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So last December, I decided I wanted to live on a sailboat. This was prompted by a few things - problem was I'd never set foot on a sailboat in my life! Anyway, at the end of the year I ended up buying a 36' 1980 Hunter (which was the first boat I looked at - a huge no-no) and set about restoring it. I ended up moving onto it at the start of July, and so far it's been great! I have redone 100% of the AC and DC wiring, added a bunch of new safety features (GFCIs, ELCI etc), all the plumbing, new hot water tank etc etc. I currently am in a marina, but looking to add a bunch of solar panels and go 'on the hook' next summer I have a blog going at https://www.tuglife.ca (baddddd pun), if anyone has any questions about living on a boat, I'll try to answer them, I'm sure there are a number of other liveaboards here, and it'd be great if they weighed in with their experiences.
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Sep 18, 2014 18:22
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What was your motivation behind purchasing a sailboat instead of a powerboat if you've had no experience? It seems a powerboat would have been the easier way to go.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:59
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Have you learned how to sail it, or will you just play it by ear? I heartily recomend the latter.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:07
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You wanna find the storms thats where the wind is at.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:53
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Where are you? I've a little money spare that I can invest in some marine salvage and rescue businesses.
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Sep 19, 2014 02:08
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u gonna die bitch
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Sep 19, 2014 02:27
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keykey posted:What was your motivation behind purchasing a sailboat instead of a powerboat if you've had no experience? It seems a powerboat would have been the easier way to go. I far, FAR prefer how sailboats look, and they are a ton cheaper to run - even using their engines. I ran mine for ~30 hours on one tank, and a tank costs 40 bucks. A powerboat will swallow that up in a couple of hours. Of course, they go a lot faster than 6.5 knots as well. There is also something a lot more - romantic? Is that the right word? About sailboats. I also like the option to go sailing long distances, or go for a cruise and being powered by just the wind. Aggressive pricing posted:Have you learned how to sail it, or will you just play it by ear? I heartily recomend the latter. I took a weeklong sailing course, and then a couple of days lessons on my own boat. I'm pretty good at docking/undocking now, and I can sail along pretty well now, though I'm still not comfortable single-handing it. The foresail is a 155% genoa which is a bit much for me and for the conditions around here, so I'm gonna try to change that for a jib. Alctel fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 05:36
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How moldy are your underwear? Is it black mold, or just sort of a pervasive mildew? If you can't tell I'm pretty jealous. It's pretty hard to live aboard in the Bay Area (seriously, it got contentious a couple decades ago and now there's weird requirements and big waiting lists).
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Sep 19, 2014 06:14
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why did you decide to live on a boat if you've never been on a boat
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Sep 19, 2014 10:25
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evensevenone posted:How moldy are your underwear? Is it black mold, or just sort of a pervasive mildew? Also horribly expensive. I hear figures like $1500-2000 a month being thrown around! Jeza posted:why did you decide to live on a boat if you've never been on a boat Why not? I liked the idea of owning my own space, and buying a house that wasn't somewhere awful would have been $600k+ Also I love fishing and it's pretty great being able to sneak off after work and salmon fish for a couple hours
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Sep 19, 2014 15:14
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Single handing is no big deal, just have a plan for what happens when you fall off the boat, and then have a backup plan for that backup plan. I have seen my boat sail away while I was in the water and the boat was full of people who had the ability to at least bring it to a halt... I can't imagine doing it with noone on the boat and just watching it sail into the sunset.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:55
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How much did your boat cost? How did you become financially independent enough to buy a boat and plan to go on the hook? I'm really interested in this lifestyle as well.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:32
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Not the OP, but I am a partner in a Catalina 25. It's from the late 70s/early 80s. It's probably worth less than $10k. The boat the OP is referencing is probably worth 15k to 20k depending on condition. You could live on my Catalina no problem. Large berth, galley, very small head, and enough room to stretch out up top. Boats are a huge pain in the rear end, and people want to sell them as soon as they buy them. They take a huge drop in price, and cost money just to own (i.e. slip or buoy fees). It is relatively easy to roll in with $10k in cash and buy a $15k-$20k boat if you find a guy with a pissed off wife and in dire need of cash. This is a boat that would have been worth $100k when it was new 10 years ago. Like a car, but worse.
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Sep 19, 2014 19:17
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What challenges arise specific to living on a boat (as opposed to just moving into a tiny house or your mom's basement)? Do you pay real estate taxes if your address is a marina?
