I'm a stay-at-home dad. I took a year off sailing after our daughter was born, but even with full-time parent responsibilities, I've been able to keep up a fulfilling race schedule. I'm not making the 20 or so events a year I did when I was single, but I'm still having a good time. I'm primarily a crew, but I bought an F18 in 2006 and have had a great time putting together events with quite a number of skippers in the last three years. I was fortunate to hook up with a steady crew for a full season, but a move across the country broke up that party. Even then, it was not too difficult to fall back into the routine of making some phone calls and drumming up someone fun to sail with for a weekend.

I would encourage you to hang onto the boat unless you have a sense it would sell without much effort for a price that you wouldn't regret. Here in the US, prices have taken a bit of a jump this year, so it may prove expensive to replace the boat later. If you think your wife is willing to give it a go, try getting a sitter, grandparent or nanny to watch the tyke for a day sometime next season - I've known several couples that got right back to racing once sleep deprivation and feeding schedules became less of an issue.

As others have said - congrats. It changes everything, but I think having a family is well worth the shake-up.