About two weeks ago I am in the marina working on the boat. This guy comes up to me and says:I am looking for a boat, which one should I buy. He has a few on his smart phone.

First question I ask is what are you going to do with it. He says "I want to sail it around here for a few weeks to learn how to sail and then sail it home". I ask where home is. He answers with the name of some place I don't recognize. Here in the PNW there are a lot of place names that I don't know so I continue to talk to him.

After a while he starts talking about how much more expensive boats are at home. Alarm bells go off in my head. I ask again where home is. Turns out it is in Viet Nam. I ask again about his sailing experience - zero.

This guy wants to solo a boat from the US to Viet Nam and he only has 15,000 to spend.

I change the conversation to: You really need a lot of experience to buy, outfit and sail a boat across an ocean. I tell him he needs to sail on other peoples boats before he even decided if this is something he wants to do. I tell him a little about my background and that I sailed the Great Lakes for twenty years before sailing on the salty stuff. He says in a bit of a huff: "Maybe you are right" and walks off.

Another customer for Air Sea Rescue