..."novice" to have a go at Cape Horn...

A Californian with relatively little offshore experience named Ken Barnes was one of the more recent examples... It did not end well for him, his 44' steel ketch - which he'd 'sunk' about a quarter million dollars prepping for his voyage - now rests on the bottom of the Pacific, a couple of hundred miles off the coast of Chile...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-04-barnes_x.htm

So, then... What's your budget? If you've got the $250K, you couldn't go wrong with Brian's boat...