Hi guys, I´m a young english guy, I live in madrid, lived here about 4 years now but looking for a radical change. I got almost zero sailing knowledge but a strong desire to learn (yes, I´m fully aware that theres a mountain o stuff to learn and sailing is dangerous and its not for the faint-hearted, I got all o that.). I got the money for a small sail boat (33-44 foot). I´m looking for a mentor (experienced sailor) to help me pick a good boat, to set the right flag and maybe some sailing lessons. Anywhere around the spanish/Portuguese coast considered but ideally barcelona preferred. I´m quite paranoid about gettin ripped off and winding up with a bad boat. The rough plan is to pracice in the med for 2 years...then see about more after that. Looking to do this in the next 2 months. 100% serious.

There are plenty of people offering sailing instruction.

Why Barcelona? Mooring fees will be very expensive and it is a long way from Madrid.

I would not buy a boat until you have more experience. Would you buy a car, before you learned how to drive?

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Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

well basically, because I will need somewhere to live. soon. I´m selling my house in Madrid. I´ve been a scuba instructor for the last 5 years and every summer I´ll see a few people with no clue about sailing just living on a boat in the marina. They are just using them as floating apartments (Benalmadena/Fuengirola marina). Barcelona looks good as my girlfriend is a IOS developer and progamming jobs are kinda limited in Spain however Barcelona shows promise, but I guess other major cities are an option. look, I ain´t a naive/dumb I know there´s loads to learn, and I wanna get stuck in. I can learn while I´m on the boat. Paying for a house AND a boat mooring and the travel between the two will be WAY more expensive than 1 Barcelona mooring. My main concern is buy a boat that´s not got some critical fault with it. Everything else can be worked out along the way. Yeah, I know, I could pay a surveyor but I want someone I trust to show me some good ones BEFORE I start paying surveyors.

Gibraltar?

https://www.google.com/search?q=rya+...ient=firefox-b

https://www.google.com/search?q=rya+...ys+gibraltar&*

Get tuition first - then get the boat, NEVER the other way round. Remember the old saying that there are two great days in a sailor's life - the day you buy the boat and the day you manage to sell it. In between is a money-pit. You have to consider mooring charges, maintenance costs, equipment repairs/upgrades.............. the list goes on. It's like buying a house - the actual purchase price is just the tip of the iceberg.


My advice would be to get tuition, become a confident sailor and then charter. Let someone else cover the purchase and running costs - and you get to pick and choose which boat, as and when you want.

Hi

I am willing to give it a go to teach you how to drive a boat-how hard can it be

I am not exactly Capt Birdseye but regularly took out hourly row hires in our local Marina as a kid and I would imagine it's more or less the same only with a bigger boat.

I can tie knots, know the left sides called the star bar side or something and also am aware to always take up the heavy pickaxe shaped thing before we hoist the painter etc

Give me a shout if ya wanna try