Well, neither of us managed to call each other’s bluff in time. We’re officially boat owners. Now what?

Time for a boat intro, I guess.

Hobbes is a 2001 Fortuna Island Spirit 37. The first owners sailed her from Capetown to Trinidad in 2004, and she was purchased in Trinidad by the 2nd owners in 2005. The 2nd owners sailed her extensively in the Caribbean and the Bahamas for 6 months a year. After that she was purchased by a 3rd set of owners in 2016 – a family of four. They had big plans to sail far and wide, but something went awry – the listing says “Current owners are selling her due to unforeseen medical circumstances.”

When Jeff and Brenda bought her she was already well outfitted, but they still did extensive work – they took care of all those little things that we would want to do, but might not have the budget for (replacing leaky, crazed salon windows, rewiring from 230v to 110v, buying a brand new dinghy, installing electric heads). They also did things that needed to be done, like replace all the standing rigging, replace all the thru-hulls, upgrade the anchor and chain. How do I know all this? Because they wrote about it all in their blog. That’s where we learned they also grounded her so hard they lost a prop, and later another boat dragged anchor and collided with them while they were away, gouging the bow. All I can say to that is that you learn a lot of lessons in the first year. Hopefully the lessons we learn won’t be quite so expensive.

Here are the big things that made us love Hobbes:

• The layout of the cockpit and salon – it’s a big open space, and you hardly see that kind of layout on a boat this small or this old. It’s an easy transition from the cockpit either forward or aft.
• The way she feels so light on the water – as long as we don’t weigh her down too much she should sail well, and it seems like she’s got some decent speed too.
• All the lines are run to the helm, making it easy to single-hand if needed.
• Galley up, as opposed to galley down in one of the hulls.
• She’s got some important extras – a watermaker can cost around $20k to install and the dinghy is new. She’s already outfitted with solar panels and a wind generator.
• Oh, and this is probably the most important one: she’s got two hulls. We were set on owning a catamaran, and now we do!

And here are the small things that will make such a big difference:

• The davits look sturdy, and pull the dinghy high off the water.
• There are two trampolines instead of one big one.
• The anchor drops behind the trampolines, as opposed to running across the trampolines. Doesn’t seem like a big thing, but when the chain runs across the trampolines they’re always going to be mud or rust stained.
• There’s an electric winch at the helm. The luxury!
• 17 opening hatches – with screens! Think of the ventilation! Some of the boats we looked at were so stuffy inside, and the stuffy ones tend to be the mildewy ones.
• Freshwater deck wash. As in, fresh water to rinse off when you get done swimming.

In fact, pretty much the only box on our checklist that is left unchecked is a hard bimini. And based on how much rain was leaking through the current bimini, it’s definitely something we’ll have to address. We can’t add much weight, so this will require some research.

Want to know what our total boat cost was? Read about every penny we spent.