After searching online for months and some disappointments dealing with other boat owners, Jack and I finally found Wind Mistress in the listings. A 40' Hunter with both fore and aft cabins, and two potties (!) she quickly made the top of our short list. Last weekend, the two of us drove down to Stuart, Fl (South of Daytona, North of Ft. Lauderdale) to examine and test sail the boat. On Friday, the 13th, she passed our initial inspection, but we were unable to test sail until the 14th. She is located at Loggerhead Marina which is in really shallow water - often only 1'-2' of water under the keel. It would have been nearly impossible to take her out that Friday afternoon due to a low tide shoal directly in front of her slip.
The next morning we had to wait till about 1pm to take her out because of the tides. The tides in that particular bay are not drastic, but because they are so shallow it's worth it to wait and gain the extra foot or so of depth. We took her out into the channel and set her sails, which had clearly not been used in a while. All lines were either gooey or stiff, but only one looked as if it would need immediate replacement. She sailed beautifully and came about with ease. No noticeable leakage at any of the intakes.
On the way home we settled on a price with the seller, and shortly after Jack and I were celebrating with beers in front of the UNC v. Florida State game (which would have been more of a celebration if UNC had showed up to play).
What do you do with a 40' boat? Sail it.
And we plan to. Currently we are preparing for a transatlantic voyage. Which may or may not happen this summer. We've been talking a lot this past year about going the distance this upcoming May, but after the purchasing of the boat, all four of us (Jack, Savannah, Mary and I) are leaning towards sailing South to the Caribbean and even further into S. America this summer. The reason for this change is the result of one pesky, unanswered question in our plans. What do we do with the boat once we get to Europe? Sell it? (maybe) Dry dock it? (expensive) Get someone else to sail it back? (unlikely) Selling it seems like the easiest solution, but none of us wants to sell our new boat without getting a chance to really sail her around the Americas. Plus, it'll be a lot warmer sailing South than into the North Atlantic.
What's the Next Step?
Bringing Wind Mistress to Savannah. Erik N. will be joining all of us (Jack, Savannah, Mary and I) in driving in a rental van one-way to Stuart. We're going to leave Thursday afternoon, arrive in Stuart around 7, load up the boat and set sail that night. We have been advised not to leave out of St. Lucia because of the strong currents and shallow waters in that bay, but to rather head up the ICW and leave out of Ft. Pierce. We would then head out to the Gulf Stream to travel up the coast of Fl, and then head into Savannah at Green Island Sound, pass through Hell's Gate and on to Coffee Bluff where we will be docking.
We are going to spend the next week packing and preping gear for this trek up the East Coast of Fl and Georgia.
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