Boats, as with so many things in life, are in many ways about perspective. When Pete and Rose Carbocci first went looking to upgrade their cruising lifestyle, their perspective was that they didn’t want to have to sleep in a small V-berth or be forced to head ashore all the time looking for ice. That’s what they’d done for years while sailing a 30-foot O’Day without refrigeration on board. They had cruised all around the East End of New York’s Long Island, and out to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts, constantly looking for ice.
“We sold the O’Day, but then Covid hit,” Pete says. “We bought a little Sprinter van and toured the country for three years. Then we started looking at sailboats again.”
The van was fun and, in a lot of ways, similar to life aboard the O’Day, the couple says. And by the time the Carboccis were looking for a new boat after the pandemic, they also had grandchildren to think about. Pete had always liked the looks of Grand Banks trawlers but couldn’t budget for a new model. The couple became determined to find a Grand Banks at the right price that could get them back on the water in the way they envisioned.
“We spent a solid year and a half looking for an older Grand Banks in nice shape that we could make our own,” Pete says. “I dragged Rose up to Maine and out to Connecticut. We flew to Florida, rented a car. I had about 11 boats lined up to see on the way home. The second one we looked at we liked, and by the time we got home, that boat had hit the market. We thought we better pull the trigger.”
The Grand Banks 46 Classic Good Enough is a 1990 build. And it was, the Carboccis say, more than good enough for them. It had been for sale in 2024, then gone off the market to receive some upgrades. The prior owner had kept it for about a decade, and the owner before him, for about two decades. The Carboccis became the new owners by working with brokers Steve Fithian and his daughter, Sara, who are long known as experts on the Grand Banks brand. “We were in really good hands,” Pete says.
They closed on the boat at the start of this year and set about making Good Enough their own. It already had the core elements they had wanted from the start, including tanks that were in solid shape, decks that didn’t leak and new electronics at the helm.
“But it needs a little more love,” Pete says. “The owner before us maintained it well. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this boat, and he showed me all the receipts from all the yards and the service over the years. The boat was well taken care of. But the brightwork needs attention. We did some upholstering already, things like replacing the flybridge cushions.”
It just so happens that Pete taught high school woodworking for 30 years before he retired, so tackling a bit of brightwork, for him, will be a joy. And Rose says the amount of space aboard Good Enough felt like a palace as they brought the boat up from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to New York.
“We were just on the water for 33 days, and it was very comfortable,” she said in June, noting that during their travels in the Sprinter van, they’d had to do the “van shuffle” to stay out of each other’s way. “The Grand Banks has plenty of room. You can be outside when the weather is nice, or if it’s overcast you can be in the cabin, which is roomy. It needed some cleaning but nothing too bad. I used the oven, I used the stove, I found it all comfortable.”
Pete says the feeling he got while cruising up the Eastern Seaboard reminded him of his favorite sailing days. “There’s such a yachtie feel to a Grand Banks,” he says. “It’s kind of like being in a sailboat with all the wood and the cabinetry, but you have all the visibility that a trawler provides. You step down below, and you’re not in a cave.”
One of the big modifications they plan to make is adding solar power, something Pete learned a lot about when he had a system installed on a cabin they owned in the woods. Good Enough already has a new inverter, which they replaced almost immediately. And while they love having a proper fridge and freezer, they want to eliminate the sound of the generator running at night to power the appliances.
“We would keep it running until 7 or 8 at night, and then drop the anchor and turn it off,” Pete says of their cruise up the coast. “We didn’t want the noise, but then we really couldn’t open the fridge until we turned it back on in the morning. I just found a gentleman who said he can move the refrigerator and freezer onto the inverter circuit to run off battery power when we’re just sitting.”
The couple, who are in their 60s, are planning to take Good Enough all around their favorite cruising haunts, as well as up the Hudson River and out to Maine. And from their perspective, some of the on-board systems that other cruisers might consider limiting are like living in luxury.
“The van had held about 30 gallons of water. This boat holds 300 gallons of water,” Pete says. “We feel like we’re almost in a house on this thing, like there are no limits.”
This article was originally published in the August 2026 issue.
