left in the fall,” concedes Kenan, “I still didn’t feel ready. I was so
busy packing and planning.”
But at that stage, there was no turning back.BOATS & BUDGETSI
t almost sounds like the beginning of a sailor’s joke: A
schooner, a catamaran and a high-tech cutter are rafted up
in a tropical cove. And the unlikely combination of friend-
ly families on dif ering vessels certainly piqued the interest of fel-
low cruisers. But boats refl ect their owners, and in these exam-
ples, their respective family units.
Personal style, a tolerance (or lack thereof) for heeling
and rocking, and budget all contributed to which boat the
Zanis, Smiths and Gonsalveses each chose for their six-month
Caribbean sojourns.
“Conley likes the looks of a classic,
blue-hulled Hinckley,” says Mike Zani.
“But she hates deep, dark saloons and
feeling claustrophobic. Ultimately, visit-
ing boat shows, we decided the biggest,
worst-looking catamaran was better than
any monohull she saw.”
The bulkier, modern catamarans didn’t appeal to Zani, so he
focused on earlier-generation cruising cats. A “serial CEO,” he
fi rst searched diligently for an economical long-term charter. “I
had been talking to a broker for two years,” he says. “He told me,
‘You’re looking for a white elephant.’” But a business mentor of
Zani’s advised him to “just buy right.”
“Since I purchased things for a living, I made a spreadsheet of
every modern catamaran for sale,” he says. “I bought on the fl at
part of the depreciation curve.” His model was based on the idea
that demand for cruising catamarans had increased over the past
fi ve years on the East Coast and in the Caribbean, but that there
was a shortage of inventory. He found the opposite to be true in
the Med, where there was a large supply of privately owned cruis-
ing catamarans for sale, driving the price down overseas.
Ultimately, using his business savvy, Zani bought a 2002
Fountaine Pajot Belize 43 in the Canary Islands in October, sailed
it with his father-in-law and friends to the Caribbean via the
Cape Verde Islands, and, after his children were safely back for
the last month of school that following May, sold the boat in Fort
Lauderdale for 8 percent more than the original purchase price.
As was the case with the Zanis, Annice Kenan was not an expe-
rienced sailor.
“At fi rst I thought, ‘Let’s pick the places we want to be and
charter a boat, maybe a catamaran,’” she recalls. “Then I saw the
look in Jesse’s eyes. That defi nitely wasn’t his dream.”
Smith owned a contemporary art gallery in Providence, and his
fi rst sailboat had been a 1930 International 6 -Meter that he re-
stored to original trim with sparkling varnish and custom bronze
fi ttings. Like most sailors, to Smith, the classic, gaf -rigged Alden
schooners looked like mystical ocean-touring craft. So when
the traditional-style schooner Rebecca of Vineyard Haven, builtin 2001, came on the market, he was hooked. After consulting
with designer and builder Nat Benjamin of Gannon & Benjamin
Marine Railway, on nearby Martha’s Vineyard, Smith undertook a
complete overhaul of the rare 10-year-old wooden boat.
Smith and Kenan planned to share their cruising experience
periodically with friends and family, and Rebecca’s communal liv-
ing spaces and varnished interior fi t the bill. The stout schooner
rig also proved useful on their delivery to the Caribbean from
Rhode Island. Under reefed foresail and staysail alone, the crew
reached along at 12 knots in a November gale, sipping tea and
baking cookies.
If, on the spectrum of cruising boats, a boat could sit between
a fi berglass catamaran and a wooden schooner, it would likely
be Meridian, a Chuck Paine-designed 46 -footer built in glassand Kevlar for of shore passagemaking. The
Gonsalveses didn’t have the budget (or risk tol-
erance) to approach their cruise the way Smith
or the Zanis did, but what they did have — pro-
fessional sailing skills — landed them a perfect
home for a season in the Caribbean.
Like Zani, at fi rst Jef Gonsalves searched for
a seasonal charter of several months’ duration,
but options reached the $80,000 mark for the
season. “We were tipped of by a mutual friend
that Steve Taylor would be interested,” he says.
Taylor was a fellow New Bedford Yacht Club
member and happened to be thinking about a
cruise in the Caribbean.
“He loved the idea of making our dream of
sailing with the kids a reality,” says Gonsalves.
“Steve didn’t want to directly profi t. He just
wanted to come down and sail for a few weeks.IT ALMOST SOUNDS LIKE THE BEGIN-
NING OF A SAILOR’S JOKE: A SCHOONER,
A CATAMARAN AND A HIGH-TECH CUT-
TER ARE RAFTED UP IN THE TROPICS ...
Couples Therapy for Cruisers
Geared to sailing couples, the Cruising Club of America’s “Safety for Cruising Couples” class will be conducted in
multiple locations over the course of 2016. The goal of the one-day seminar is to build the confi dence of the less
experienced partner in preparation for an unexpected test of his or her skills.
Topics include the fundamentals of VHF radios, the basics of navigation, engine operation, medical situations,
safety equipment and man-overboard recovery. There’s also on-the-water hands-on training, including chart plot-
ter fundamentals and a demonstration of how to use a life sling in a man-overboard situation.
This month, the seminars will be conducted at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, and at
the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron in Halifax. Future locations include New York’s Shelter Island Yacht Club;
the York River Yacht Club in Gloucester, Virginia; the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary in Mount Vernon, Vir-
ginia; and the Sailing Club of the Chesapeake and the Annapolis Yacht Club in Annapolis, Maryland.
Tuition is $155 per couple or $85 per person, and it includes lunch and a course workbook. For additional infor-
mation, including dates, visit the CCA website (cruisingclub.org).may 2016cruisingworld.com42