Texas Needs to Stop Blocking Illegals

  • A lot of Loopers with sailboats take the mast off for the journey - most waterways you motor as you don't have the space to tack. A sailboat is also more fuel efficient than a trawler on motor - slower, yes, but more fuel efficient.


    A trawler would be epic don't get me wrong, but I love sailing - and it opens up ocean trips without the same kind of fuel worries - and you get redundant propulsion should things go wrong (and they always do).


    Yeah, a lot of the ICW I saw was 100-150 yards across. And wooded right up to the shore.


    But not trying to sail when you can just means you're staring down the waterway doing nothing.

  • Haha their were some youtubers with no skills that watched other nautical youtubers, sold everything, moved onto a sailboat for boat life, and promptly destroyed and sank it by grounding it on their way into Tampa Bay. Oops.

    I read a book by a guy who did pretty much that - cashed in stock options, quit his silicon valley job and put all his money in a sailboat (50' I believe). It was decrepit (so he got a deal), but spent a year fixing it up (having to learn everything ice cold). He got a crew together and sailed the Baja Haha (San Fran to Cabo San Lucas with near zero experience).



    His crew abandoned him in Cabo. He was planning to sail around the world, but came to the realization that he suffered from dire loneliness while sailing, and grew to hate it very quickly.



    It's astonishing to me he sacrificed everything in life he had going, spent a year fixing that boat up, and basically just quit on the first voyage. LOL.



    Stuck in Cabo, he sailed back alone, and was very lucky to survive to ordeal (him being pretty clueless/inexperienced).



    Anyways, yeah, I'm slowly educating myself and taking charters here and there, you know to really see if I truly like it, or if it's just an idealized dream.


    I had a small sailboat when I was a kid (like a Snark) and spent years sailing it alone on lakes - so I know the very bare bones basics of sailing. I was lucky enough to take a charter from Daytona on the open ocean when I was about 12 and learned the ropes (my dad felt it would be a great learning experience to man me up when I was young, and it was). I loved every second of it, rough seas and all. One of the greatest experiences of my life really.



    Anyways yeah, nowadays when I get some downtime - esp if I'm in Canuckistan, I like to get a charter for a day and get some time in and learn hands on.


    I'll probably take some US Sailing courses/certifications as a next step.


    But yeah that's what I think of a lot - retiring, then doing the loop, and/or sailing out of Ft Myers, going around the Keys, then off to the Bahamas... then onwards... who knows where else.


    Beats feeding pigeons in the park.

  • Last I was in Canukistan I went out in a Catalina 30 on Lake Ontario. Highlight of that was getting to see a bald eagle swoop down and dispense horror on a group of ducks. Got to see one properly fucked up and carried off. It is part of the Great Loop - one part that offers great sailing. Best thing I've done in years.

  • Maybe storch can teach you all about gates.

    Brauno in a previous life, followed by LTARget. E25280 on the Forum.

    SWtarget in last AH in game incarnation.

    "Proudly drawing fire so my brothers may pass unharmed."

    Brauno in World of Tanks.

    "What is, is. What was, will be. What will be, was, but will be again." - Horseshack from Welcome Back Kotter


  • Back in my college days, we'd go to boat shows and beg for donations for our shitty little sailing team. We met Bob Bitchin. He gave us a bunch of stuff. Basically he created both Biker Magazine, and Tattoo Magazine, and sold them before the internet era, making a crap load of money. Then he went on to create a slightly successful sailing / cruising magazine, and an internet series at basically the expansion of the internet.


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  • This is the most optimized great loop trawler. Not the prettiest, but the best of everything overall by a guy that's done the loop many times. The deep V trawlers are very nice but you don't need arctic ocean seakeeping on the ICW/Bays/Rivers and modest off shore cruising. Enough panels to run full size kitchen appliances, queen sized bed, double the cruising speed of the deep V hulls, don't want to have wait on many bridges, modern outboard convenience & all the gadgetry of push-button gps position holding & joystick docking, and a go-anywhere draft.

  • That is a reasonable compromise. Even with the big kickers.


    The best bet is a modified shallow draft turning a single with a Cat or Detroit diesel.


    A Kadey-Krogen manatee ftw. The other option is a Nordhavn

    I'm not certain I want membership in a club with standards so low as to allow me membership.