Am I being stupid to consider...

harrisos, you ought to see if there are any DeFevers within your budget and in your area.
They have the 'legs' to do what you want, they are stoutly built, and there are lots of them around.
Art DeFever designed his boats around the commercial fish boats he noticed in the '50s: seaworthy and tough...good freeboard to, if nothing else, not scare yourself half to death with the sight of green water coming over the decks on a 'freshening day'.

First you have to get there...and home. Also, there are some places on the Inside Passage with wicked currents and weather, not to mention long distances between fuel stops. When considering a boat (especially for the west coast) you don't want to think in terms of what will do. You want to consider what will get you home when things turn really bad. My west coast experience is very limited, but from what I have seen it's no place for ICW cruisers and bay boats. There are some spots that scare the c---p out of me. Like someone (I believe it was Marmot) said, you could have to put yourself 100 miles off shore for safety or wait a day or two to make an inlet. That could be rough if you carry fuel for only 300 or 400 miles.

The inside passage can be done safely in a center console if you can carry enough gas cans. There are indeed wicked currents but they are tidal currents and they come and go on a very regular schedule with periods of mill pond in between, all it takes is a tide book and a watch to stay out of trouble there. The weather can get rude but it's not like it is outside ... it's called the inside passage for a very good reason and most of it is like driving down a hallway, even if it's blowing a hoolie outside.

The only stretch between Campbell River and SE Alaska that can be dodgy is Dixon Entrance and then you just time your run. The same goes for Hecate Strait if you want to go the Queen Charlottes, that can eat your lunch.

That offshore run I was talking about was off the coast of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. If you like excitement, go off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Don't let the name fool you...it can be a *****. Timing is everything and the failure to trip plan can be, at the least, uncomfortable. Check out Waggoner's trip logs from this year and you'll get a better understanding. This is from a highly seasoned NW cruiser's perspective. I think it was week seven or eight where they had some observations.

Not wanting to scare you or put you off...just make sure you and your boat are prepared.

Further on the wooden boats: Chris Craft made a decent production wooden boat, but that's what they made: a production boat. Very few of them were expected to last fifty years, and they were well built, but not heavily built, so using them for voyaging in waters that present challenges in terms of weather is not a great idea, unless the boat was in as new condition. Even then, most of the constellation designs were intended for protected waters, and not offshore voyaging. The second caution is about condition. The relative cost of paying someone to restore a wooden boat is inhibitively expensive. Unless you have the skills to do a lot of the work yourself, you will want deep pockets, and a real love of the wooden boat.

I think you'll hear this repeatedly...

DON'T BE SO STUPID!

The 3870 would be a nice gunkholing boat, and having a boathouse in PacNW is a huge plus.

Bayliners gained their reputation back in the 80's and deservedly so. They've come a long way, but still carry the rep. However, I had one back in the 90's that I put through hell and back and she just kept asking for more. They do tend to be underpowered though and I'd be real hesitant to cruise outside in the NW with one.
Now the Defevers may be very interesting depending on age & condition. They've made some good cruisers.
Keep away from wood boats unless you have a lot of money and/or a lot of spare time to restore. That is unless you're looking to just be the last owner before the boneyard.

Go to the source. Invest in an airline ticket to Ketchikan or Sitka, amble over to the marina and look at the type of boats parked there. Sit down with the locals at a nearby bar and ask them over a couple of beers what they think of various boats in the marina.

I've seen Bayliners pushing walls of water up Tracy Arm and dozens of little open skiffs running between the islands inside and out. Run up the inside on a nice day and you will see just about every kind and size of boat you might see in Long Island Sound or the Chesapeake or running between Fort Lauderdale and Bimini ... not many sports fish in Ketchikan but I have seen them in Sitka. The bottom line is unless you plan to run outside from Juan de Fuca to Kodiak, just about any boat and a good sense of self preservation will return a fantastic experience.

I'm typically the last to shy away from a project, especially a Huckins, and feel nearly every boat has good bones and can be brought back to life... That said, this is a massive project boat, a wooden hull that has been used as a floating cottage. Huckins are robust boats for their weight - what seems like a lightly built hull can handle some pretty rough stuff provided the structure is sound. They're sea-kindly with a good ride and great efficiency.

This one, however, I'd not only go into with eyes wide open, but with other eyes alongside, namely a competent surveyor who knows wood boats, and preferably one who has seen a Huckins or two before. She's got all the makings of a heart breaker and wallet taker, but given the dedication, time, and $M$O$N$E$Y$ she's got the potential to be a grand yacht.

She's hull #100 out of the yard, a 60' Offshore originally named Bobkat III for an owner named Wertheimer. She was last documented as Shadow and was in pretty good shape back in the 1990s. Like many, she seems to have fallen on some hard times since then. There's no USCG documentation on her under the name Kindred Spirit.

All Huckins yachts from FPH's lifetime have a purposeful, vaguely military look. This doesn't mean they were all military boats. It may have been 'borrowed' by the USCG for wartime use, but Huckins' own documentation says they were not the original purchaser or owner.

If you are on a budget, don't even consider a wooden boat. They are expensive to maintain, and the expenses never stop!

Fixed that for you.

Hi,

What about this proven beast.

http://www.boattrader.com/listing/1979-Davis-Defever--97635005