The American dream

As the maxim goes, wind and tide wait for no one and just outside of the breakwater exists another world. To some boat ownership is insanity, as boats require constant maintenance and are always breaking, but I would argue that few other activities afford such opportunity to transcend the humdrum of modern life.

I had just $2,000 when I set out with the dream of owning a bluewater yacht. It wasn’t an easy journey, and my fiancée and I learned some tough lessons along the way, but two years and three boats later we couldn’t have been happier with our 24ft motorcruiser. Here’s how it all began…

Childhood dream

I was 10 years old when my parents sold their 21ft Chaparral 2100 SX bowrider, on which we’d cruised Florida’s East Coast. My thirst for adventures on the water, however, had not yet been quenched and two years later I bought an 8ft imitation Boston Whaler for $400 that I kept in my parents’ backyard. That little bathtub was used in a typical Florida river – that is, nothing more than a man-made drainage canal. I rambled about in it for a few years, but it filled with rainwater and sank more often than it traversed the placid, often disgusting, brown waters of the canal. When it was sold and towed away for more than I had initially paid, I was relieved. I’d made a small profit and my parents were ecstatic to no longer have it scarring their embankment. I was now boatless, but my longing to be out on the water persisted throughout my high school years.

Fast-forward to May 2014 and my fiancé, Avery, and I had just completed our first year of university in West Palm Beach, Florida. We were invited on a dinner cruise on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). As the guests mingled, Avery and I stood at the bow peering into the glassy water. At that moment I knew I had to have a boat again. Somehow, some way we were going to own a boat.

The search begins

I searched the online adverts. Because of my motorboating experience as a child, I wanted an open bow boat with a sterndrive engine. This wasn’t the wisest choice for Florida’s briny waters; sterndrives generally have raw-water cooled cast-iron engine blocks, which are susceptible to rust. Plus, they can’t fully trim up in shallow water. However, I have to say that we’ve since had reliable sterndrives over the years.

Nonetheless, while browsing the classifieds I found a bowrider that piqued my interest: