I always love boats, especially trawler type yachts. But I never even began to play with watercraft except once I rented a Boston Whaler 17' with 25 hp outboard and did some cruising on the southern shore of Long Island. Now that I am approaching retirement ( age 59 ), I wanted to live onboard a little ship. Been looking at the 44' model range on the Nordhavn, Kogen, North Pacific brand name. Until I accidentally bumped onto a Diesel Duck website. Now I am impress by the 462. I won't be surprise I will make that my goal if I ever really wanted to live and sail abroad one. I am single. I know nothing about sailing or maritime lores. But I read somewhere that one can study trawler handling, and all those courses and charter a trawler afterward to get your feet wet. My question is, will that knowledge learned be enough for me to sail around the great circle route, along the east coast and Carribean? Another thing I am curious about is that sail on top of some of the 462s. Do you have to learn sailing before you can sail with those? Or is it a lot simpler since they said one man can handle it. Please, do give me some insight about all these. I am getting the itche. Have a good day, folks.

I am downsizing from a Nordhavn 55 to a Diesel Duck 462. Many Nordhavn owners chartered one before buying. Google Voyages Northwest, they have training charters. Everyone I have spoken to who has taken one of these charters raves about how instructive it was.
The sails on the Ducks are relatively small and on roller furling. Very easy to handle versus a full size sail on a sailboat. I owned a cutter rigged sailboat before buying my Nordhavn.
There are currently two Ducks under construction. They are the first Ducks with both bow and stern thrusters. Again, very easy to handle.
I singlehanded my Nordhavn 55 over 10,000 miles. I envision my Duck being MUCH easier handle with it's MUCH smaller above waterline area (less windage) and heavier displacement (won't be pushed around by the wind and current so much).
Something else for you to strongly consider - a Diesel Duck 462 (51 feet overall) is almost 1/2 the cost of a comparatively equipped Nordhavn 43!

Hey a DD462 is a cool boat but the best thing to do if you want one one day and do the circle, is get out and play in other peoples boats for awhile and read read read..then read some more about boats...then you will start to get the picture...everything jeff said above is true and for a 50ft boat they are HUGE, but very easy to manage even without a stern thruster. ICE is the best boat I have ever had FULL STOP, everything about the design and features are for livaboard fun simply work. Any boat has maitinance and "issues" but value for money I am really happy!....good luck!!

Well Jeff meet a fellow duckdreamer who made the dream come true,let me give tell you a little bit of our story.
Went to the yard 2008 met the Seahorse team ,looked at boat mainly 462's and after a chat with D0N ON ICE ,Margaret and I signed up for hull number 9 later called Highland Duck ,she was a cancelled order so probably about 70% complete.
Our experience was very limited,only charter holidays.My back ground is Agricultural engineering so i am hands on and have no problem with looking after the mechanical side of a 462.
We left the yard in june 2009 and cruised to Subic bay in THE PHILLIPINES,we had an experienced crew of 2 and made the crossing in 5 days ,our first time overnight passage.
We stayed in Subic for 9 months for various reasons and gained valuable experience weekend sailing with Ray Wolfe ,who was our build surveyor for HD.
We eventually set sail from Subic bay and cruied the Phillipines ,just the two of us and had a wonderful learning experience in protected waters.From the Phillipines we crossed the Ballabac straits to Bornoe and cruised Borneo extensively, at anchor most of the timeas we were in the Philipines.After borneo we crossed to Singapore,one of the busiest ports in the world,this was our first passage[4 days] on our own .
Afer Singapore we cruised up the Malaysia,THAILAND COAST as far as the Burma border.
We are at present in Phuket and will be returning TO Langkawi for Christmas.
The diesel duck concept is best understood by reading George Buelher's book and going and looking at Duck's
Being physically fit does help and don't worry about the sails as they are easily handled even by a novice such as i.
Highland Duck is a great boat and excepional value for money,an important consideration for a Scot. Kind regards Bob and Margaret on board Highland Duck

quote:

Originally posted by DuckDreamer:
I always love boats, especially trawler type yachts. But I never even began to play with watercraft except once I rented a Boston Whaler 17' with 25 hp outboard and did some cruising on the southern shore of Long Island. Now that I am approaching retirement ( age 59 ), I wanted to live onboard a little ship. Been looking at the 44' model range on the Nordhavn, Kogen, North Pacific brand name. Until I accidentally bumped onto a Diesel Duck website. Now I am impress by the 462. I won't be surprise I will make that my goal if I ever really wanted to live and sail abroad one. I am single. I know nothing about sailing or maritime lores. But I read somewhere that one can study trawler handling, and all those courses and charter a trawler afterward to get your feet wet. My question is, will that knowledge learned be enough for me to sail around the great circle route, along the east coast and Carribean? Another thing I am curious about is that sail on top of some of the 462s. Do you have to learn sailing before you can sail with those? Or is it a lot simpler since they said one man can handle it. Please, do give me some insight about all these. I am getting the itche. Have a good day, folks.

I'm a fellow Diesel Duck Dreamer - I recommend reading the latest editions of Buehler's Troller Yach Book and Voyaging Under Power. Once I picked them up I couldn't put them down. Would love to come pick up a new boat from Bill's yard someday!!