Originally Posted by
BobJ
We've had a few short-term or "serial" boat owners who've bought a boat for the SHTP, scrambled to get it in shape and equipped, and then raced it once to Kauai. They've either sold their boats over there or as soon as they got them back here, and in some cases we haven't heard from them again.
Most of us aren't like that. Sled is a notable example. He raced over in 1978 and 30 years later, he raced again in the same boat (and won). I've owned my boat for 14 years and hope to race it a fourth time to Hawaii (my posts about cruisier boats notwithstanding). I'll also note that the average historical "gestation period" for a first-time SHTP campaign is five years.
So if it was me, I'd buy a boat I would enjoy sailing for awhile (including with family), do some singlehanded races with it (we have quite a few), rattle around in the ocean a bit and then see what you think about racing it solo to Hawaii.
As they say, "my two cents."
This would be me. I was unable to get everything ready in 1996, but left the day after the race started and sailed a Ranger 29 to Kauai. I had a wonderful passage, the Navik windvane did 90% of the steering, I flew the kite when it was light and spent a lot of time wing-and wing. 16 days later I got to Kauai. I gave the boat to the University of Hawaii sailing program when I got there. In 2007 I bought a Santa Cruz 27 and set it up for the passage. Two months before leaving, I put the boat up for sale on Craigslist, HI and had 15 respondants. I literally had four extremely well-qualified, serious buyers to choose from. The boat is now racing out of the Ala Wai.
I did this because sailing, for me is not something that I can devote a lot of money to. I don't have a 32+ foot cruising boat that would be comfortable and fun to sail back from Hawaii. Also, I haven't been able to take another month off of work in order to sail back. Buying a Santa Cruz 27 for $10K, putting $6K worth of gear on it and sailing to Hawaii was great, but that burned through the entire sailing kitty. I took off a lot of the $6K worth of gear and got it back to California, where I sold it. I sold the boat in Hawaii for $8K. Upshot was, when I was all done, I had zero in the kitty but no debt...and no boat. I was not able to afford to take another month off to sail a Santa Cruz 27 back from Kauai to San Francisco and shipping the boat on Matson was $10,000. That made absolutely zero financial sense. Spend ten grand to ship a ten grand boat back? I could sell the boat for eight, come back to California and buy another SC27 for the money I'd spend on shipping the boat, easily. Anyway, I spent the next seven years wearing kilts, throwing hammers, stones and cabers at the highland games, pooping around on the SSS forum (I did a couple of race committees) and sailing a little wood boat that I can keep for nothing in the front yard.
My goal in 2008 was to sail the SHTP....not have a "forever boat". I achieved my goals. I sailed the race. As stated in another thread, my goals were: 1.) finish the race 2.) finish the race with a smile on my face 3.) Not be last. Note that this was in 2008, and it's now 2017 and I'm just about to sail my next SSS race after that 2008 SHTP. It took me 8 years to buy another boat fit to sail on the main Bay.
So I would say this.... You MUST THINK ABOUT YOUR GOALS. What do you want? WHAT DO YOU WANT? Do you want to sail to Hawaii? You don't have to do a race to sail to Hawaii. Do you want to do the SHTP, specifically? That's a very different goal from wanting to win the SHTP, outright. Do you want to be the First to Finish? Do you want to have a great boat and do a cool passage? Just what is it that you are trying to accomplish, here?
I gotta say...just blindly blundering along, "I'm doing the singlehanded transpac" because it sounds cool, without really knowing what the 'eff you actually want out of this process is pretty blitheringly stupid. If you want to throw money at boat, I have a candidate....you're welcome to throw money at mine.
Do you want to have a boat that you can sail all over the Pacific? Do you want to do the Singlehanded Transpac? Do you want to WIN the Singlehaded TransPac. What do you want? Do you detect a theme to this post? I have to tell you that I was heartily sick of prepping boats for the Singlehanded TransPac after 2008. It's a freaking year of work and a lot of money. I've done it three times. It's a great learning process but I can't recommend doing it over and over and over again. I plan to do another SHTP in my current boat. I will prep it. But that boat is coming back to California with me, I'm not doing this "prep the boat and then sell it" again. Screw that. Been there, done that, got more t-shirts than I need.
Last edited by AlanH; 01-19-2017 at 01:06 PM.
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