Boats Afloat

So, last weekend, while the Northeast got 3 feet of snow (jealous) we got 60 degrees and wet. We have a season pass to a ski mountain that is closed. In fact, it’s only been open for a total of 3 weeks this year. (rrrrr) So, what does a bored snowboarder do when it’s 60 degrees out in the middle of January? Go to the Seattle Boats Afloat Show of course!

Drool.

It’s a dangerous place. Very very dangerous. You find yourself uttering words like “on our next boat” and “how come WE don’t have a…” You can get in trouble very quickly. But it’s a lot of fun! There were a ton of boats there, and you can board most of them. There was everything from dinghies to 160 foot condo complexes and Jessi and I wandered around with wide eyes. We had two goals. 1. See what’s out there in our size range and compare. 2. See if living on a boat is something we could do for a while. In other words, what might we be able to afford in 5 years as “our next boat.”

We learned a bunch of things:

Most boats at Boats Afloat were way nicer than ours… And way more expensive. I don’t think there was a boat at the show that was even half our size for what we paid. So for the money that we had to spend, and the features that we wanted, we feel like we made a good decision purchasing our boat.

The gadgets you can get for your boat are outrageous… for a gadget freak it was like heaven. Two of my favorites:
- The pilot house of one boat had 3 flat screens, one had a radar display, one had a navigation display and one had a camera view of the stern so you could see yourself backing up! Plus it had a systems status board with indicator lights placed on a diagram of the boat. So cool. It was like being in the Navy, only at home! Wait, not so cool.
- The yachtub, a floating hot tub that you tie up to your boat (or the dock, or whatever). A MUST before heading up to Alaska. Nothing would be better than soaking in a hot tub at the base of a glacier!


Yachtub!

We also learned that new boats in our size range are a lot nicer, but they don’t have a layout like ours - and we love our layout. On Sea Change, the salon and galley are on the same level, making a sort of great room that feels pretty spacious. It’s like a trawler, except that we don’t have a steering station in one corner of the room. We didn’t see any other boats like this.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. There was a Silverton 39’ that seemed like it has twice as much room as our 48’. Very nice. Very expensive, but very nice.


39 feet? Wow!

All told it was a fun and humbling experience. Even though it’s easy to “get the fever” while looking at the brand new, gorgeous, expensive, large yachts, we realized that for the money, Sea Change was the best boat we could’ve gotten. We love our home. But we'd love it more with a Yachtub.

- Tom