Boat Info
Our boat history
Michael and I have been together since 1989 and boats have been apart of our lives since 1990. Our 1st boat was a 20' Ensenada, we renamed Ovation, after Michael's Guitar( plastic guitars, plastic boats)..she was moored in Lewis Bay and we spent many beautiful days learning how sail amid the chaos of the Island ferrys... Until that fateful day in August, 1991, when we lost her in Hurricane Bob...Sad as that is... it was Michael's birthday and Bob was my ex husbands name, so, it was a triple burn. As we picked up the fiberglass filaments of what was left of her light blue hull along the beach, we knew that was not the end of our sailing life. However, next time we renamed a boat we were sure to perform the name changing ceremony to appease Neptune...Next inline were 2 maybe 3, 22' O'Days, a sturdy sailer, although I really only remember 1, her name was Fine Gael ( Family of the Irish). Next came a brand new Hunter 23.5. we saw her at the Newport boat show in 1992 and took delivery in 93'.... that was a busy year, we had built and moved into our new home, took delivery of Ovation, (yes, we were going to try that one again) and our 1st grand child, Thomas was born. She too, was Moored in Lewis bay for her first couple of seasons, then we moved to a mooring at Parkers boat yard in Red Brook Harbor...with both of us working crazy schedules, she was a great refuge from our hectic days. a couple of years passed and we just weren't able to get out on her as much as we would have liked, so, sadly we sold her... Spring came around and we were boatless, the sirens of the sea calling us once again, we got a little Capri 14.2... it got us back out on the water. Then we moved inland to New Hampshire.. and the motorcycle now was the toy of choice...a few years later... back to the coast of Massachusetts and the call of the sea.. We found a "Free" boat...oh boy, no such thing as a free boat...She was a 26' Westerley Pembroke with a cool history, but,in need of a lot of work... we hauled out the Volvo Penta MD-2 engine and bought a 13.5 horse Beta Marine, that never made it on the boat. We just didn't have the time to do this right, so we sold the engine and found a her a good home.... And the search began again.. Michael fell head over heals for the classic lines of a Herreshoff Eagle... we kept her name 'East Wind" and had her moored in the Wareham river.. with easy access to Buzzards Bay.
A couple years of sailing her, we figured we needed a little more comfort in our advancing age so we found a sweet Nonsuch 22... wow, what an amazing amount of interior room for a 22 foot boat... her name was La Barca, (the boat) in Italian... so, to stay in the good graces of the Gods, we kept the name, but, changed the language to Gaelic... thus, an B`ad. We loved her and she held her own in the strong Southwest winds on the bay. We would still have her now, had we not decided to sell everything we owned and live on a boat... She just didn't have the space we needed to liveaboard.. We first thought about a 30 or 36 Nonsuch, but, decided we needed a more diverse sail plan for where we intended on sailing... and thus, the search began.
BOAT INFO
THE SEARCH BEGINS
OUR DEFINITION OF THE PERFECT BOAT
OUR DEFINITION OF THE PERFECT BOAT
Fall of 2016 after scouring Yacht World and other boat listings, we thought we knew what we were looking for. From our hours gleaning info from all those sailing videos, we agreed with the philosophy of getting the smallest boat we would feel comfortable living on..So we contacted a broker and made our first step into the possibility of making our dream a reality. The classic lines and seaworthiness of the Island Packet 350 seemed to fit the bill.
We liked the openness of her salon. This was a fact finding mission, we now started to get an idea of what we were really looking for. Thus, our education and search had begun.
Little did we know that we would travel up and down the East Coast looking for our future home.
OUR DEFINITION OF THE PERFECT BOAT
OUR DEFINITION OF THE PERFECT BOAT
OUR DEFINITION OF THE PERFECT BOAT
Ask 5 people to describe their perfect boat and you will get 5 different answers.
The decision is personal, as everyone's needs and desires are different.
After making lists of the pros and cons of all the boats we looked at both online and in person, we defined and refined the criteria of OUR perfect liveaboard boat.
Somewhere along the line we started looking at catamarans and our search morphed from Monohulls to Multihulls.
We wanted something sturdy, that wasn't too long (38' max), to make servicing less expensive, as we hope to at least semi-retire someday, (Everything is charged by the foot in the boating world), with a short enough mast to get through the ICW, a shallow enough draft to navigate the the Bahamas, Florida & Gulf coastal waters, narrow enough beam to fit into a single slip and also be hauled out by most New England travel lifts. She needed to have enough room and storage for the 2 of us to be comfortable. That narrowed it down, so we now had 2 boats on our short list. The Packet Cat and the Endeavour Cat 36. Both fit our wish list... so, after physically checking them out, and more discussion, we decided on the Endeavour Cat 36. There were a few things that made her stand out.
First, she has an open feel, with almost 8' standing room in the hulls, 6'+ in the salon, a galley down, which we prefer, tons of storage and an extended deck at the stern. The one we ultimately chose, also has a fully enclosed Cockpit with zip out sides and screens for extra living space, which lends itself nicely for
sunset cocktails, but, most important, protection from foul weather.
The decision was made.. Winter of 2017
Now, we just had to find one.
THE ONE THAT STOLE OUR HEARTS
OUR DEFINITION OF THE PERFECT BOAT
THE ONE THAT STOLE OUR HEARTS
Okay, so she doesn't have the classic lines we were first drawn to, but, she is everything we wanted and everything we need. May 2017, We found Miss Grace in St. Pete, Florida, several months after missing the exact same boat in Rhode Island, checking out 3 others like her on our Florida trek. Things happen for a reason, we always say and the adventure of bringing her North would not have happened had we purchased her close to home. Having the experiences both Michael and I had on separate legs of the delivery North, are memories for a lifetime. I had chronicled my part of the journey, only to lose all my photos and notes this past January when my phone died ( note to self, always back up your photos, etc...lesson learned the hard way). So, here we are, living our dream. I often say, I wish we had done this 10 years earlier, but, this adventure wasn't on our radar then. The dream kind of evolved to where we are today.
We have adapted well to our life in
540 sq ft on the water.
Life is Good!!