The Wanderer Battles Boat Lust

Already the owner of 3.5 boats — the 63-ft cat Profligate in Mexico and California, the 45-ft Leopard 45 cat ‘ti Profligate in Antigua/St. Barth, the Volkcruiser 42 Majestic Dalat just outside Paris, and sort of the Olson 30 La Gamelle in St. Barth — and approaching his Summer of 69, the Wanderer figured he was finished with his lifetime of buying boats.

But his boat lust was suddenly revived when Bill Anderson dropped the price on his Kurt Hughes-designed 42-ft cat Feet from $140,000 to just $80,000. Feet is an unusual-looking performance-based cat that Anderson built near Port Chicago and has been living aboard and cruising for the last 14 years.

Thanks to a ‘fully loaded’ displacement of just 10,000 pounds, a 4-ft-taller-than-called-for mast, and no engine props dragging in the water, Feet is very fast for her length, and unusually so for a cat in light air. She’s also got a camber-spar self-tacking jib, and kick-up rudders, so if one goes to the trouble of really raising the daggerboards, she can draw as little as two feet.

Unlike most cats her size, Feet only has two double bunks, but they are large. And to keep her sleek, the top of her cockpit is lower than ideal for someone 6’4” like the Wanderer. A diesel or two would be better than the brand-new high-thrust outboard, in the Wanderer’s opinion, and dinghy davits would be nice, too. Nonetheless, the idea of rocketing around the Eastern Caribbean on Feet has an enormous attraction to the Wanderer.

Feet is a bit of a bachelor boat, so the Wanderer was a bit surprised when Doña de Mallorca, who can be persnickety, didn’t blow the idea of a purchase out of the water. "Feet is neat, and I like the idea that the Wanderer is still up for this kind of adventuring," she said.

If the Wanderer were five years younger and five inches shorter — headroom in the hulls is no problem — he would have already handed the cash over to Anderson. Having mentioned a possible purchase on his Facebook page, the Wanderer immediately received strong interest from three excellent candidates to deliver the boat from La Cruz to St. Barth sometime in the next 12 months.

The top delivery candidates would be Danny North, who sailed a similar outboard-powered cat nearly 30,000 ocean miles, including upwind through the Red Sea; Brian Charette, who has sailed his outboard-powered 40-ft Cat 2 Fold cat down the coast from California and all over Mexico for years; and last but not least, Caribbean multihull and otherwise legend DRandy West, the owner of an outboard-powered 74-ft cat, Pplau, who wrote to say he’d do the delivery "for tacos and gas" after the America’s Cup this summer.

(Why have someone else enjoy the adventure of such a delivery? The Wanderer’s boat calendar is full until next February, at which time he’d need the boat in St. Barth, not six weeks away in La Cruz. Yeah, yeah, we know, multiple-boat-owner problems, no tears for us.)

Anyway, the Wanderer is thinking this deal probably isn’t going to happen because he doesn’t want to go through all the hassles of selling his Leopard 45 ‘ti Profligate, especially since he can’t actively list her with a broker until after he’s done using her in the Caribbean in May. However, if anyone were to suddenly come along and say, "I’ll buy your 2000 Leopard 45 for $195,000 when you’re done with her at the end of May," everything would change.

Since that’s not likely to happen, Feet is still on the market. While she won’t appeal to everyone, the Wanderer thinks she’s a terrific deal for anyone looking for a performance cat rather than an ‘average white cruising cat’ with four double-cabins with showers ensuite. Not that there is anything wrong with the latter.

While Feet‘s main outboard is new and the boat comes with two dinghies and two other outboards, Anderson admits that she needs new sails. If the Wanderer bought her, he would immediately replace the standing rigging on the Ballenger Spar. It probably wouldn’t cost that much since the boat is so light that the rigging isn’t that heavy. Structurally, the boat seems solid. She only has three thru-hulls, all of them above the waterline. And just a year ago Bill spent $20,000 having the exterior painted.

If you’re interested in what the Wanderer thinks would be a screaming — she’s done 19 knots — budget cruiser for a couple or even a family of four, you can email Bill in La Cruz. Understandably, he doesn’t want to be overwhelmed with curious ‘lookie-loos’, so please, serious inquiries only from people ready to fly to Puerto Vallarta right away.

Bill wants to sell the boat because at age 72 he’s gotten interested in snow skiing again. He used to be a skiing instructor. He tells the Wanderer that his only famous client was Sonny Bono, who you may remember killed himself by skiing into a tree.