My Sidetracked Summer

 It started off innocently enough with the idea to utilize my many years of research and study of boats to open my own Yacht and Boat Brokerage business. I figured this new endeavour after a successful 20+ years in the automotive business would get me more involved in boating and be something I could continue to do in a couple more years once we moved from this life into the cruising life.

 Buying and selling only a few boats at at a time quickly became an obsession to seek out a deal, get the best reconditioning done quickly and re market the boat while the market was hot. This was very time consuming but alot of fun. Months went bye and although boat selling was going well I never really had the time to get the yacht brokerage part off the ground. I'm sure that being landlocked in Arizona to most would seem an odd place to be a yacht broker until you realize that per capita Arizona has the most boat ownership of any U.S. state and without all the regulation involved in Florida and California.

 The business did develop into a success for me. I partnered with a dealer in Arizona's water mecca of Lake Havasu City who took my inventory on consignment to sell so I could focus on acquiring inventory which I thought would give me more time... It Didn't. All of a sudden Summer had passed and other then one weekend of sailing in San Diego it seems that I had lost my focus and strayed from my goal, or had I?

 It is still a long way off to 2016 and our planned departure. I did realize that although I felt sidetracked there will be alot of time yet for getting to the goal. But meanwhile work away I must at something , so it may as well be something I enjoy. My apologies to the blogs readers who had wondered why my usual daily postings went away for so long. I look forward to finding a balanced time in the near future to resume and look forward to the mutual trade of information garnered from feedback from my readers.  I just thought an explanation was in order.

Chris
Broker
Arizona Yacht Brokers

What we found.....At the Boat Show!

 

 

 Deciding it had been too long away from the coastal boating scene and having an extra day in Southern California we headed to the boat show. We drove up to Newport Beach to attend the last few hours of last weekends boat show.

 

 

 

 

 

 With only 3 hours left on Sunday once we arrived and noting that most of the boats in the water were power we felt like we had sufficient time to see the few sailboats available. We stopped first at the Island Packet 460 to see what it was all about.

 

The Island Packet 460

Chris checking out the Mast





Amanda checking out the helm.



 

Looking over the boat we found some features we liked but overall it just wasn't for us.










Next we decided to check out a motor sailor as we had not considered anything like that before.

From the Brochure: "Cresendo is one of the latest versions of the Celestial Pilot House world class cruiser. This boat and other models have been well proven over the years, and offer a modern under body that makes it an exceptional offshore yacht. This design offers both speed, stability, great living space with eye level view dining area, and sea kindly performance."

This boat was large and comfortable, however with the windage present were not really sure how well she would sail. Certainly we would not want to have to continue filling her 264 gallon diesel tanks to power that 100hp Yanmar. So off we went to see what else was there.

Finally stopping to see a beautiful 1969 Hinckley 40' Yawl. This was in amazing condition and was well varnished with extensive woodwork. Not really a cruising boat, but it was great to look at.

 1969 Fiberglass yawl. Renowned classic Bill Tripp design. Timeless lines, wide side decks, solid construction. Cruising sails, roller furling, radar, Yanmar diesel, Max prop.

 So although there was no boat purchase we could consider at the show, it was great to see all the people checking out the boats. This show definitely had more attendance then the long beach show we went to last year.

 

 We will continue our search for our boat as time goes on and keep updating this page as to our progress. Each time we view more boats we certainly come away with more knowledge of what we are looking for in our cruising home.