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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

Doing "The Great Loop"

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zeil
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
1336 Posts

Initially Posted - 05/15/2015 : 08:23:27

quote:
Quoted by David Crosby: I am looking forward to when I get to spend a year on my boat. I have my sights on the Great Loop, but that is still several years out.

Henk & Johanna
"Floating", a few off your "barnacles".
"Someday Lady" '95 C250WB #151 ('03 - 2016)
"Sea ya" 30ft Bayliner (04-2018 - 09-2018)
"Mariah" '96 C250WB #191 (05-2019 - 15-05-2023)
"Lady J" '00 C250WK #499 (05-2021 - 09-2022)

zeil
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
1336 Posts

Response Posted - 05/15/2015 : 08:25:11

quote:
Originally posted by zeil

quote:
Quoted by David Crosby: I am looking forward to when I get to spend a year on my boat. I have my sights on the Great Loop, but that is still several years out.

My advice don't wait too long. You, your companion and your boat want to be in good shape. Other things interfere otherwise we would gladly re-visit some areas of our trip again. We would seriously consider, if we were to do it again, cruising "the loop" with a 30-34ft 5 ft max draft newish Catalina equipped for more comfort. On the other hand we had the opportunity with our 25ft trailer-able boat to skip entire areas and sail in selected waters while following the "sun". You want to be south in the winter and north in the summer.

DavidCrosby
Navigator

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USA
242 Posts

Response Posted - 05/18/2015 : 13:36:45

quote:
My advice don't wait too long.

That is certainly the advice received from all that have been out there on some sort of trip.

I think there is a fine line on when it is the right time to go off on an adventure. I am getting closer to being able to do something like this. I suppose I could go into a long list of excuses as to why I need to wait. Other than, I am only 51 and still have two daughters in college, I will skip the rest of the reasons to delay.

I am working a plan. While a bigger boat would be desirable, right now a C250 is what I have and I am going to do what I can to make it more liveable and then we are going to go out and try it out.

While I have spent a lot of time on board sailboats, my wife has never spent a more than a couple nights on board. We are changing that starting May 22. We are hauling the boat to Kentucky Lake and will spend a week there. While I would love to sail the 200+ mile length of Kentucky Lake. Instead, I am going to try to make the week a bit more relaxing and aim for spending a week on the boat, yet being somewhere different.

As far as the Great Loop goes, I will probably start by knocking off the rivers section first and do that in pieces. Seems logical since I live in St. Louis. Several years ago, I helped a friend take his boat from Alton, IL (St. Louis area) to Chicago via the Illinois, Des Plaines and Chicago Rivers. I can call that part done. I see no real need to repeat it. Some day in the near future, I will sail the length of Kentucky Lake. Another time, I will do the Mississippi and Ohio River from Alton, IL to Kentucky Lake. At a later date, I will then attempt the Tombigbee Waterway down to Mobile.

Although, I do plan this summer to venture off to some cleaner water than the rivers. The wife and I and some other friends will be taking our boats to Grand Traverse Bay for a week.

David Crosby "Small World"
'02 C250 WK #614

zeil
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
1336 Posts

Response Posted - 05/18/2015 : 17:01:37

Dream, plan, do and relive... Each stage is exciting and done at the right time in your life, totally fulfilling. We dreamed when our four kids neared the end of their education,(while carefully keeping an eye on the means that were left), planned a year or so before retirement and went at the age of 62 following the sun. We're now re-living our documented 13 month trip over and over with great pleasure.

Both Johanna and I learned lots, saw lots, did lots and would not have want to have missed it for anything. It taught us many wonderful things.

The well designed, engineered and personalized 1995 Catalina C250 WB #151 did exactly what we intended it to do while keeping us comfortable and safe throughout the entire trip.

In fact, we feel, that we did a much wider variety of things with our 25 footer than a non-trailer-able boat could do... for one thing we could at leisure pick and choose the location and places-in-the-sun anywhere of our choice during the entire trip.

Somewhere on this forum is a list of things we added to make things more pleasant aboard. (we should've also included a roller furler)

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