Great Loop Chronicles Part Three
Marine
- Sponsor
- OPTIMA Batteries
- Location
- Vonore, Tennessee
The Great Loop Chronicles will be an ongoing series, following the travels of OPTIMA Batteries staffer, Jim McIlvaine, as he travels America's Great Loop, a 6000+ nautical mile journey around the Eastern United States.
If I've learned one thing in buying cars that translates to buying boats, it's that you shouldn't limit your search geographically to your immediate area. In the case of a car, the perfect match could be just a plane ticket away, but many people are unwilling to take that extra step and end up compromising on price, quality or any number of other factors when a couple hundred dollars in airfare could've ended up benefitting them by thousands of dollars.
I found the boat search for the Great Loop to present similar opportunities and challenges. The perfect boat you want may be in Florida, New York, Michigan or anywhere in between. Where the boat is located can then have an impact on your schedule. If the boat is in Michigan, it may be on the hard (not in the water) until April and it may be so cold in Northern Michigan, that you'd want to wait until June to start your trip.
The boat could be in Florida, which would allow you to start your trip just about any time of the year, except hurricane season, but it could also mean you'll have to split your trip into multiple years, depending on the pace at which you travel the Great Loop. Some people try to race through the Loop in a matter of a few weeks, while others spread out the journey over several years.
We went to the AGLCA's Fall Rendezvous in Orange Beach, Alabama to participate in the Loopercrawl, which would allow us to board and see the layout of several dozen different boats all in one spot. It was also only a couple hours from family in Pass Christian, Mississippi, so someone could watch the kids while we toured the boats (no kids were allowed and passes were limited, so lock your spot in early!)
Not all of the boats on the crawl were for sale, but it gave us a good idea of what boats we liked and which ones we didn't like. It also helped us understand size and space of the boats we were considering. I was told to buy the smallest boat we'd feel comfortable on and we thought our family of four could handle something in the 40-foot range, but we ended up gravitating toward Carvers and Meridians. You can tell your broker your price range and unlike many real estate agents, who push the limits of that budget, our broker found options that were well underneath our top end.
We don't know how long our trip will take, but we found two boats we liked (both Carver 466 models), with one being in Minnesota (on the hard) and the other being in Tennessee. The broker also helped sort through and eliminate some other options that had prices that seemed too good to be true (and they were). The Minnesota boat seemed a bit nicer, but it was on the hard and even when the hull finally got wet, it was 600+ miles from the Great Loop route. That made the boat in Tennessee more attractive for our family.
I could train on the Tennessee boat, drive our personal belongings up from Florida to Eastern Tennessee and we would only be a couple hundred miles from the Great Loop route in mid to late March. That's a bit behind the traditional schedule but would hopefully allow us to get out of the Southeastern United States before hurricane season started. Next up? A boat survey, training and pre-Loop logistics.
If I've learned one thing in buying cars that translates to buying boats, it's that you shouldn't limit your search geographically to your immediate area. In the case of a car, the perfect match could be just a plane ticket away, but many people are unwilling to take that extra step and end up compromising on price, quality or any number of other factors when a couple hundred dollars in airfare could've ended up benefitting them by thousands of dollars.
I found the boat search for the Great Loop to present similar opportunities and challenges. The perfect boat you want may be in Florida, New York, Michigan or anywhere in between. Where the boat is located can then have an impact on your schedule. If the boat is in Michigan, it may be on the hard (not in the water) until April and it may be so cold in Northern Michigan, that you'd want to wait until June to start your trip.
The boat could be in Florida, which would allow you to start your trip just about any time of the year, except hurricane season, but it could also mean you'll have to split your trip into multiple years, depending on the pace at which you travel the Great Loop. Some people try to race through the Loop in a matter of a few weeks, while others spread out the journey over several years.
We went to the AGLCA's Fall Rendezvous in Orange Beach, Alabama to participate in the Loopercrawl, which would allow us to board and see the layout of several dozen different boats all in one spot. It was also only a couple hours from family in Pass Christian, Mississippi, so someone could watch the kids while we toured the boats (no kids were allowed and passes were limited, so lock your spot in early!)
Not all of the boats on the crawl were for sale, but it gave us a good idea of what boats we liked and which ones we didn't like. It also helped us understand size and space of the boats we were considering. I was told to buy the smallest boat we'd feel comfortable on and we thought our family of four could handle something in the 40-foot range, but we ended up gravitating toward Carvers and Meridians. You can tell your broker your price range and unlike many real estate agents, who push the limits of that budget, our broker found options that were well underneath our top end.
We don't know how long our trip will take, but we found two boats we liked (both Carver 466 models), with one being in Minnesota (on the hard) and the other being in Tennessee. The broker also helped sort through and eliminate some other options that had prices that seemed too good to be true (and they were). The Minnesota boat seemed a bit nicer, but it was on the hard and even when the hull finally got wet, it was 600+ miles from the Great Loop route. That made the boat in Tennessee more attractive for our family.
I could train on the Tennessee boat, drive our personal belongings up from Florida to Eastern Tennessee and we would only be a couple hundred miles from the Great Loop route in mid to late March. That's a bit behind the traditional schedule but would hopefully allow us to get out of the Southeastern United States before hurricane season started. Next up? A boat survey, training and pre-Loop logistics.