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Sep 19, 2014 21:41
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photomikey posted:Single handing is no big deal, just have a plan for what happens when you fall off the boat, and then have a backup plan for that backup plan. I have seen my boat sail away while I was in the water and the boat was full of people who had the ability to at least bring it to a halt... I can't imagine doing it with noone on the boat and just watching it sail into the sunset. That's pretty much my worst nightmare, that's what they think happened to these guys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaz_II The biggest thing about single-handing for me is docking... it's real useful to have someone to hop off and steady the boat. I guess I'll come up with a technique eventually. photomikey posted:Not the OP, but I am a partner in a Catalina 25. It's from the late 70s/early 80s. It's probably worth less than $10k. The boat the OP is referencing is probably worth 15k to 20k depending on condition. You could live on my Catalina no problem. Large berth, galley, very small head, and enough room to stretch out up top. Boats depreciate like crazy for a while, but then tend to stop. Then the cost almost entirely depends on the condition. Two identical 33 foot boots could go from anywhere from 5k to 100k. rakovsky maybe posted:How much did your boat cost? How did you become financially independent enough to buy a boat and plan to go on the hook? I'm really interested in this lifestyle as well. Mine was 15k, I negotiated down from 25k. I could have probably got even lower but I was inexperienced - next time I'll do a lot better. I've probably put around ~25k into it so far, including drydock, transport and tools. I could have done it a lot cheaper I reckon, but having to hire captains to move the boat 3-4 times cost a bunch (this was before I could move it myself), and I was hauled out faaaar longer than I should have been, again due to inexperience. In addition, I replaced every single bit of hose and wiring, as well as the electrical panel, water tank, upholstery etc etc. None of those were really essential, just what I wanted to do to feel sure that I knew how everything worked, and if something broke, help me narrow it down fast.. I have a pretty good job that pays a lot, otherwise I would have gotten a smaller boat, or left some upgrades till a lot later. A 27 foot boat doesn't cost much to live on (depending where you are) and is still large enough (mostly) to have an enclosed head, galley, hot water and pressure water. Storage is a lot more cramped though. Honestly, if you take your time and find a good boat for cheap, you can pretty much do it no matter what your financial state. Faerunner posted:What challenges arise specific to living on a boat (as opposed to just moving into a tiny house or your mom's basement)? All taxes are rolled into the marina fee, which is around ~550 for a boat my size, a month. I guess the biggest challenge right now is that I haven't put a new shower in yet, so have to shower at work or the marina. Also, getting rid of stuff is really challenging - I have a storage locker of stuff still I am gradually whittling down. Storms also take some getting used to - the first few times I woke up in a panic and went outside at 2am to make sure my boat was still tied securely... Also, everyone on the wharf knows everybody else, kind of like a small town. I like it now, but it took a bit of getting used to everyone knowing my business.
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Sep 19, 2014 22:42
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What do you do about the otters when they drink your beer?
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Sep 19, 2014 22:50
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Little known fact, fingernails are an essential tool of a sailor, so stop chewing them.
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Sep 20, 2014 15:45
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How much would you say your costs have been so far, excluding the moorage? I know Nanaimo has a bunch of Brent Swain designs living free off the hook in the harbor, have they cracked down on that in Victoria yet like they did in False Creek back in 2010? E: Answered my own question. Holy poo poo, they're evicting on-hook liveaboards all the way up to Port Hardy. 
Rime fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 20:33
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Was your father a bayman? Can you confirm that you can't make a living as a bayman anymore?
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Nov 1, 2014 06:12
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Rime posted:How much would you say your costs have been so far, excluding the moorage? I know Nanaimo has a bunch of Brent Swain designs living free off the hook in the harbor, have they cracked down on that in Victoria yet like they did in False Creek back in 2010? Uh, excluding moorage probably... 25 grand? Everything is pretty much all fixed up now As to the on-hook locations in the gorge... I've heard some sketchy sketchy stuff about them, so I'd probably avoid that
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Nov 1, 2014 23:41
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I keep bringing this up in every thread I see on this subject, but it bears repeating: You know all those services you take for granted on land? You know, electricity, water, sewage, etc. They become "systems" on a boat. These systems rarely work the way you'd expect them if they are not in some expensive form of disrepair. I have been around boats of all kinds pretty much all my life. They can be fun, but be advised it is an expensive lifestyle.
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Nov 2, 2014 00:50
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Origin posted:I keep bringing this up in every thread I see on this subject, but it bears repeating: Trash also turns into a big deal. Trash is one of those things that you think "I couldn't possibly generate that much trash", until you realize that every single thing you do generates trash.
