Michael and Pam, My wife Linda and I are also future loopers . We will be retiring in 2 years and plan to leave the following spring from our home port here in Florida. I was fortunate to do 2/3 of the loop as a child on our family boat back in 1958 before anyone knew what a" Great Loop" was and have dreamed about doing the entire loop on my own boat ever since. I was lucky enough to find a wife who shares my dream. We bought our present boat 3 years ago as a "fixer upper" and have been working on her ever since. The list of improvements we have made is a long one, but we have done most of the work ourselves and our boat should be ready to go by next year. As Linda says, we do the work when "time money and energy come together". A great advantage to doing the mechanical work myself is that I know my boats systems from stem to stern and have no hesitation about taking her anywhere. We have managed to make 5 trips to the Florida Keys for diving in the last 3 years and have another planned for next May so it has not been all work. Our boat is a 1995 Silverton 41 Motoryacht with a pair of Cat 3116's rated at 350 hp. I know it is not a trawler, but we run it as one. If you would ever like to compare notes of our prep phase, please do not hesitate to call. My wife and I transport jet aircraft engines for a living and have hauled a lot of GE 90's and RR Tridents to Boeing for new construction. We do a lot of work for American as well so you have probably flown an aircraft with one of "our engines" on it. Mike and Linda Huff 352-603-0616 ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2015.0.5961 / Virus Database: 4355/9981 - Release Date: 06/09/15