Reading about Skip and Lydia' Gundlatch's misadventure gets me
pondering all I have heard about people who spend years building a
boat or saving for casting off only to go a little ways and finding it
just doesnt work for them. It just seems like a shame to spend so
much time only to have it all go to hell. Maybe it is better to not
put it all into that boat but to make her simple and smaller so that
if she gets wrecked or otherwise doesnt work out it isnt such a blow.
I wonder what the statistics are on what fraction of people who do
this sort of thing have it work out.
My personal strastegy is that my own boat is sorta small but just
large enough for me to cross the Gulf in good weather (28'). She is
long ago paid for and isnt a modern beauty but she works well. I have
no complicated stuff, no shorepower, no marine head, no chart plotter,
nothing fancy at all. I do have a good hull, good sails , a good
engine with fixed 3 bladed prop, new rigging and PAPER CHARTS. GPS is
just a back-up for my personal navigation obsession. If she was
wrecked, I'd shrug my shoulders and figger out what to do next and it
wouldnt be too big a deal.
People think they have JUST ONE ROLL OF THE DICE but it isnt like that
at all.

Good luck all