Somewhere, someone is about to fall in love. It might happen this fall, walking the docks at a boat show. Or online, browsing listings deep down a brokerage rabbit hole. Or aboard a friend’s boat, when the genoa pops, the water turns to mercury, and that little voice inside says, More please.

If that someone is you, I won’t talk you out of it. But I will say this: Boat ownership is not all smooth sailing and sunset anchorages. It’s a floating to-do list. It’s a crash course in troubleshooting, a master class in delayed gratification. It’s 90 percent chaos and 10 percent magic, and somehow, that math works. 

You’ll encounter new tools, new smells and new words. Most of them will be expensive. But somewhere along the way, you’ll also discover a part of yourself that thrives on challenge, adapts under pressure, and finds meaning in every hard-won nautical mile.

Full disclosure: Boats are demanding. They break. They leak. They never ask how your day is going before they throw something new at you. And we love them all the more for it.

When my family bought our first boat, I didn’t fully appreciate what we had signed up for. I just knew I wanted to go sailing. What I didn’t expect was how attached we, as a family, would get to all of it: the clatter of halyards in the yard, the smell of wet teak, the pride of knowing the boat inside and out because we’d rebuilt or rewired half of it ourselves. Our first cruise wasn’t flawless, but it was unforgettable, and that’s the ­currency of boat ownership.

Sure, as a boat owner, you might question your decision more than once. But then comes the moment—maybe on a perfect beam reach, or alone on the hook with ­coffee at sunrise—when the chaos subsides, the boat steadies, and you feel it: This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Boats also connect us to one another. How many dockside friendships have started with, “Hey, I noticed your solar panel setup,” or “Mind if I borrow your heat gun?” This is a community that rallies, whether to share knowledge, lend a hand, or swap stories over sundowners. Owning a boat brings you into that fold.

If you’re heading into boat-show season and hearing a little voice—Am I ready? Is it worth it?—the experts who contribute to Cruising World have your back. In our Hands-On Sailor department, Behan Gifford of Sailing Totem pulls back the curtain on marketing lingo like “turnkey” and “ready to cruise.” She also explains how to separate dream from delusion. On the other side of the coin, Avocet’s Marissa Neely unpacks what it ­really takes to prep a boat for sale, both emotionally and practically. She offers insights for sellers and ­future buyers alike. You’ll also find a pair of boat owners’ stories that remind us what this lifestyle is all about—seen through a purpose-­built ­passagemaker and an Atlantic crossing that tested not just the systems but ­also the soul of the journey, and from a solo sailor who wrestles with 3,000 miles of ocean and finds clarity on the other side. These stories matter because the boat-ownership experience isn’t just about the boat. It’s about what the boat makes possible. Boating is a platform for self-reliance, growth, escape and return, and everything in between. 

If you’re staring down your first haulout, chasing that elusive “perfect boat,” or trying to make sense of what “needs a little love” really means, we welcome you. No, you’re not crazy. You’re embarking on a journey that can be extraordinary.

In my experience, there’s always been that moment—after the bilge has been cleaned, the leaks hunted down and sealed, the errant halyard finally led fair—that you step back, wipe the grime from your hands, and catch a glimpse of your boat at rest. Maybe the sun is just beginning to arc low across the anchorage. Maybe you hear the soft clink of rigging in a light breeze. In that quiet instant, you remember why you fell in love with this life in the first place.

Is boat ownership worth it? 

You already know the answer. 

The post For the Love of the List (and the Life) appeared first on Cruising World.

My Boat-Owning Background

I’ve been sailing for 50 years. I’ve owned and sailed four cruising boats and made dozens of offshore deliveries between Maine and the Caribbean. Each boat, each voyage has taught me something. Most of those ­lessons came from getting my hands dirty and venturing outside my comfort zone.

