Plan B

With our sights on the Caribbean and a new boat we began shopping and planning. We really liked the Catalina 445 and felt that this might be the right boat for us. It was spacious and very similar to our current boat, a Catalina 375. However, eventually we would want to cross the Atlantic to the Med; would this be an ocean worthy boat  I reached out to my most boat knowledgeable friend Zuzanna (Host of Talk of the Dock and author of many boating and equipment reviews). She felt that if the boat were properly outfitted she would be comfortable crossing the Atlantic.

The biggest concern in the Caribbean is the hurricanes, so we did a recon trip to find a suitable place to store the boat in hurricane season. This took us to Curacao, an island south of the hurricane belt off the coast of Venezuela. We rented a flat over the 2020 New Years holiday and explored the Island and did some scuba diving. Most importantly, we found a great Marina. The Marina was located inland a bit and accessed from a gated community, very safe. 

In the mean time we had been talking to our boating friends about our plan and everyone had suggestions for boats and places to go. Our friend Hans suggested that, if we plan to go to the Med, why not buy the boat there and start there. Great idea...Plan C!

We started shopping for boats in Europe and saw an opportunity to go to the Boot, the world's largest boat show. In mid January we flew to Dusseldorf, Germany, home of the Boot, for a long weekend of boat shopping. Bob Bitchen, Editor of the cruising magazine Latitudes and Attitudes, had arranged a trip to the Boot for a small group. We signed on, and as a result we got the royal treatment at the show.  We met the Owner of the Boot, enjoyed champagne and access to the opening ceremony and access to the show ahead of the masses.

The show was massive with many boat brands we had never heard of in the US. We fell in love with the Solaris 47 and the Grand Soleil 45, both very sleek and fast Italian made boats. We scheduled time for the next day. with both companies to get more information and pricing. After the show closed on the first day we were able to enjoy champagne with the Grand Soleil team and went to the Bavaria after party to mingle with the US sales team.

The next day we met with Solaris and Grand Soleil and Solaris won out. We were sold, now we needed to figure out how to go sailing on one. 

The Boot was an amazing experience, we could have spent more time there, but we had to get back to work. We kept in touch with Solaris, but then COVID hit in March. With EU shut down and the Solaris factory shut down there was not much to do but wait and analyze the Solaris. In August the Solaris broker invited us to San Francisco to sail a Solaris 47 and Solaris 50. We drove to San Francisco and were able to get on both boats, but the Owners were not comfortable with sailing with a group of strangers during COVID.

We were disappointed that we could not go sailing, but these are strange times. After seeing the boats and talking to the Owners I came away with the concern that these were high performance cruisers and Suzette and I would probably not be comfortable handling this boat. Suzette felt like the freeboard on the 50 would make boarding difficult so we set about engineering a spot for a washer dryer on the 47. Our broker sent my sketches to the engineers in Italy. They sent back a CAD drawing showing the washer protruding outside of the hull!

In the mean time I kept shopping and found the Jeanneau Yacht 51, a French made boat that seemed to  check all of our boxes for comfort and handling. Now we needed to find one and sail it...