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Nov 3, 2014 01:00
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Is it legal to just poo/pee off the side if you're in open water?
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Nov 3, 2014 18:04
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Faux-rear end Nonsense posted:Is it legal to just poo/pee off the side if you're in open water? Water poop is actually the best poop.
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Nov 3, 2014 20:10
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What kind of head do you have? One of the hand-pumped ones? As a follow-up question: if so, have you ever had food poisoning or a disease that gave you the shits while living on-board? Having to pump runny poo poo out of the head six times a day for a week while already feeling awful due to whatever bug I got has to be one of the worst things I've ever gone through.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:04
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Could you potentially dock the boat without the onboard motor? I ask, because one day your engine will die and you'll be forced to dock the hard way. If you don't know how, please learn, unless you wanna learn from an insanely expensive law suit.Alctel posted:The foresail is a 155% genoa which is a bit much for me and for the conditions around here, so I'm gonna try to change that for a jib. What? You're using the jib in one of your blog pictures. The roller-furler you fixed is for the job. I hope this sentence is wordsalad for "The foresail is 155% genoa which is a bit much for me, so I typically just use the jib." If so, good on you, that's how you're supposed to sail in harsh conditions. If not, just use the jib with no main and you'll be fine. Just an FYI, I can almost guarantee that won't be the last time you fix the roller-furler. Major credit for fixing it. I doubt I'd know how to fix a roller-furler and if I were in that position, I'd probably just be like "Screw it, I'll just roll and unroll manually." As for the piss jug... (gently caress it, bring on the red text.) I hope your piss jug is a strangely/uncommonly shaped bottle. If it's an empty water jug, I can almost guarantee there will come a time when you mistake your piss jug for your water jug. Only other real question is what are you able to do/what do you know about sailing? Do you know how to read wind at all? Do you know the difference between a tack and jibe? Beam reach vs broad reach? Do you understand the concept of ley lines? Can you tell when you need to trim/let out lines? (If not, google the term "tell tale" It's an extremely simple concept that can teach you a lot about maximizing speed.) liquorlanche fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 18:51
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liquorlanche posted:What? You're using the jib in one of your blog pictures. The roller-furler you fixed is for the job. I hope this sentence is wordsalad for "The foresail is 155% genoa which is a bit much for me, so I typically just use the jib." If so, good on you, that's how you're supposed to sail in harsh conditions. If not, just use the jib with no main and you'll be fine. I think he means change the genoa (overlapping jib) out for a smaller jib sail.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:27
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Alctel posted:Why not? I liked the idea of owning my own space, and buying a house that wasn't somewhere awful would have been $600k+ Is somewhere awful like anywhere outside Beverley Hills or did the real estate market make that much of a comeback?
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Nov 6, 2014 03:29
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Eskaton posted:Is somewhere awful like anywhere outside Beverley Hills or did the real estate market make that much of a comeback? 600K would get you a 1BR at best condo in some of the cheaper Beverly Hills zip codes.
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Nov 6, 2014 03:45
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Faux-rear end Nonsense posted:Is it legal to just poo/pee off the side if you're in open water? You have to be a certain distance off shore, 3 nautical miles I think in Canada PT6A posted:What kind of head do you have? One of the hand-pumped ones? I've got one of the dissecting/composting heads, the Natures Head. I had the flu while I was on board and spent a lot of time in the marina toilet, yuk. I've never had food poisoning in my life but if I did get it, I think i'd just kill myself instead of trying to deal with it. That sounds completely awful liquorlanche posted:Could you potentially dock the boat without the onboard motor? I ask, because one day your engine will die and you'll be forced to dock the hard way. If you don't know how, please learn, unless you wanna learn from an insanely expensive law suit. - Vessels are not allowed inside the harbour with sails up, so I haven't really practised. I'm a member of a towing service, so I'm hoping that will save me - The boat has a genoa on it, I want to remove that and put on a jib on the foresail instead (as Man_of_Teflon said) - Thanks! Unrolling it manually wasn't actually an option since the whole thing was jammed, and once I got the sail off it was fairly easy to see what was wrong. Having the original manual helped. - The piss jug is part of the head. Not chance of mistaking it for a water jug! - I took a week long sailing course, so I know the points of sail, tacking/jibing and reefing - basically all the basics. I'm just slow as poo poo doing ANYTHING right now Eskaton posted:Is somewhere awful like anywhere outside Beverley Hills or did the real estate market make that much of a comeback? I live in Victoria, unless you want to live in the suburbs (blergh) it's gonna be pricey
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Nov 6, 2014 08:13