My first boat was Quinta, a 1947 34-foot Alden wooden sloop. I bought it in 1969 in Shelburne, Vermont, on Lake Champlain for $6,000. I fixed it up, and we motored down the lake, through the Champlain Canal, down the Hudson River, around Manhattan, out to Long Island Sound and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, then up to Maine. For the next 10 years, Quinta and I sailed up and down the New England coast with a compass, a radio direction finder and a sounder. I learned to anchor, managed to keep the Gray Marine gas engine running, and navigated by running aground, frequently. 

In 1979, friends joined Kate and me on a two-week bareboat charter in the US and British Virgin Islands. The boat, a Morgan Out Island, was a floating Winnebago, but it introduced us to a world I thought existed only in literature: the tropics. 

I was hooked. The islands of the Caribbean were everything I’d been ­dreaming about since I could read. There was warm, crystal-­clear water. Colorful fish. Coral reefs. Islands, each one different, with strange languages, dancing music and spicy food. The sun shone all day. The trade winds blew steadily from the same direction. At night, a warm breeze wrapped around my ­sunburned hide like a down comforter. 

I had to get back—on my own boat.

Fair-Thee-Well was another wooden sloop built in Maine in 1947. It was 42 feet and cost me $42,000. I was moving up. 

That boat and I sailed to the Caribbean in 1980, and back to Maine in ’81. Then back down the Intracoastal Waterway in 1984 to hop over to the Bahamas, and then back in ’85. 

By then, I’d had it with leaky wooden boats. That fall, I bought Afaran, a Lord Nelson 41 cutter. She was brand-new and cost me $125,000. With another $20,000, we outfitted her in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and sailed to the Virgin Islands. 

I owned that boat for 10 years, sailing back and forth from Maine to the islands for the first five years. In 1987, Afaran and I rode out Hurricane Emily in Bermuda; then, in 1989, Hurricane Hugo in St. John, USVI. In 1995, we rode out Hurricane Luis in St. John, but a few weeks later, Afaran was lost in Hurricane Marilyn. I was not aboard to move the boat out of the way.

Yes, I still miss that boat. It showed me what it needed, taught me how to care, and gave me back twice as much. You might say that we had a relationship.

I’ve heard that you are supposed to own a boat whose length on deck is equal in feet to your age. In my case, that held true. After losing Afaran in 1995, I bought Searcher the following year. It was a 57-foot Bowman ketch built in 1976. It cost me less than $200,000, and with another $20,000, I ­outfitted it, and we sailed to the islands.

We made three round-trip voyages to the islands in the 14 years that I owned it—and I realized that I would not have been prepared to own and sail such a large, complex boat if I had not owned my three previous boats.

Boats are built of systems that need to be learned, maintained and occasionally replaced. Certainly, modern systems make the offshore voyage less stressful, but there’s still the weather, seas, currents and other ships to contend with, and the knowledge that you are out there, 300 miles from the nearest technical help. 

You are on your own, as you have perhaps never been. The only people farther away from help are the astronauts in space.    

Shopping Advice

The first piece of advice that I give people who are shopping for a boat is not to buy a boat.

Let me repeat that: Do not buy a boat. At least not yet. 

Sail on other people’s boats—as many different kinds as you can. Walk the docks and ask if anyone needs crew (assuming that you can properly cleat a line, tie a bowline, and pump the head). Pay for a ­bareboat-charter class or a DIY class. 

Before you even think about going ­offshore on your own boat, go with ­someone who has many voyages under their belt. This might cost you $4,000 to $6,000, but it’s a bargain as valuable research. For starters, it will teach you whether offshore sailing is your thing, and what to look for in a boat that fits you.

When you get to the actual buying, start small. I suggest a boat smaller than 30 feet. Within a year, you’ll learn a lot—and spend even more. There’s the cost of the boat, insurance, a mooring or slip to rent, the cost to haul and store your boat for the winter—it gets expensive. While doing all of that, you’ll also see if you actually use the boat enough to receive an adequate return on your investment. If not, charter a ­bareboat until your lifestyle justifies ownership. 

