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Originally Posted by jwalsh22
Have you taken her out for a shake-down cruise with the family yet? Seems like it's a nice little entry level boat, and I agree with the previous poster who said 'real boats have masts and booms, genoas and furlers, etc.'. Sailing up the East Coast hugh? I'm doing that this Wednesday. We started in a little town called Rock Hall, MD (across the bay from Annapolis) and sailed to Brielle, NJ, and I'm going out this week to finish the trip up to Hallifax, down the St. Lawrence, and through the Great Lakes up to Northern Michigan. I'll take lots of pics and let you know how it goes. Should be a fun time.
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Sounds like a lot of fun! We haven't taken her out for a shakedown yet. It probably won't be until May
I'm off on trips to Vegas, Seattle, Denver and Pittsburgh between now and the second week of May. We did a nice cruise last summer along the coast of Maine on a Tartan 40 for a week or so. That's how I was finally able to convince the wife that our future goal is viable! What are you going to be on for your cruise?
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Originally Posted by jwalsh22
Any thoughts about the future 50 footer? I would humbly suggest an Island Packet, perhaps a 445 or 485.
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The IP485 was actually my desktop background until we got our own boat. We looked at a lot of boats at the Annapolis show this past year and the 485 was the leader, although if I can swing it we may look at an Oyster 53. We have a lot of specific needs - center cockpit so we can have a good master stateroom with privacy, 3 cabins + an office area, lots of storage, space for 2 runabouts (one for us, one for the kids)... I have three pages full of brainstorming we did on what kind of boat we need. The only issue I had with the IP485 is that the berth in the master stateroom isn't centerline - it's on an angle which makes it pretty useless underway. That will probably be a major deciding factor.
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Originally Posted by jwalsh22
In the meantime, good luck with the boat and have fun. Don't forget the great old saying "owning a boat is like standing in a cold shower and throughing $100 bills down the drain..."
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Yep... already figured that out. I think I've spent almost as much on outfitting the boat as I did for buying the boat. We just got our Avon 9' inflatable on Friday. That was a pretty penny, but we can use it for our next boat too. Instruments, radios, GPS/Chartplotter, motors, lines, safety, etc... lots to spend on.