The 48-foot convertible 2001 Ocean Yacht Sport Fish’s 500-gallon gas tank is full; the boat is pumped out and sparkling clean as the sun fights through the overcast skies. The packed lunches are chilling in the galley. The bar is stocked.

"This is like our home away from home," says Jinx owner Lloyd Liggett, 62. "We just bring clothes and food. It’s wonderful. We’re not going back to work until next week," he adds with a broad smile.

Boat owners create a lifestyle to match their yachts; some structure vacations around their vessel, using it as a second home. Others get out on the water much less than they would like. The shorter the boat, the easier it is for the owner to navigate alone. Unlike larger yachts, for example, the Jinx doesn’t need a crew. The junior counterparts to the 100-plus-foot set of Naples-docked yachts give owners more independence on the water and less hassle in low tide.

Liggett and his wife, the boat’s namesake, are headed on a three-day cruise to Captiva’s South Seas Plantation with about 30 other boats from the yacht club. One of several overnight trips the Naples Yacht Club plans during season, the group includes several vessels more than 40 feet in length, which just cross into the yacht category. 

And then there are the big players.

"It’s like an eight-bedroom house. Are you ever going to use it all?" says Frederick Gohl, who keeps his semi-custom 107-foot Lazarra yacht, the Susanna Bella, docked behind the Port Royal home he shares with wife Susan. "I think the name of the game is that you keep buying larger and larger boats." The Gohls’ yacht gets out less of late due to their busy schedules, says Susan from the couple’s Palm Beach residence. She’s often on the east coast working with her dressage horses. She still throws dinner and theme parties on the 2004 yacht while it’s docked, and most recently the Susanna Bella earned her keep when a one-week cruise for six from Savannah, Ga., to Jacksonville garnered a $260,000 winning bid at the Naples Winter Wine Festival auction.

The challenge in Southwest Florida is buying a boat that can easily navigate the shallow waterways inherent to the area. Larger yachts can draw five to eight feet, and those upwards of 75 feet in length will generally require a crew. The Susanna Bella needs a captain and first mate to get out into open water, and even then the Gohls have only taken it as far as the Bahamas.

Naples resident Lee Anderson estimates he spends about a month a year on his 177-foot Trinity yacht, Katharine, which is "not nearly enough time," he says. But for the multiple boat owner, who also has a 74-foot Viking Sportfish docked in Panama City and 14 classic and vintage boats stored in Minnesota, "the novelty of (the Katharine) has worn off."

The boat aficionado progressed from a 104-foot yacht to a 132-foot one before purchasing the Katharine in 2001. The custom yacht spends the winter in the Caribbean or on Mexico’s Pacific coast; in the summer, while the Andersons are in Minnesota, the Katharine and her crew of 12 are most often chartered out in the Mediterranean.

"I think we may be coming to the sunset of our big boating experience," says Anderson, several hours before leaving on vacation to the beaches of Normandy. "Just about anything you do at this stage is a repeat."

But while the Andersons may be winding down their large yachting activity, the international market for yachts speeds ahead.

"The trend has definitely been towards bigger and bigger boats," says Chris Burkard, a sales manager with the Naples office of yacht brokerage firm Allied Richard Bertram Marine Group. "In 1995, most yachts were in the 30- to 50-foot range. In the last four or five years, it’s been creeping up—60, 70, 80 feet."

Luxury yacht publication ShowBoats International’s 2008 Global Order Book, released in September 2007, reported that roughly 916 new yachts (power or sail, 80 feet and longer) are scheduled to be built or are already in the process this year; for 2007, there were 777 yachts underway. Compare that with the 279 yachts in 1998, and sales of larger yachts have more than tripled in a decade.

"If You Get a Baby, I Get My Boat Back"

On the day of departure for Captiva, however, the only talk of money is how the Jinx only needed half a tank of fuel to be topped off. Beyond that, it’s no business, all pleasure.