If your ultimate dream is to sail amid the islands of the Eastern Caribbean, or even around the world, then your preparations take on an even greater significance. The boat needs to be designed and built for long-distance offshore voyages. You’ll be spending weeks at sea, separated from any assistance, so you must be able to fix stuff that breaks, change fuel filters and bleed the injectors, rig an emergency rudder, patch a sail, and keep going. You will have acquired these skills working your way up while owning smaller boats.

Today’s offshore sailboats are technological marvels. If you are a gear person who loves fiddling with stuff, then these boats might not pose a problem. I’m still of the old school, and when navigating between Maine and the Caribbean, and through the islands, I use just Navionics on my smartphone. 

Top Considerations

I was walking the docks at the Newport International Boat Show this past year, looking for an offshore cruising boat. I found few. Only 20 percent of the boats at that show had masts. All the rest were ­power yachts. I did find two offshore ­sailboats that I liked.

Exodus, a Hylas 57, was impressive, but at $2 million, it’s a boat that only an experienced and wealthy owner could manage. A full-time captain might be required. 

The Island Packet 349 was a bit short at less than 40 feet, but Larry and Lin Pardey completed two circumnavigations aboard engineless boats under 30 feet. And the Packet has a full keel with an attached rudder to track well on long passages, along with smart bluewater features such as handrails along the entire coachroof. 

When I’m evaluating boats like these, I look for a number of key things. 

First is hull design: Sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl or schooner? They all qualify. A full or partial keel makes for better tracking over long distances. Narrow fin keels create less drag, meaning a faster hull and quicker turns around the buoys, but they require constant helm work to keep on course. Long keels and rudder skegs protect the prop and rudder. 

Waterline length: Longer is faster, but it’s also more costly to buy, operate and maintain. Many boats these days range from 38 to 48 feet, but more and more 50-plus-foot yachts are on the water. The difference in speed between a 45-footer at 6 knots and a 50-footer at 7 knots is 24 more miles in a day. On the 640-mile voyage from Newport to Bermuda, that 1-knot advantage gets you there half a day earlier. At 8 knots, Bermuda is whole day closer.

Catamarans: They have less wetted surface, are faster, have more living space, and have less heel, but my son, a yacht designer, tells me that once a pontoon leaves the water, stability begins to deteriorate drastically. “A cat is the most stable upside down,” he says. 

Tankage: If you’re going offshore to anywhere, you’ll need at least 100 gallons of fuel, enough to motor for 100 hours, four days, with another 30 gallons in jerry cans lashed to the deck as a backup. A few boats run out of fuel each year from inadequate tankage. Know your engine’s burn rate at different rpm.

Water: Two tanks are better than one because one could become foul. A watermaker? Sure, but that’s just another piece of expensive gear to buy and maintain. At a gallon per day of drinking water per person, a crew of four will need at least 60 gallons for a two-week delivery. Carry enough drinking water in extra jugs for emergencies.

Rig: A cutter rig is preferable to a sloop for going offshore. It’s easier to reduce sail and hove-to. A cutter or ketch affords more options in sail management. An inner forestay can carry a staysail or a smaller storm jib, but you’ll need running backs to support the mast. All headsails should be on furlers so that there is no need to go forward of the mast once at sea. Should you need to go forward, jacklines rigged from the cockpit exit point to the mast are better than those along the deck. Jacklines along the deck are fine for dragging you along in the water should you fall overboard, but jacklines rigged to the mast keep you from falling overboard in the first place. Look for handholds along the cabin top all the way and 30-inch-high lifelines—or, better yet, stainless-­steel rails. Those 24-inch ­stanchions can catch you at the back of the knees and flip you over the side.

Furling: How easy is it to reef and furl the main? Can it be done from the cockpit, or does someone need to go to the mast or climb onto the boom?

