While my wife and I sail our small Corsair 750 Sprint, Dulcinea, on the Carquinez Straits and up the Napa River and out onto the various Bays that spread out to the east and west, I dream of sailing the open oceans. I get all the sailing magazines. I relish heavy weather stories and tales of sailing to distant islands that appear like slivers of dark sky floating on the horizon. I read about the performance of new sailboats. I chart courses on Google Earth. And I dream of handling sails on some small boat that wouldn’t be overpowering, say a Hallberg-Rassy 342, in the middle of the South Pacific, heading south toward the Marquises or west toward Hawaii and Japan. In my future I visualize the vast open ocean where there’s nothing except our small boat, me, my wife, and the rolling waves and wind.

So I’m not sure I’m ready for the latest cruise innovation on the world’s ugliest boat that I read about today in the New York Times. Four Seasons is offering this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase, for a mere $3.8 million, an 800 square-foot condo on a ship that forever sails, though it’s expected that the ship will be in port some 250 days each year. So really it’s a huge hotel (boatel?) stuck in a marina most of the time.

Can you imagine being on this monstrosity day after day, night after night, on this oceanship without a tree except those in pots, with others like you who have spent so much for so little and the privilege of being so close to others just like you?

If you feel that 800 square feet is a bit cramped — to put this in perspective, the Halberg-Rassy 342 is less than 300 square feet — residences as large as 7,000 square feet are also available, but I hesitate to ask the price — simple math would put it at about $33 mill — as I search my pants’ pockets for spare change.

Four Seasons Ocean Residences

WHAT Residential ocean liner.

WHERE Launching initially from London.

AMENITIES A spa and concierge service, among others.

PRICES Residences starting at $3.8 million.

STATUS Sales began recently, and the ship is scheduled to begin service in 2010.

DEVELOPER BV International Ocean Holdings.

CONTACT (877) 507-3393 or www.oceanresidences.com.

DETAILS The Four Seasons — a 719-foot, 13-deck ship operated by the hotel company that will be filled entirely with residences — will begin construction next spring in Helsinki, Finland. Its 112 residences are described as nothing like standard cruise ship cabins. The one- to four-bedroom units, sold in whole ownership, will range from 800 to more than 7,000 square feet and will have full-length windows, walk-in closets, terraces and full-size kitchens. Each residence will be credited $12,000 a year for food, drinks and spa services. Amenities, other than the spa, will include a fitness center, a pool, a shopping promenade, four restaurants, a specialty food market, a wine cellar, a business center, putting greens and a driving range. Sailboats and motorized water scooters will be launched from the ship’s marina area, which will also be used for diving trips and shuttles to shore. Round-the-clock concierge service will be available to help arrange on-shore activities, and in-room dining will be offered. Plans call for the ship initially to follow a two-year fixed itinerary that will take it to Antarctica, the Amazon and the 2012 Olympics in London. During that time, it is expected that the ship will spend an average of 250 days a year in port.