we began in earnest. We didn't realize when we made a commitment to this dream of cruising that there would be so much to go thru before we even bought THE boat. Letting go of "stuff," selling a house, changing lifestyles to essentially a gypsy like one has many challenges. 

For us, it's clearly not just about sailing, but about pushing ourselves in new ways and readying ourselves for an adventure.
I suppose many people wouldn't want to begin their cruising blog before they "left," just in case they never left. However, I think what we are learning about ourselves and each other are good and valuable regardless. So our adventure has begun, only right now it is on land, in a trailer with the hopes of owning a boat very, very soon!

Thanksgiving 2013
As we prepare to view sailboat #46 a 39' Freya Cuttter in San Francisco, my mind races between thoughts of "this could be the ONE," and "don't get your hopes up, it could be a dog." 
When the list of sailboats we've viewed in hopes of purchase gets close to fifty, even I start to wonder what is going on. That we are a little picky is not in dispute. Possibly crazy too. But I figure anyone who wants to go offshore in a small sailboat has to be a little crazy. 

We've performed our usual ritual of gathering photos and specs, pouring over anything we can learn online, from forum reviews and comments, to spec analysis, boat history, designer, builder, etc, ad naseum. Before we even step onto a boat we know as much we can about that boats weaknesses and strengths. 

We try to use our heads, not our hearts. Sure, there are certain qualities of a sailboat that have the power to steal our hearts. For me, a dark blue hull with a certain classic line, and a pristine engine room. For Shay, a comfortable cockpit, a spacious layout and un-cave like berth. 
We do have our checklist's of course. Must be headroom for me, good winch and traveler positions, no teak decks, etc. We know we need a safe boat. A comfortable boat with at least some modicum of speed and easy sailing. And it must be affordable. 

Our budget constraints mean we are looking at older boats with typically full keels or modified fin keels that were the performance boats of the 1970s and 80's: over 40 years ago. It is what it is.

So we have done our homework on the Freya, have been interviewed by the owner, and the boat has made it thru Phase 1 of the buying process: the pre-viewing-information-gathering phase.

Phase 2 - setting foot on board. How many times have we gotten to Phase 2, excited and chattering on the way to the viewing, reminding ourselves not to get our hopes too high?

Although I couldn't remember all 46 boats, here is a partial list of sailboats we've viewed. Some we've ruled out that specific boat, and other's the entire model, like the S&S Comanche. We just don't like the layout, deck, etc enough to view another one. But a Crealock, an Endurance and an Allied Mistress would all be worth viewing if one magically showed up on the West coast for sale in our price range.

Boat list

Pearson 35
Islander 36
Pearson 365
Pearson 424
Crealock 37
Tartan 37
Tayana 37
Hans Christian 38
Alberg 37
Niagara 37
Islander Peterson 40
Allied Mistress 39
Bristol 39
Cape Dory 36
C&C landfall
Cal 39
Endeavor 42
Endurance 35
Ericson 38
Gozzard 36
Halberg Rassy Rasmus
Hardin 40
Moody 39
Southern Cross 39
Corbin 39
Valiant 40
Alajuela 38
Ingrid 38
Waquiez Hood 38
CS 36
Union 36
Cheoy Lee Off shore 38
Comanche 42
Whitby 42
Morgan 38
Morgan OI 41
CMS Cutter 39
Bavaria 37
Cascade 42
Coast Cutter 34
Young Sun Cutter 35
Union 35
Gulf Pilothouse 32


A forty year old boat has a LOT of history, and modifications, and half finished projects and bilges's full of decades of sludge. By this time in its life every system should have been overhauled. But most have not. They all have many stories to uncover, many owner's hands at work with half-finished electrical and plumbing issues, ancient engines, rotten decks, old port lights, stuck thru-hulls, blisters, and worse, owners that see these issues thru rose-colored glasses, that see only the vision in their heads; of the way she looks if the boat was bristol, with all the projects finished. 

I can't tell you how many times we've heard, "Well, that would just take a few hours to finish," in response to a comment about the 20 wires sticking out from the electrical panel, or a hull with blisters, or a soft spot in a deck. 
I've heard owners wax on about how beautiful their boat is, how bristol the condition, how ready to shove off from the dock. Only to show up for a viewing and from the parking lot spot her at the dock and know, with a heavy sigh, that the owner wears very thick glasses. 

We have developed a tag team approach. One of us stands with the owner on the dock to do the meet and greet, while the owner gestures lovingly at his sailboat, while the other gets aboard and does a quick inventory, peeking here and there at the hidden spots to determine the general maintenance level of the boat (which we have found to be the best indicator of a boats overall condition), which then determines the length of our visit. 

After about 10 minutes we exchange looks, imparting to one another wether the boat is a dog and if the owner (or broker) is honest and upfront or someone to be wary of.

At this point we either say goodbye and good luck, or start video taping and taking photos of the boat. Walking around the deck and cockpit, looking at hardware, rigging, stanchions, windless, etc we quickly assess the condition of the sails, the ground tackle, rigging, the layout and safety of cockpit. If all that passes our mental checklists, only then do we go below. 

It is easy to fall in-love with the gloss of beautiful woodwork, the lovely layout of a Hans Christian interior, a queen size berth, a large galley, oh how easy it is to forget, in the comfort of a beautiful salon, what makes a sailboat sailable; the rig, the deck, the hull, the cockpit. 

However, we can't ignore the engine. We'd like to believe that we will be great sailors who do not rely on a diesel engine. We envision ourselves sailing into a protected bay and anchoring without use of our engine - a Lin & Larry move.
The reality is quite the opposite at the moment, so we hold our breath while the companionway steps are moved aside and we get a glimpse of the beast hiding within. The final test of phase 2. 

Is the bilge clean or dirty, how many hours on the engine, is there a maintenance log, does she even start?

Lest you think we are perfectionist, let me clarify.

We are hard workers, who don't hesitant to put on hazmat masks, roll up our sleeves and squeeze into a 2ft hole in order to sand upside down for 3 hours straight. No problem. 

Most 40 year old boats have not had upgrades on every system. Our job is to figure out what systems need upgrading and how big a job it is on that particular boat. Old boats have a boat load of potential issues involving every system and if we aren't careful we could easily spend as much on a refit as on the purchase price. Is the engine at the end of its lifespan, original tin wiring throughout, needs new rigging and sails? Is the price reflective or the owner have awareness of these issues? Often not. 

Old boat shopping is not for the faint of heart. At least for those intending to travel out of sight of land. Many of these boats would be perfectly adequate to sail around the Puget Sound. But it's a different story when you plan on going offshore. Every system needs to be in good order for safety's sake. No doubt we will be refitting whatever boat we end up purchasing. It's a matter of choosing our refit projects.

I've calculated that 1 in 60 boats looked at online make it to phase 2 - a viewing, and so far our ratio is about 15 viewings to 1 offer. 

So as we approach our viewing of the Freya, it is with a mix of anticipation, frustration, hope and stubbornness. What choice do we have except to continue forward with hope? If nothing else our perseverance attests to our absolute love of sailing. 

We look forward to sailing with our friends, taking long weekends in Puget Sound and bringing forefront into our lives our passion for sailing. Our love of being on the water, hearing the sails snap in the wind and feeling the boat rise under our feet as we grip the wheel, smiles plastered on faces, eyes lit up with joy; this is our version of heaven. Oh, we have fallen down the rabbit hole for sure.