Anchoring: A windlass that’s hidden makes for a neat bow but is inconvenient. When it comes to setting and retrieving multiple anchors, the windlass needs to be on deck with a chain gypsy and a rope capstan—side by side, not stacked up—one above the other. You’ll need at least two anchor rollers on a well-built platform over the bow to accommodate a heavy working anchor on chain, as well as a second, ­lighter anchor on chain and rode. This lighter anchor can lower into the dinghy, run out, and set when there’s concern about dragging. A chain brake just forward of the windlass is a must, and I’d like to see a strong point on the foredeck—a Samson post—to secure snubbing lines, chain or a 1-inch mooring pendant. The deck cleats on many modern boats are barely adequate for dock lines. The windlass is not there to secure lines or chains. You’re apt to bend the shaft and render the thing useless. 

Convenience versus practicality: I recently delivered two modern cruisers. Compared with my previous boats, which were like camping in a tent, these were like motor homes. But with all the convenient push-buttons came a 50-page technical manual, or the need to bring along a technician. If you are buying a boat, ­remember the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Your new boat should be within your technical ability to keep it going.

Overall, if you’re up for the challenge and want to explore the world from the water, start small and learn as much as you can. Most of all, remember to enjoy the journey.

David H. Lyman is an author and award-­winning photojournalist who contributes regularly to Cruising World and other ­publications. Find him at dhlyman.com.

Useful Clicks for the Offshore Curious

Sailing Totem: Jamie and Behan Gifford are circumnavigators who provide practical ­guidance and exceptional coaching for safe, comfortable, happy cruising. sailingtotem.com

Lady K Sailing: Tim, a popular YouTuber, gives genuine unbiased advice about boats and boat ownership. ladyksailing.com

Sailing Avocet: Marissa and Chris Neely share their ­sailing adventures, from the technical aspects of cruising a classic sailboat to the challenges and triumphs of liveaboard life. svavocet.com

Yacht Hunters: Captain Q on YouTube provides a fresh, entertaining look at used boats. yachthunting.com

Offshore Passage Opportunities: OPO is an organized crew network that aims to create quality offshore passage opportunities for its members. sailopo.com

The post How to Buy a Boat: Smart Tips for Smooth Sailing appeared first on Cruising World.

In a sailing career spanning 30 years and the ownership of four lovely sailboats, we’ve always been ardent proponents of KISS — the “keep it simple, stupid” credo. Not only did we talk the talk, but we zealously walked the walk. For example, when, in 1996, we built our third sailboat — a semi-custom Alden 45 sloop — we specified one manual head and no generator, electric winches or freezer.

KISS is a design philosophy coined in the 1960s by the U.S. Navy that exhorts the virtues of keeping ship systems as simple as possible and shunning unnecessary complexity. While originally intended as an engineering principle for large naval warships, the KISS mindset was, nevertheless, widely and enthusiastically embraced by recreational sailors worldwide. Its widespread diffusion can be partly credited to its almost universal endorsement by the small but growing cadre of adventurous globe-trotting sailors like Lin and Larry Pardey and others who were already crisscrossing the world’s oceans.

These intrepid sailors were often hundreds of miles from land and largely on their own when needing to make repairs at sea. For them, every “essential” piece of equipment needed to be designed to provide simple, straightforward and carefree voyaging. In their widely followed chronicles — in magazines such as Cruising World — they enthusiastically drummed the virtues of keeping it simple, which further promoted the KISS gospel. We, like many fellow sailors, embraced it fully cognizant of the inherent trade-off: A simple boat invariably means a less comfortable boat.

That was the paradigm of the 1980s and 1990s. The question now: Is it time for an update?

A Paradigm Shift?

When choosing a new boat and its essential equipment, most prospective boat owners continue to struggle with the fundamental conflict between the desire for low maintenance and low risk of failure and the urge to be comfortable. Even today, many of us remain stuck in the 1980s mindset, stubbornly striving for absolute simplicity. This, we believe, might no longer be warranted.

