When we moved to Florida in late November 2010, we knew we had a large issue hanging over our heads - how to get our 2001 Beneteau 361 sailboat to our new home. Over the last few months, we considered the "big three" - truck the boat over land or sail here the boat ourselves or sell the boat in New England and buy something else. There are issues with all three:
- Trucking the boat : The quickest and most expensive solution. The lowest cost bid we got was $5600 just to do the actual transport, plus the cost of prepping the boat for shipping, unstepping the mast in Bristol, RI, restepping the mast here in Florida, and then plenty of other fees yet to be discovered. With the cost of diesel shooting up, that $5600 bid probably was already void anyway, so this was looking really, really costly. The good news is that the boat would be in Florida with a minimal impact to my job.
- Sailing the boat : Least expensive and most time-consuming solution. This would truly be the adventure of a life-time, but neither Rebecca or I have ever done a cruise beyond a week or so. This would be something entirely new. The costs would be much less, mainly fuel, food and the occasional marina slip. We would be paying for food whether here or on the water, so that is a wash, and if we can get favorable winds, we could sail much of the way (when not in the Intracoastal Waterway). Looks like the best option, but how would I stay employed during this multi-week excursion?
- Sell the boat and buy another : Riskiest solution. In theory, we could sell our boat up in New England, then buy something else in Florida. Easy as pie! One problem - by the time the cost of selling the boat are deducted from the sale price of the boat, we would not have that much left for a down payment. More importantly, the lending environment now is *completely* different from when we bought the boat 5 years ago. Back then, credit was easy and the cash requirements weren't that tight. Nowadays, though, for luxury items like boats, I'm seeing most lenders expecting 20% down and 24 months cash liquidity, and they might decline you anyway. So, that option doesn't look good - I could sell the boat and end up completely boat-less, which kinda misses the point of why we moved to Florida in the first place.
After a lot of prayer, discussion, and planning, we have chosen to sail the boat to our new home. In a subsequent post, we'll share how we are going to pull this off!
