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“I’m looking for an excuse to trade around for a good sailboat that can be brought up to shape for circumnavigation.”

I’m a liveaboard on a small cruising sailboat in JAX, let me know your requirements and I’ll keep an eye out; I do see cheap fixer upper sailboats regularly...not necessarily exactly when you want them.

One thing many new people do is insist on a blue water, go anywhere boat, then they find out the price is in the sky, both to buy and maintain, and 99.99% of the time, that boat is not going to sail through blue water conditions. With proper preparation much humbler boats have circumnavigated on much more frugal budgets. My favorite example is the Martin family, who began their circumnavigation as newlyweds aboard a Cal24 and completed it as parents of a family of 5...and they had next to nothing, worked his way around the world.

As far as a SHTF platform, this is my home, I already live the lifestyle seperated from the electrical grid snd all services...my bug out means I raise anchor, head for Nassau and watch the news. If its long term, there are few pkaces in the Caribbean where s dollar goes farther than the Dominican, many cruisers like Panama, Guatemala has what amounts to a cruiser capital in the Rio Dulces, although theres a lot of unrest there lately...some people say they get palatial service in Colombia as long as they never leave the marina.

One huge sailboat...just under 50’, I believe...tight as a drum but needs handyman everywhere, no engine, no mast...the guy just uses it as a houseboat and he did say once he’d take 5k for it. He even found a mast for it for $800 but balked when he found the cost of the truck to bring it and the crane to set it were more than the mast...and $800 buys a lot of beer, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, let me know just what you’re interested in and if I see something I’ll shoot you a line.

Thanks for the info. I am just finishing up on a Thompson 260 fisherman, popular around the great lakes. We stripped it down to the hull, replaced the stringers, soaked them with epoxy, topped with silicone, and covered them with fiberglass. We redid the deck, soaking wafer with several coats of epoxy, and sealing them in silicone and then fiberglass. It should be good for twenty or thirty years. We built a new 350, starting with a 4 bolt main, bored .30 with Vortec heads, nice cam. everything from fuel tank hoses and lines to control cables, etc have been replace, along with new gauges. We put on all new gimbal and transom fittings, and rebuilt the outdrive, using one that is essentially new. Everything from rail bolts to cleats, to the anchor mother have been gone through, fixed or replaced, including wiring, 12 volt and 120. We just finished putting a non skid coat on on the deck, and will give it a nice paint job on the hull today and tomorrow. The trailer is heavy aluminum, and we are thinking about putting stainless axles and carriage on it. The boat is literally better than what it was new, with all the typical poor fitting pieces replaced with good fitting pieces. There is still work to be done, some electronics, fishfinder, gps and so on, maybe radar. ...And in today’s market, with the price of gas, it isn’t worth much. When the time comes, I hope to make a trade with it. Of course, I have other things that can go when it is time to bug out. Happy sailing.