The optimal balance between absolute simplicity and overboard complexity is obviously a personal choice, reflecting one’s sailing style and objectives. But it is important to understand that optimal balance is not static. Rather, it is (or should be) a moving target that continuously resets as technology matures.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, the KISS option was understandably the safer and preferred one, even for coastal sailors, because back then, many boat systems (such as watermakers, freezers, etc.) were still immature technologies, relatively unreliable and a headache to maintain. Since then, though, we’ve witnessed huge advances in technology.

So, while the inclination for absolute simplicity may still remain perfectly reasonable for those contemplating a circumnavigation or, say, a sail to Antarctica (where one expects to sail in marginal conditions and for prolonged periods in relative isolation), it probably isn’t for most of us. Sailing to exotic faraway destinations may still be what many of us dream about, but it is not what we actually do. Unfortunately, an all-too-common mistake sailors make when equipping a boat is to set unrealistic goals.

We confess: We are repeat offenders. Like many fellow sailors, we selected and equipped our previous boats with the dream of crisscrossing oceans and sailing off to the ends of the earth. We never did. And after thinking hard about it, we really do not want to.

For our latest boat, we finally took the trouble to honestly articulate our true cruising goals. Surprise, surprise … a circumnavigation was not among them. What we really wanted to do was spend each sailing season extensively cruising one of several destinations on our bucket list (the Med, Scandinavia, the Caribbean). This did not mean we didn’t expect to occasionally venture offshore. We certainly will. But the occasional offshore passage (when/if needed) is only the means to deliver the boat to the season’s designated cruising destination; that’s where the bulk of our sailing will lie.

With scaled-down expectations for venturing offshore, our tolerable complexity threshold proportionately increased. A new willingness to increase our boat’s equipment list, we do understand, invariably increases the risk of breakdowns, but we reckoned that risk is significantly lower today than two decades ago. This is for two reasons: 1) maturing technology, and 2) given our intent to cruise in destinations like the Med and Caribbean, we could count on always being in reasonably close proximity to professional help if required.

Before delving into what (complex) systems we wanted to incorporate in our new boat, we first had to find one. That search started in the beginning of 2014 and lasted for approximately nine months. We were looking for a high-quality boat that was small enough for one couple to handle but large enough to accommodate two couples in great comfort. And it had to be pretty! After an extensive search, numerous boat tests and several transcontinental trips to boat shows, we found our perfect boat: the Contest 45CS.

With the boat selection done, our next task was to specify its essential equipment. Below, we discuss four items that are particularly revealing because they are all items we had previously considered when we commissioned our Alden 45 20 years earlier but, as KISS devotees, had always shunned. The first two examples were chosen to enhance liveaboard comfort, the second two to facilitate better boathandling.

Watermaker

Our cruising style has always been to alternate between stays in marinas and anchoring out. When anchoring for three- or four-day stretches, abundant fresh water for showering, washing and cooking is obviously a boon to life aboard. But we also figured that having the capacity to make our own water and arrive with full tanks when visiting marinas is a big plus. The reason: Access to fresh water of drinkable quality is not always assured. For example, in some Corsica marinas, water was turned off for many hours to conserve water. In Mallorca, there were no conservation measures, but because the water quality was suspect (too chlorinated or outright raunchy), it was suitable only for washing, not for drinking.

And so we decided to install a watermaker. In our search for one, we were particularly impressed by the performance and reliability of the latest generation of small DC units, and selected a Spectra Newport 400NP-MKII-400S.

We were not alone. Yachting World magazine’s 2014 survey of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) fleet centered on water — its production/collection, stowage and use. The overriding advice from the 193 respondents to the YW survey was to fit a watermaker. Almost 60 percent of the fleet did.

In retrospect, we can also report that our watermaker proved to be of great utility when venturing offshore on our 2,300-nautical-mile trip back from the Med to the Contest yard in Holland. On several occasions on this long trip, we were pummeled by Force 7 winds, monstrous waves and boarding seas. After conditions settled, we were left with a lot of salt on deck. When salt is everywhere, it gets on your hands and in your clothes and keeps everything damp and sticky. Having a deck washdown spigot and the capacity to replenish our water supply allowed us to hose the deck and avoid getting salt down below.

