Full Sail and Riparian

By Capt. Dan

Whats New:

Time to sell Full Sail - wow it's with a heavy heart I am putting her on the market, she is just too much fun of a boat and can stand up to anything the Bay throws at her. But it is time for her to have a new crew to love her so...

Sorry she has been sold

After sailing Full Sail for 6 years and lusting after desire to cruise outside the bay, I had gotten close to figuring out how I could go down the ICW to Charleston or Savana for the winter, but it was not the islands and I would need to rent a place down there as FS is not realy a liveaboard rather a camper. As I dug around, I saw the Island Packet 380 as a boat that would work and I started tracking them. After visiting one I realized they were great boats but the lounging aera's were just so-so and the interior were to dark for me.

Then one day I saw a boat on the Learnig The Lines youtube channel that was realy a better fit, a Gozzard 36. I started tracking them and found Riparian in St. Thomas. It was darn near a great fit for my desires, I talked to broker, then the owner and figured it was worth a shot. We came up with a price and outlined a path for me to close after Huricane season so we now have a contract! The owner invited me down for a week to join him as he got it ready for lockdown so I went, the various shots and video's can be seen by clicking on Riparian link on left.

May 10th we left St.Thomas and set sail for the US mainland, on the 24th after 1497 NM we landed in Beaufort, NC (due to storm on east coast), then we finished the remaining trip to Edgewater via ICW and on Monday the 29th we finished our 1,860 NM trip and docked in Edgewater.

History: I was working out of our beach house in Rehoboth Beach on a proposal review job which had required a 3 day trip to New Jersey starting Monday morning, to get as much done as possible to meet a deadline when, lo and behold, it all was done by Saturday night, which freed-up my Monday - Wednesday.

As it happened into my email box came an offer from the BaySail sailing school of a reduced rate for the three day certification class to start that Monday.

My wife was also out of town so, I booked the class.

You can follow my trials and trips in the linked blog.

Below is the GPS map track for our 2018 sails.

Why

I had been crewing and lusting after sailboats for years but my wife was not keen on me buying one. So my only options was to rent and that required being certified so this was my chance to do that.

The boats I had desired (high 20's and low 30's), new ran in the $30,000 to $100,000 range and that required a big check for something that my wife is not into.

Surprise

My classmate and I were talking over lunch and he told me he had just bought a 22 foot day sailor in good shape for $1,800. I was shocked as I had seen those types of boats in the $5,000-$10,000 range. I asked where he found it and he said Craigslist.

So, that night I went back to the hotel and started looking, and 3 weeks later, I had bought a CAL 31. Previous to that buy, I was looking at a Columbia 8.7, which was the right boat, but was already committed to another buyer. The next weekend we cleaned up the CAL and made a list of everything to do and I started lining up the work. Then Monday, I received a text from the owner of Columbia 8.7 (Full Sail) who told me that the survey had come back fine, but the potential buyer wanted to delay a bit, and the owner offered me a quick sale price if I was still interested and could close quickly.

I made a date to check it out the next day with my son, Jonathan.

The dude, that’s what we called the owner, was so deep into the status of the boat that our quick scan took 3 hours with him showing us everything on the boat and identifiying the 3 things he thought needed to be fixed or replaced (out of date flares, one jib line and the fuse on the bilge pump). Wow, that was it maybe a $100 woth of repairs, plus, as a bonus, the boat came with a slip and winter storage until March, 2017. I wrote the check immediately and he waited for it to clear before turning the title over to me. That Friday we were out on the bay!

As the season slowly closed down, our last trip out was Thanksgiving weekend, my son Jonathan (thats him on right) and I have had a great time. A few years later Jonathan passed, but I will never forget the times we had from lazy sails to stuck in a gale. My daugher Laura (thats her in middle), has picked up his slot and we spend most weekends sailing around the bay. I know we will be safe as Jonathan is watching over us!

Oh, by the way, the CAL sold on Craigslist 4 hours after we listed it. So I was only the owner of a Sailing Fleet for a week.

The boat came with detailed documentaion on everything that was on the boat, it was as if we had bought a furnished house the only thing we needed to bring was ourselves and fresh water.

The Pictures are raw and I will organize them soon, till then take a look.