>From Scott Bulger > I've been putting my timetable together for boat purchase and departure on a > circumnavigation. I've been advised by some people that I have great > respect for, to budget one to two years to wring out a boat before > departing. Comment from Scott Strickland It seems to me the how long it takes to shake down a boat depends on hold long the builder has been building that model for your purpose. We have Hull 8 of the Nordhavn 47. Nordhavn has built hundreds of passagemakers, many who have actually cruised the way I want to. It was clear that hull number 1 of the 47's needed far more shakedown then any other hull number, and even hull 9 needed less then hull 8. Clearly if you are having a one off boat you need to plan far more time then for a production boat. Also it is just as clear that if you have the builder make changes in your boat each of those changes has a greater probability that is will more issues then things they have down before. The second question is what are you going to do. I left 5 minutes after commissioning finished on a 2 week 1,200 mile trip up the US west coast. No major problems I kept a list of the issues, (nothing major but lots a little stuff). This was not a problem the boat has the redundency to get to shore and getting parts/service pretty easy. When we stop cruising areas wiuth good service (I can not believe I am saying there was good boat service in the US but wait till you leave!), it needed far more shakedown, simply because simple repair issues in the US are very painful elsewhere. I have been lucky but I know several boats down for weeks at a time for parts that were available overnight in the US.