Generator

We designed our boat to be relatively efficient. For example, we use LED light bulbs throughout and added foot-­operated water pumps in addition to the electric ones. Still, given our desire for espresso and croissants in the morning, ice in our cocktails and the ability to whip up a quiche in the microwave, we expected our power needs to be high. They were. Without recharging, our house battery bank (a 24-volt system with 340 amp-hour capacity) regularly dropped to 60 percent of full charge at day’s end. That’s too low for the long-term health of the batteries. It meant our battery bank did indeed need to be recharged daily.

We looked at many of the new clean-power systems available, but ultimately decided that an AC genset was the best bet. Our choice: a Mastervolt Whisper 3.5.

As with the watermaker, our generator was a definite boon when sailing offshore. The power needs when at sea (for navigation, autopilot, watermaker, fridge, entertainment, fans, etc.) do add up. Our generator — smaller, quieter and more efficient than the main engine — was an asset we greatly appreciated.

Bow Thruster

For our many years of sailing our home waters of San Francisco Bay, we managed quite well without a bow thruster. But, we figured, cruising to foreign destinations, especially the Med during the peak summer months, is an entirely different ballgame. Indeed, it was! Often we needed to dock in tightly packed marinas, and on many occasions with an extremely difficult crosswind to boot. That’s a much more stressful exercise than easing into our private slip back in San Francisco. So, thank heavens for our bow thruster. It saved our egos!

In making the decision we looked at three things: our cruising grounds (the Med), the close-in maneuverability of our vessel (challenging because of boat size and a relatively high freeboard) and our crew size (two 60-year-olds). The answer: bow thruster, bow thruster, bow thruster. Our choice: a 10 hp 24-volt Sleipner.

Hydraulic Mainsail Furling

We remembered well how handling the 700-square-foot mainsail on our Alden 45 was by far the most formidable task aboard the boat, so we had been watching with great interest developments in mainsail furling. When first introduced, in-mast furling systems seemed quite unreliable and inefficient, but they’ve now been around long enough for manufacturers to work out virtually all their kinks.

While considering in-mast furling we certainly weren’t blind to its potential drawbacks. The two biggest are the loss of some performance (because of a hollow leech) and the risk of jamming. In recent years, sailmakers have learned how to mitigate the inefficient sail geometry by installing full-length vertical battens to add roach and give the sail a much more efficient aerodynamic profile.

The second major concern is a jammed sail. After talking to many people and reading plenty of articles, we concluded that the major cause of in-mast jams isn’t typically the sail or the mechanism but user error due to owners and charterers not being familiar with the furler’s nuances.

So, we bit the bullet and made the decision to install one. Our choice: Seldén’s stowaway hydraulic system.

We are now unabashed fans of the in-mast furling mainsail. Not only because it significantly lowers the burdens of sailhandling, but because it allows us to sail more — a lot more. Our Seldén in-mast furling system essentially flipped the dreaded 80-20 rule. Instead of motoring 80 percent of the time and sailing only 20 percent, we now sail most of the time.

We also find in-mast furling to be a great benefit when sailing offshore, especially when double-handing. It helps keep us safe and in the cockpit instead of wrestling with sails on deck. And on night watches, it’s easy for one of us to set and shorten sail with little chance of a problem.

Drawing the Line

After living with our choices and logging more than 4,000 miles in a wide range of conditions, our unfettered advice: It is OK, even wise, not to KISS in the Med.

But embracing, not cringing from, modern proven technology does not mean overindulging. There is no escaping the fact that higher complexity invariably increases the risk of breakdowns and, with it, the burden of maintenance.

