Finally Bought a Bigger Boat!

[Bushwacker]

After looking for a suitable trawler for about a year to do the ~ 6000 mile Great Loop http://www.greatloop.org, we finally found one in Stuart, after looking at 14 boats from Marathon to North Carolina! It’s a 1986 49’ DeFever Raised Pilot House model (do a google search for passagemaker.com>cult classic) - it appears to be the SeaCraft of Trawlers! It’s a little bigger than what I planned on, but I spent enough time aboard my Seafari to know that the longer you’re on a boat, the smaller it gets! This thing is a serious cruising boat, carrying 400 gallons of water, 1000 gallons of fuel and a displacement of 50,000 lbs! With twin Perkins 135 hp diesels, it burns a total of 4 gal/hr @ 8 kts!

The first week of Febuary was epic . . . On Monday, I sold the house I’d live in for over 50 years; on Tuesday I bought the DeFever, and on Saturday I got married! I’m still in recovery mode! Pics of new bride Arden and boat are attached. Some of you got to meet her as my fiancé at the Homosassa gathering last fall. She lived on a 50’ sailboat in the Bahamas for a year and is really looking forward to doing the Great Loop on a trawler, saying that it’s a lot less work and much more comfortable than a sailboat!