Living the dream...... with a Centurion 32

[Sea Devil]

There has been a huge change in the boat market in recent years.

The French running the marina in La Rochelle (3600 berths!!) write in the marina magazine openly about the 2nd HOME boat market and refer to it as the most important market.

It is true of course. The price of housing has shot up and many no longer wish to use a caravan as a 2nd home. The result is that many of the boats sold today are actually 2nd homes.. Comfortable, well equipped domestically with the added pleasure you can move them short distances to another local for a weekend visit to somewhere new.

The (international) hike in house prices has made AWBs a much cheaper way of getting a 2nd home/holiday home and with it comes all sort of 'romantic' illusions.

n'est pas?

 

[Salty John]

In 1989 my wife and I, our teenage daughter and our dog took off on our 32' heavy displacement sloop on what became a 3 year, 10,000 mile cruise of the US eastern seaboard and as far down as the BVI. Daughter left after the first year to pursue her own adventures; the dog had already gone back to dry land shortly before that. Pretty cramped, I suppose, but we never let that get in the way of our enjoyment of the adventure.

I wrote a series of a dozen articles at the time, for a US magazine. I doubt such tales of minimalist living would have any appeal nowadays.

Ten years later we repeated the trip in a much bigger boat, 41', and whilst it was fun and, most certainly, more comfortable, it never felt in the same league as the earlier trip when it comes to adventure and achievement.

 

[Aeolus_IV]

Hmmm ... isn't it a lovely boat.

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Opps - sorry to rake this one up from January /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif I read the date on it as 1 Sept 07.

Sorry,
Jeff.

 

[Bajansailor]

No worries, I am sure that many folk on here havent read this thread before, and would agree with you that Centurions are lovely boats for sure.

Last I heard from Genevieve, Jon and Skye, indirectly via Lymington a few weeks ago, was that they had reached the Marquesas and were having a wonderful time in the Pacific, on their way 'home' to New Zealand.