My wife and I recently moved to Florida from Idaho with our five kids to begin the next chapter of our lives. For years, our dream was to someday retire and sail around the world. Last May, my wife was diagnosed with heart failure, and it completely changed our perspective. We realized life is too short to spend all our time working and waiting for “someday.”
I owned a construction company, and my wife ran a cleaning business. We were working 10+ hour days and spending our weekends catching up on chores instead of making memories with our children. One Sunday, while playing Monopoly with the kids, something clicked. The next morning, on my way to work, I called my brother in Florida and told him we were moving to Florida to pursue our dream of circumnavigating the world by sailboat. I asked him to come with us.
My brother is paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down, and at first he didn’t think it would be possible. The next day he called me back and said another paraplegic sailor had successfully circumnavigated the globe — and that changed everything. From there, the dream snowballed quickly. We sold nearly everything, closed our businesses, and moved to Florida to make this happen.
We are fully committed to this journey. We’ve spoken with several boat owners, and the market has been difficult for sellers lately. A few people have even offered to let us take over slip payments and ownership responsibilities just to relieve the monthly costs. Unfortunately, none of the boats we’ve looked at so far have been accessible enough for my brother’s needs.
So this is a long shot, but we wanted to reach out and see what might be out there. If you have a sailboat you’re struggling to sell, need slip space for a new boat, or simply want to pass your boat on to someone who will truly use and appreciate it, we would love to hear from you. Accessibility for a paraplegic sailor is extremely important to us.
We’re not looking for luxury — just the opportunity to chase a dream together as a family while we still can.