Research Notes
A boat I'm watching: a 2020 Outremer 51 in Newport for $1.15M
A lightly used carbon-rigged Outremer 51 just surfaced in Newport at about 55 cents on the new-boat dollar, and I keep coming back to the listing.
Research Notes
The 3,000-mile leg I keep re-studying
Galápagos to the Marquesas is where our whole plan either works or doesn't, so I wrote down the actual GRIB criteria I'd want before casting off.
Research Notes
The cruising-budget framework I keep measuring our plan against
Beth Leonard sorts cruising budgets into three tiers, and re-sorting our worksheet into her columns made it obvious which one our short list of boats actually lives in.
Research Notes
Half the new ARC boats are multihulls — and the side of the trade I keep underweighting
If the new-build mix has been roughly half multihulls for years and the used market hasn't fully caught up, the resale math on a 2028 catamaran purchase looks different than the brokers are pricing today.
Research Notes
The Jordan Series Drogue bridle math I keep redoing for a 50-foot cat
On a monohull the JSD is solved physics. On a cat you have two transoms, two snatch loads, and a bridle geometry nobody quite agrees on.
Research Notes
A 2017 Leopard 50 in Tortola at $595K — what I'd actually offer
Same four-cabin layout as the Saba 50, $100K cheaper — until you cost out the saildrive bellows, the rig service, and the sails the charter program never replaced.
Research Notes
A June Bermuda–Azores window — what the chart has to show me first
The Bermuda-to-Azores window in late May is a high you want parked, a low you want predictable, and a 500mb chart I'd rather see flat than amplified.
Research Notes
A 2015 Fountaine Pajot Saba 50 in Annapolis at $649K — what I'd actually offer
A 2015 Saba 50 came across my desk this week — the layout is right for our family of six, but the bridge deck question is still the one I can't answer from the broker's email.
Research Notes
Rereading Voyaging With Kids before I pick a floor plan
Behan Gifford argues you should optimize the boat for the 90% case, not the worst night — and with four kids and a 50-foot deck, that's making me rethink the layout question.
Research Notes
The 12% gap between Lagoon and Outremer asking-to-sale prices
I tracked 47 catamaran sales for six months and the spread between Lagoon and Outremer haircuts is wider than supply alone explains.
Research Notes
Spectra, Schenker, or Rainman — the watermaker question I keep circling
Three watermakers, three failure modes, and I still don't know which one I want at 200 miles offshore with four kids aboard.
Research Notes
What I want the GRIB to show before leaving Galapagos
The 3,000-mile leg from Galapagos to the Marquesas hinges on one GRIB pattern I keep watching.