There were two items we considered but decided we could do without: a washer/dryer and hydraulic furling for the jib. We chose not to install a washer/dryer because, for us, the negatives far outweighed the benefits. We planned on a simple wardrobe — basically swimsuits and T-shirts — so our daily load of laundry is easy to wash in a bucket or sink. On the rare occasion when we have a larger load, we can always use a marina laundromat. On the negative side, adding a washer/dryer would have robbed us of valuable storage space. But the decision is personal. A washer/dryer may be very beneficial for couples cruising with young children — indeed it may even be essential.

We chose not to install a hydraulic jib-furler system because the added benefit — assisted sailhandling of our 100 percent jib — was minimal. And we felt it would be prudent to have a separate and independent system for the jib in case we lost the hydraulics on the mainsail (though that probability was very low).

In Conclusion

We took delivery of our new Contest 45CS in April 2016 at the Contest yard in Medemblik, Netherlands. To test and debug our new boat, we took it for a three-week spin of the Ijsselmeer. In mid-May, the boat was shipped to Palma by Sevenstar Yacht Transport. We were back on board June 4, just in time to participate in the Contest Owners Rendezvous — a three-day affair of partying, socializing and racing. After the rendezvous, we were ready and eager to embark on a three-island odyssey circumnavigating Mallorca, Corsica and Sardinia.

In October, after four months of continuous cruising, the boat was sailed back to Medemblik for winter storage. That was a rough trip via Gibraltar, Portugal and the treacherous Bay of Biscay. All in all, we logged approximately 4,000 miles over a six-month period, the equivalent of what we historically sail in four years.

Our relatively complex boat resulted in a more comfortable, less arduous cruising experience, and we can happily report that the added systems created minimal maintenance problems (we had to change the watermaker’s filters and service the generator at 50 hours). It was a wonderful and successful experience that we attribute to two things: 1) a sensible selection of equipment that made life aboard a lot more comfortable and handling the boat a lot more manageable, and 2) the skillful shipwrights and engineers at Contest Yachts, who made it all work flawlessly.

MIT graduate Dr. Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid is a professor of information and services systems at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and the author of three books. When not teaching or writing, he and his wife, Nadia Mansour, are usually on the water, these days on their Contest 45CS, Mabrouka. This article first appeared in the January/February issue of Cruising World with the title “Executing a KISS-Off.”

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Pacific coast of Mexico has one of the world’s best cruising grounds: the Sea of Cortez. Within its 2,500 miles of coastline, the Gulf of California is protected from big Pacific swells by the Baja California Peninsula. It offers hundreds of gorgeous islands and anchorages — and is a great place to buy a sailboat.

I was in the market for a new boat and was keen on the idea of buying one in an area where I wanted to cruise. The Pacific coast of Mexico fit the bill perfectly. My search began in Mazatlán, on the Pacific coast south of the Baja Peninsula, where I looked at a number of boats, including a wonderful Rafiki 37, a double-ender designed by Stan Huntingford. I was impressed by both the maintenance level and inventory of cruising gear aboard many of the vessels.

In my travels, it has seemed that most boats for sale in Mexico are owned by Americans who sail them down from the States, float around the Sea of Cortez for a while, and then don’t fancy the bash home to windward. The boat then gets put on the market (quite often with the threat of divorce explicitly or implicitly made) at a fairly decent price.

Toward the southern end of Baja California is the city of La Paz (which means “peace” in Spanish), whose wide harbor is a mecca for sailors from all over. I went there next, to meet Shelly of La Paz Yachts, who had several interesting boats on her books, including a nearly immaculate Hans Christian 36, which I eventually bought for almost exactly half of what my girlfriend, Jasna, and I sold our modest little steel sloop for in Australia. The Hans Christian is a Bob Perry-designed double-ended cutter; now two years on, we are just beginning to realize what a great boat she is.

Why Buy in Mexico?