The Liggetts took off from work—he’s a Northern Trust executive, she’s co-owner of Mahalo Salon & Spa in Bonita Springs—for what they call their "mini spring break": three days of cruising, golf, bocce and parties about a two- to three-hour boat ride from downtown Naples.

With two sleeping areas, two heads, a stateroom and a galley on their yacht, "we wouldn’t think of going somewhere (on the boat) and getting a hotel room," says Lloyd. He has had a boat for 24 of the 25 years he has lived in Naples, and the couple logs about 150 hours a year on the Jinx.

"We’ve had 30 people on board at one time for a party," adds Jinx.

At the east end of the docks, Nancye Mowry is loading lunch into the refrigerator inside the cabin of the Southwind, a 2001 40-foot Tiara 35 open. The wood-paneled steps, which open up to double as storage or wells, lead to the galley and adjoining living room. Toward the bow is a queen-sized bed in beige linens; the boat sleeps two comfortably.

Her husband, Bill, a Yacht Club board member, greets fellow boaters along the dock and inquires who is going to South Seas. He points out which boats haven’t left yet but will be making the three-day getaway.

"In Illinois, I belong to the Chicago Yacht Club, but I mostly go out alone, with family or friends. There aren’t many organized cruises," Bill says. "It’s more fun to go out with a group." 

While the Southwind stretches her legs, the 63-foot Hatteras Pilothouse Westwind—Mowry’s favorite of the two—rests up in Chicago.

"I’ve had boats since I was 15, except when I sold one to make a down payment on our first house," he says. Then, when the couple decided to start a family, he told his wife, "If you get a baby, I get my boat back."

The camaraderie at the club is a big draw for the couple; one of the key considerations, however, was the concrete floating docks that will rise with the water level during heavy storms—and it draws a response that emphasize what Mowry’s boats mean to him. 

"That’s important when you are protecting your baby," he says, observing the Southwind’s stern from the dock.

"The Journey is Really It"

High tide or low, boom or bust market, the Kochs have the Tortuga docked behind their south Naples home or out on the water—no crew, just Roger Koch at the helm and his wife, Fran, navigating.

"We are cruisers. We are not in it for sport reasons or for fishing. We use the boat strictly for going places," explains Koch from his lanai, overlooking his 62-foot Ocean Alexander fast trawler. "The destination is not as important as how we’re going it. We are not dock sitters."

"The journey is really it," echoes Fran.

Although the couple started by chartering sailboats in the mid-1970s, it was only in the last two years that they achieved a lifelong dream—cruising the Great Loop, a circumnavigation of the eastern United States.

For 10 months beginning April 3, 2006, the couple navigated waterways up the Eastern seaboard, then inland toward the Great Lakes. Along the way, they took breaks from cruising to drive their two dogs to stay with friends in St. Louis, and subsequently visited their dogs—and their children—a few times as well. They then wound their way south, emerged at Mobile, Ala., and headed back to Naples.

"On the water, there’s nothing not to like. The sound, the smell, the way things look. Hearing the water coming off the boat…" Koch trails off, looking at the Tortuga.

Recreational vehicles were good training, says Fran, for 10 months on the boat together. With three sleeping quarters and two heads in the cabin, a galley with a Sub-Zero refrigerator and two freezers adjacent to a spacious living room—plus a Boston Whaler dinghy for quick runs ashore—life aboard the Tortuga is comfortable.

No matter what the amenities, however, "where [Roger] is, home is," says Fran.

The subculture of Great Loop cruisers, or Loopers—the number of which can reach into the hundreds at any time, with some boaters taking years to complete the circuit—was important for the Kochs along the way. Whether it was mechanical questions or comparing notes of the voyage, the interaction in the marinas was an important part of the trip for the couple. Since their return from the Great Loop, they have taken several short trips of two to three days with local cruising clubs; next summer they are planning on heading back to inland rivers such as the Ohio and Tennessee for another long trip.

But for now, they are off with the two dogs to St. Louis to visit family; only the Tortuga will stay behind. "I yearn for it sometimes," says Koch of his time away from the boat. "Sometimes I just want to come home and pet it."