We bought a Hurricane Damaged Catamaran! Are we crazy???

Hi there, I'm Kahlan, I'm here to tell you how our little family of four went from living in the suburbs of central Oregon to attempting to live aboard on a 48ft catamaran.
It's been our dream for years to have a boat, and back in 2023 I had a slap tear in my shoulder that got so bad I was going to need surgery. Instead we opted for stem cell therapy in Mexico. While in recovery for 3 months when I couldn't do much with it, we ended up watching YouTube videos of sailing families. And thought...we can do that.

However in the two years to follow We ended up buying a house in Oregon intending to put down roots. 4 months after we bought our house we came across a listing for a 48ft Leopard catamaran, the exact size and brand we wanted. And a price we could make work.

Now, did either of us grow up on boats? no. Do we have any experience with sail boats at the time? Again No. So naturally we bought the boat. It was already on the hard in Freeport Bahamas so we dove in.

Triage with Riptide: How bad is it?

So we bought a boat...a damaged boat. To what extent we didn't know until we got out there. Turns out she needed a mast, boom, vang and new crossbeam. Ugh that's a large bill. She was also going to need sanded and faired on the starboard side. She needed New windows, a helm enclosure .etc the list goes on. But she was ours. We had her inspected and the bones were good, the majority of her was still in good condition.

However during hurricane Irma she took on water on the port fwd hull and the previous owner had restored her to perfect health and instead of putting the fourth bedroom back together, he opted to make a huge walk in Master suite shower. So we went with it. The family flew out to the Bahamas for a week, to check the pulse of the boat. after long hot sweaty days and mosquito driven nights, we checked both engines, they were good to go. the generator was good but needed a new impeller, 2 out of the 3 air conditioners work and we already had most of the materials there.

From Bahamas to Florida. Will it Float?

The list was long and daunting. Trying not to feel overwhelmed was like a full-time job during the week in the Bahamas. But we finally made it to Splash Day with the help of a few friendly locals. We owe it all to Frenchie and Popeye (Much love). They got us in the water and engines started, fridge was on and cold. We were ready to sail away into the great...just kidding we weren't ready at all. Not even a little bit.

Instead we nervously packed everything onto the boat and after a 20 min (I hope we remember everything) pointer session with Popeye we were on our way across the ocean to cross the golf stream and get our broken boat to Florida. Florida had more contractors and better pricing and availability to get work done. We were on a mission.

The first 40 min was bashing into oncoming waves as we went against the current. It was honestly a bumpy ride at first.

Unveiling the Hidden Gems: New paint job

We hauled Riptide out at Cracker Boy Boat Works in Riviera Beach, Fl. We met Steven who was considered the Leopard guru, he introduced us to Keith. Keith was absolutely Incredible and became like family over the next 3 months. Unfortunately our experience with the front office was mixed with hidden fees and we felt nickel and dime by the end. But the crew who's contracted was amazing!!
While on the hard we had SeaHawker Rigging install the mast, boom and vang so now she is a proper sail boat.

Splash Day!!!

After months of work and more stress than my heart truly needs, we finally got Riptide back in the water. We were set to splash at 2:30pm on a Thursday and whew oh the last min projects, I seriously didn't know if it was all going to happen. On spalsh day more than 6 people converged on the boat to wrap up last min tasks. Our friend came to help clean the bilge out, another one to scrub and acid wash the deck, the rigor to put final touches and tensioning, we sold our car during all of this lmao, Bjorn was doing storage runs back and forth to empty our storage unit out and we still didn't get our trampoline back on. Additionally, we hired a captain to help take us up the canal to our dockage and last minute had to do the walk through with him and only to run last min to the store for navigation lights since ours didn't get wired in when the mast went up.