Many Americans are wary of Mexico, and this has more to do with the media than with reality. You don’t have to watch TV for very long before an unimaginative director portrays a Mexican as a desperado, drug-addled bag snatcher or cartel boss. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have traveled and worked all over Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific, and it would be hard to find a stereotype so profoundly undeserved. In my experience, most folks I’ve come across in Mexico have been industrious, honest, family-oriented and friendly people with an amazing tolerance of the fairly dismissive attitude TV-educated foreigners have toward them (even in their own country).

On top of that, there are loads of nice boats in the country, and the sellers are serious.

During our purchase of the Hans Christian, La Paz Yachts handled the paperwork, titling and escrow seamlessly, and the company has continued to assist us above and beyond the call of duty. The bureaucracy is made easy by the Mexican government (see sidebar), and everyone I dealt with was friendly and helpful. Unlike in some states in the U.S., there is no sales tax. On top of all that, there is no panic to get your boat out of the country (as there is in many nations), because Mexico gives you a 10-year Temporary Import Permit for the princely sum of $50.

Perhaps the best part of buying a vessel in this region of Mexico is that you have the whole Sea of Cortez and Pacific coast to get used to your new boat and sample the delights of what Jacques Cousteau once called “the world’s aquarium.”

Now, if all the above is still not making you want to head for the Aeromexico ticket desk, then consider also the food, music, tequila, beer, weather, countryside, artwork, crystal-clear water, fabulous fishing and the wonderful affordability of it all. We came to buy a boat and stayed for three years (and even became temporary Mexican residents). Come down and see for yourself!

The Details:

Getting There: You likely can fly to Mexico directly from an airport near your home; however, the cheapest way is often to fly to Los Angeles and change there to a local flight to La Paz or Cabo San Lucas. There is also a bus from San Diego to La Paz, which is much more comfortable than you would imagine, and no one seems too bothered by how much luggage you throw on it.

Visas: U.S. residents can have up to 180 days upon entry, but you need to ask for it, as immigration officials will often just stamp vacationers in for a couple of weeks. The visa is easily extendable for another six months. If you want to stay longer, you can become a temporary resident. We did, and it was straightforward, taking two 15-minute visits to immigration.

Taxes: There are no taxes for buying a foreign-registered boat in Mexico (which is pretty much all of them). You need to apply for a Temporary Import Permit, which will allow you to keep your boat in the country for 10 years before incurring taxes. The whole process took us less than an hour and cost about $50.

Language: Both Jasna and I are fairly good Spanish speakers, but we didn’t have the opportunity to use our skills much, as all the brokers and chandleries are set up by or cater to the American market.

Brokers: There are four brokerages on the west coast of Mexico that operate under the umbrella of Mazatlán Marine Center (mazmarine.com): La Paz Yachts, Puerto Vallarta Yachts, Mazatlán Yachts and San Carlos Yachts. We worked with La Paz Yachts, and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Price: Prices tend to be advertised high and come down a fair amount. We paid about 60 percent of the asking price. While sellers will of course vary in what they will accept, don’t be afraid to put in a low offer — there are more sellers than buyers!

Surveys: Plenty of good surveyors operate in La Paz and mainland Mexico. I used Dennis Ross, who lives on his yacht, Toucan Play. He can be reached on VHF channel 22.

Marinas and Moorings: La Paz is a large natural harbor with good holding. You can anchor for about $1 a day, but be sure to leave plenty of swinging room; the opposing wind and current can create a condition known locally as the “La Paz Waltz,” wherein boats can swing stern to stern. There are a few moorings for rent at about $75 a month. Marina prices vary enormously depending on if you pay daily, monthly or yearly, and whether you want one in a resort or on a budget. We recommend anchoring out or getting a mooring buoy and saving your pennies. La Paz has a definite cyclone season from mid-May through November, and leaving during it is a good idea. Failing that, taking a marina berth for the riskier months (August to October) is a viable option.

Rick Page is currently sailing Calypso back home to Australia with his girlfriend, Jasna Tuta. You can follow along with their adventures on their website ­(sailingcalypso.com).

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