Here's how the process went for us:

This was the most comfortable part of the process since for me shopping is fun.  I love to research, compare and consider my options and the tools today are so great at helping prospective boat owners.  In the past 5 years I've spent more time online surfing boat porn on sites like Yachtworld.com, 48 North Classifieds, Sailing Anarchy.com and others than I truly care to admit.  However this 'wasted' time really helped me hone my sense of what I wanted so that when we were ready to buy, I was able to create a short list pretty quick.

Using Yachtworld, the classifieds from 48 North, Latitude 38, SailingAnarchy (SA) and Scuttlebutt, as well as copious feedback from the forums of SA, I focused on a few boats including the Olson 911S, Santana 3030, Davidson 29 and J30.  Though after looking at these realized that these were good starters but probably wouldn't be what Sarah would feel comfortable cruising on.  We were fortunate enough to take one more step up the price rung and decided to look at 35' boats and quickly found the C&C34R.

With a reasonably race oriented design and somewhat open stern its look really drew me in, and its accomodations, size and equipment got Sarah saying yes as well.  Plus this boat has a wheel that is HUGE... and I'll admit it, size matters.  There's nothing like a destroyer wheel on a sail boat.  While it doesn't have the feel and old time flair of a tiller, it is very comfortable drive with whether seated or standing, and damn cool to look at whether sailing or docked.

So we found a boat we liked what's next?

Sailing Anarchy
Classifieds

48 North Classifieds

Latitude 38 Classifieds

Sleepness nights... that's what's next.  For the next 10 days, Sarah and I traded bouts of insomnia think about boats, the C&C, money, life goals and what it all meant.  We talked to friends, we talked to each other, we talked to ourselves and somewhere in all these fits of contemplation seems to actually get our real jobs done - since we don't get paid to think about boats and how to spend our money (though if anyone is hiring for that job let me know, I'm a prime, experience candidate).

In this process, I made the best decision of the entire process - I sought professional help (no I didn't see a shrink, though as it turns out that's what Brad recommended).  I called Brad Baker at Swiftsure Yachts.  I knew Brad from his days as a sailmaker at North Sails Seattle when he built a few sail for my family's yacht and I liked his calm, wise nature and respected his opinion about all things related to sailing.  A number of years ago Brad partnered with an equally skilled yachtsman and started Swiftsure Yachts and they have been making a great name for themselves in the yacht brokerage business since.

Luckily I knew Brad and he still remembered me so I had someone I could trust to guide me through this process and enable me to sleep through the nigh again.  I'll always remember the first thing Brad said when I told him Sarah and I wanted to buy a boat - "Don't do it".  It's truly the best advice on friend could give another when it comes to buying a boat, but it never works because by the time you give the advice it games over - its not if they buy a boat, its when.

After a discussion of the boat, why we liked it, what questions we had and how we thought we might move forward, Brad scheduled a showing for us and we joined him on a Thursday afternoon to take a long look at the C&C.

Swiftsure Yachts