Finding the right boat to not be the right boat

The weekend after our idea hatched, we drove down to Galveston and to look at a 50' Ketch. The boat was listed for $5000 - and in need of spars and rigging. This 1929 vessel that had been fiber glassed over a few years before - and although the interior, cockpit and engine were impressive , it had several soft spots. Luckily, we were able to resist the urge to immediately jump into such a project (helped immensely in this demonstration of will power by our lack of finances) - but this first glimpse into any vessel over 30' gave us a good idea of the room that we would be looking at.

Novices in the art of yacht purchasing that we were, our first 'serious' consideration was an Irwin 44'. This was a beautiful boat - and the price was extremely decent for such a large, well equiped vessel. We were ready to sell the house, move aboard - and finish preparations from aboard -but, again (I'm proud to say) we showed some restraint. This boat threw us into research mode. In no time at all we learned that not only was the vesell lacking in several desireable offshore features, we also found that Irwin's were hit or miss when it came to construction in the mid 80's. Still enamored by the size and price - we continued our search.

We began to accept that project or not, a decent vessel would most likely take another $20000 in funds just to be ocean worthy :( If we were to survive for 5 years on our liquidated assets, that meant we had to look at boats $20,000 less then our original (and very low) price limit.

So, a little disheartened and more undecided then ever as to which boat would be our new home, we turned the majority of our attention to the liquidation of our current assets and gathering of much needed information.