{"id":5311,"date":"2017-05-13T01:55:51","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T01:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/?p=5311"},"modified":"2017-05-13T10:40:05","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T10:40:05","slug":"looper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/?p=5311","title":{"rendered":"Looper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As soon as I heard about them, I wanted to be one.
\n“One what?” you ask.”
\n“A Looper,” I answer simply.
\nIt’s a\u00a0boater who is cruising on one of the premier American adventures: The Great Loop<\/a>. It’s like the Holy Grail of boating. In a nutshell, ya cruise north\u00a0up the Hudson River through New York, west through the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes to Chicago, south\u00a0down the Mississippi River to the Gulf\u00a0of Mexico,\u00a0around Florida, and north up the east coast to back to New York. It takes about a year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

My burgee from AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP CRUISERS ASSOCIATION<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Years ago, when I first heard about The Great Loop, I had a little bitty boat. As it turns out, smaller boats have an advantage on The Loop. They’re more maneuverable, easier to maintain, and less expensive.\u00a0“Choose the smallest boat you feel comfortable in” is what experienced loopers say. But I don’t think they meant 15 foot Larson bow-riders. Although, after some research, I discovered\u00a0this 7,000 mile trip around the eastern United States has been accomplished by all manner of boats including canoes, kayaks, and jet skis.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0hate roughing it, and\u00a0bigger boats are more comfortable, but\u00a0because there are restrictions for height\u00a0and draft, you can’t go too big.\u00a0For instance, if your boat can’t make it under a\u00a019.1 foot fixed railroad bridge just south of Chicago, you can’t do The Loop. If your boat has more than 5 feet under the water, you can’t do The Loop.<\/p>\n

And then there’s the other stuff that stands in the way. Like having enough money. I like to eat. Every day. And fuel for a trip like this is in the 6,000 gallon range. Dockage is rarely free, and health insurance is another major expense.\u00a0We’re not rich, and we don’t have a trust fund, inheritance,\u00a0or a “structured settlement”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“Pollux” our portside engine. Starboard engine is named “Castor”.<\/p><\/div>\n

“Man. It’s just impossible. I’ll never be a looper,” I said to myself.
\nBut wait a minute.\u00a0What if a guy had an understanding wife who loves boating, trying new things, and having adventures? And what if that guy’s wife was a Zen\u00a0Master at money management, and could save like nobody’s business? Well I’ll be darned if I ain’t that very guy.\u00a0Saving is\u00a0the XO’s superpower!\u00a0Granted, we live simple lives.\u00a0We pay cash for\u00a0our cars which are all old, but\u00a0I manage to\u00a0keep them running. So no car loans,\u00a0repair shop visits, or expensive insurance. And between the two of us, we maintain the house and yard. Still, it’s not easy tucking away the substantial amount of dough required to bring this amazing adventure to fruition, but we did.\u00a0I can hardly believe, that after so many years,\u00a0we are finally ready to do this:\u00a0a 7,000 mile, year-long cruise in our boat, Ginger Lee. <\/em>Psyched!\"\"<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As soon as I heard about them, I wanted to be one. “One what?” you ask.” “A Looper,” I answer simply. It’s a\u00a0boater who is cruising on one of the premier American adventures: The Great Loop. It’s like the Holy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2TWzP-looper","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5311"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5352,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5311\/revisions\/5352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rickcoraccio.com\/boat\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}