The Search
In our quest to find our ‘perfect’ sailboat, we looked at approximately 40 in Georgia and Florida. By ‘perfect’ we wanted to find a boat with good bones, little electronics, private cabins, a center cockpit, a shallow draft, preffered a Ketch, and enough room to entertain.
This task was not easy, especially locating the boats! We saw 2 on Yachtworld that really appealed to us, a Valiant 40′ and a Tartan T.O.C.K. 41′, however the Tartan had a contract pending and we couldn’t see it. When we made our trip to Florida, we lined up 20 boats and expected that none would compare to the Valiant–boy were we wrong! The hull of the Valiant was so bad that we didn’t even go aboard!
Some of the boats we saw were a Cheoy Lee, Brussels Samba, 3 C&C’s, Vagabond 38′, Seawolf Ketch, Endeavor 37′, Tatoosh and a CSY 41′. Our favorite was a 41′ Islander that we fell in love with–until we learned of her sailing habits…so back to the search we went. The photos of these boats can be seen here.
