How Not to Buy a Cruising Boat - Softcover

If you've ever found yourself dreaming of selling everything, moving onto a cruising yacht and pointing it toward warmer weather and white sandy beaches, this book is for you. How NOT to Buy a Cruising Boat will help you to navigate the search and purchase of your cruising yacht with your sanity intact. Through heartfelt stories, hard-won experiences, and creative ideas, this cruising couple shares their own voyage to realizing their dream.

Deb and Tim (T.J.) Akey were never on a sailboat until their first sailing class in 2007. The dream to retire early onto a sailboat was Deb's, but Tim was immediately supportive. They bought their starter sailboat, a Compac 27, in 2008 and learned to live aboard, sail, and maintain her. In 2011 they purchased a Tartan 42 named Kintala, and began prepping her for full-time cruising. They were hoping to cast off the dock lines early in 2015 but a department restructuring in Tim's company left him unexpectedly unemployed in 2013. Faced with the decision to get other jobs or leave early, they decided that they would never have “enough” money, and the boat would never be “ready," so they decided to leave. They departed their home marina, Boulder Marina in Boulder, IL, on Tim's 58th birthday in July of 2013, and after a 10-week boat yard tour, launched Kintala into the Chesapeake at Oak Harbor Marina in Pasadena, MD on October 19, 2013. During the first year of cruising, they motored the ICW, toured anchorages and mooring fields in Florida, took a multiple-month trip to the Bahamas, then found themselves pinned to a dock due to family travails. Their year anniversary was spent looking forward to many more months of white, sandy beaches and aquamarine waters in the Islands for their second year of cruising. To follow along on their continuing journey, you can visit their blog: www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com