Retirement sailboat "winter cabin"

[walt]

I would like to hear "stories" and get some ideas from folks who maintain lives in Northern places but manage to keep a "retirement" sailboat at a nice winter spot - somewhat of a winter time get away sailing "cabin".

In my case, I love Colorado in the summer and its a nice place to visit in the winter but it sure would be nice to spend extended periods of time in a warmer climate during the winter when I have the time to do this. As big as possible sailboat in a slip would be an ideal winter place to spend time.. I'm thinking some sort of sailboat under about 10K pnds towing weight because I'm guessing the good places in the US also have hurricane risk so you might want to keep the boat out of the water during the high risk season. The under 10K pounds weight probably puts about a 30 foot limit on the sailboat since it would mostly be myself and a dog or two and occasionally the wife. Im probably also only likely to use this maybe 4 to 6 weeks a year.

Not retired yet - but definitely thinking about options and good southern locations. Somewhere on the coast of Texas or even Elephant Butte res in NM come to mind first simply because they are closest to Colorado.

 

[MoonSailer]

Go up the Tennessee tombigbee Waterway!!!!

If you want a bigger boat you can keep the boat safe from hurricanes up the Tenn-tom waterway. Short vacations just sail the boat on Pickwick Lake near Iuka Mississippi and for longer vacations take it to the Gulf of Mexico about 450 miles away. A fairly easy trip. If you don't want to sail on short vacations you could keep the boat in Demopolis or Coffeevillee, Alabama and cut the trip in half . It is a lot cheaper to find a slip and freshwater is easier on the boat. I'd vote for Pickwick in that it is a year round sailing lake yet the ocean is reachable. From Mobile it is a straight shot of 400 miles or so across the gulf to Key West. The only problem is your mast height needs to be about 45' or so to be sure to clear all bridges. running up and down the Tenn-tom is an adventure in and of itself.

 

[Paul Z]

same idea

I've been thinking of that for awhile. So far it looks like Mexico's west coast is the place to be; You can have the boat taken care of reasonably and even buy your boat there. It seems folks set out to cruise the world and
by the time they get to Ensenada they're done with it.
I was thinking about the hurricane deal too, but how do you know where to go?
you could trailer it at horrendous cost and either not miss the storm or have the storm miss your moorage