A classic I suppose. The admiral and I sat down and made a list of all the things we are looking for in the next boat (besides sails). We set a boat buying budget and all in all, had a very pleasant time making the plans.

So now the dilema. I found a boat that is actually newer then anticipated. It has every single thing that was on the list, sails are a year old, bimini, RF, instruments including an autopilot are all relatively new, diesel has under 500 hours and the price is well within the budget. It just happens to be at the small end of the size we agreed on.....(the size we are pretty sure we "need" is somewhat larger).......and this boat is located about 500 yards from our slip.

The larger boats are at the upper end of the budget and all need to have some of the things from the list added. In addition, they tend to be anywhere from a few to several years older so are typically all powered by A4's instead of a diesel. Finally, there are none even located on Lake Erie, so with time constraints we would likely have to have the boat trucked here from another state adding another couple of thousand to the final tab.

So.......a perfect smaller boat today, a larger boat that needs "stuff", or a wait and see if something else comes on the market locally. The additional facts are that no matter what the boat, it will be dedicated to daysailing with friends and occasional entertaining. We will not be doing any local or distance cruising in the forseable future due to work responsibilities.