A couple of months ago, I briefly dated a guy in SL who had a passion for sailing and flying. He'd take me around interesting places in the Blake Sea, and it really renewed my love of the beauty in SL. I had become so "mesh this, mesh that" that I'd forgotten the creativity of the people. When he took me around to interesting places on the Blake, there was a beauty in prims that I had forgotten about. From the mer-communities we visited, to the lighthouses and shacks on islands, I found that I had developed a love for sailing. I retained this interest in sailing after the relationship didn't work out.

I decided that I wanted to learn how to sail. Apparently, sailing wasn't as easy as it is to drive a car, or motor boat. It consists of trimming sails, taking note of wind directions, and a whole bunch of other complicated stuff. I purchased my first boat, the Loonetta. I learned how to sail using this boat, and it wasn't really a bad boat. However, when I went to my first "cruise" with other people, it gave me nothing but script errors. I was embarrassed, being "that sailing noob", so I TP'ed home, disappointed that I apparently, didn't know how to sail... despite all my lessons and practice.

This lead me to purchase a different, more expensive boat - the Bandit 60. It had been intended to be a "backup" boat, but ever since I took this boat out, I have never looked back. I heard that the Loonetta 31 is fixed with it's script errors, but I really haven't even looked at the Loonetta since I got the Bandit 60. (If you're ever buying this sailboat, I definitely recommend the skip hud, it makes it SO much easier to remember commands)

I love this boat, it goes so fast, even for someone like me, who is still learning how to sail, I feel like I could actually keep up with some of the more experienced sailors. I put the boat into auto-pilot mode for photo taking, but I usually don't like to make a habit of using it, cause manually sailing is so much more fun!


I've joined a particular group in SL where they send out a cruising "route" for the group to follow a couple times a week, and at the end of the route, is a party! Ever since my experience with my erroring Loonetta, I've been a little traumatized into going with them, but I usually go out within the next couple days and do the route myself. It's so beautiful and relaxing to get out on the water in a boat, seeing all the creativy in SL, and all the different landmarks that the lindens made many years ago. Tip: If you're joining these cruising groups, the Ultimate Sailor Buddy will be your best friend!

We are talking boats today! I have always loved having a boat on my land, even if it's really a waste of prims. I don't care about driving it, I really just love the look of having a boat. Purely for display, and they make fabulous props to take photos on, or around. Boats in SL are really beautiful, and SecondLife is all about what makes you happy, right?

A long, long time ago, I first decided that I wanted a boat. I searched, and came across this beauty. At the time, it was top of the line, and one of the best. It has made several appearances on this blog, one even dating back to July, 2008.  I paid a lot of $L for it at the time, though I can not remember how much exactly anymore. I still think it's gorgeous... even now. I'd be happy to keep it out, and continue to enjoy it... however, this boat is 205 prims. It's made mostly of actual primitives, and it looks like the only sculpty parts in this boat are the seats. You really have to appreciate the beauty of a creation like this, how creative people can get with just the tools they have available to them at the time. This boat, I feel is a fantastic example of that.

Because of the high prim count, I decided to look into getting a new boat, and doing a little "updating." The first place that I wanted to look at, was obviously where I originally purchased this boat, MaxMarine. I looked up the creator in-world, hoping that he was still around and making boats. Unfortunately, I don't think he is. A little disappointed, but that's okay, there are many more boats in SL!


I started just flying around some of the popular boating sims, with the intention of looking at the variety of different boats out there. However, the first sim I visited, I came across a boat, docked on someone's land. Intsa-love. I felt like this was a really close version to the MaxMarine boat I came to adore. So, I inspected it, found who created it, and off I teleported to their store. Bonus was that it's only 50 land impact!

I found myself at A.E. Worx.  I ran around, searching for this boat, got hit by 2 automated forklifts in the process, but I found it. And it looked even more gorgeous than it did on the boating sim. The price was $2,250L. There was a point in SL, when I wouldn't have cared, I had a very reasonable linden income from running ImpEle, but now - the RL Jeffry buys $L's for us, and I have to make my little "allowance" that he gives me last for a couple of weeks. But even still, I decided to purchase it. Imagine my glee, when I go to pay the boat vendor, and it comes up saying $899L! Sold! I couldn't pay it fast enough.

I rezzed it once back on my sim, and realized just how spectacular it is. It's tintable to literally any color, it's got a really fabulous control panel, and drives beautifully. It's even got particle waves that splash out when you start driving it. I don't really intend on driving it, but it's still cool that I can if I want to.


While I was tinting it, and getting it ready to drive... Jeffry started playing the "I'm on a boat!" song. So, I had to find the most ridiculous dance I had, to go with that music. Needless to say, we both ended up changing into our swimwear, and dancing on the boat to that song. I totally took a video on it. Was definitely one of the silliest things I have done in SL for a while. It was totally worth it though, I was practically rolling on the floor laughing.