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If you want to get good at the basics of sailing without loving up your house, see if anyone else down the marina has a small sailboat (IE laser, sunfish, etc) they would let you borrow for a few hours. There's a few differences between small craft sailing and large craft sailing (IE, hiking out, getting smashed by the boom way more often), but you'll get really good at reading wind and being able to handle yourself aboard with nothing but wind to power you, how to use your sail to help you turn, how to get the most speed out of wind conditions, etc. A weeklong sailing class is nice, but a lot of that stuff is practical experience, and until you do it until it's second nature, you're going to gently caress stuff up, and small boats are designed so that its really hard to completely break them beyond repair - capsizing happens pretty drat frequently, so short of completely turtling and getting the mast stuck on the bottom you're not going to ruin a sunfish learning to sail on it. Meanwhile, your house may not tip as easy, but when it does, its a lost cause entirely. And if you're not good at reading wind and you suddenly sail into worse conditions than you planned on and have everything trimmed in tight for a gentle breeze and are down in the head or something, you may wind up over before you can let everything out. How do you handle electricity/wifi? I'm assuming the marina has wifi, do you run a generator/the engine? Small solar setup for a phone/laptop? When you go live off hook, you planning on getting a 4G data plan, or just going completely without the internet? As a radio geek, what radio setup do you have?
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Nov 6, 2014 10:22
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So can anyone just buy a boat, pay to park it in a marina, and make it their permanent residence? Does your mail get delivered to your boat? I may be ignorant but I don't know anything about this type of life.
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Nov 6, 2014 15:23
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Do you have heat yet??? You aren't a real Canadian and will get cold in the winter.
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Nov 6, 2014 15:55
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Motley posted:So can anyone just buy a boat, pay to park it in a marina, and make it their permanent residence? Does your mail get delivered to your boat? I may be ignorant but I don't know anything about this type of life. I always assumed it had to meet certain basic requirements to prevent people from declaring their primary residence to be a row boat anchored in international waters.
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Nov 6, 2014 15:55
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Alctel posted:I've never had food poisoning in my life but if I did get it, I think i'd just kill myself instead of trying to deal with it. That sounds completely awful Recommendable, really. You can probably avoid the issue if you exercise common sense like "don't eat the questionable buffet food in Brazil that has flies crawling all over it," but to be fair, it'd been since we left Cape Town (about three weeks crossing) since we'd had something not prepared on the boat, so pretty much everything looked delicious.
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Nov 6, 2014 20:08
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Alctel posted:- Vessels are not allowed inside the harbour with sails up, so I haven't really practised. I'm a member of a towing service, so I'm hoping that will save me Sailing into a marina could be hard as poo poo depending on its layout and the conditions, I would have thought dropping the hook and trying to sort out the engine would be the best bet. And if the towing service wasn't available then I imagine the marina would assist if you called them up on your VHF? Sailing to me is all about poo poo going wrong. Even on the most prepared boat with the best crew, things happen and you have to deal with the situation. Some people love it, some people hate it - seems like you are enjoying yourself and taking it slowly and learning from your mistakes. Cool thread and blog, I look forward to more adventures.
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Nov 7, 2014 22:24
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Crazyeyes posted:I always assumed it had to meet certain basic requirements to prevent people from declaring their primary residence to be a row boat anchored in international waters. What would be wrong with that? Not a rowboat, obviously, but there are thousands and thousands of people (mostly retirees) who sell their house, buy a sailboat and spend years just sailing around the world. I assume they just leave a mailing address with relatives back home. I've always wanted to do this when I'm older, not so much because I love sailing, I just love the idea of travelling around the world in the comfort of a moveable house.
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Nov 9, 2014 10:41
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Squido posted:
This. So many time this. I only do small craft (<15'...mostly lasers and sunfish on lakes) where it's a lot harder to gently caress things up royally, but there was a time where I was hiked out too far and lost my hiking strap and get to watch my boat sail back to shore without me, dumped a boat on purpose to take a leak and it accidentally turtled and had to get towed in by the park rangers cause I needed to completely rerig the thing and couldn't do it on the water, and those are just the tip of the iceberg. (also, don't hit icebergs. learn from the titanic!) On the other hand, the best way to gauge if someone will love sailing is take them out on a small craft in good wind, haul in all the way, and watch how they react. I've turned one friend on to sailing via this method and have one friend go "OH gently caress NO" whenever i mention going sailing for the same reason. 35mph on a laser feels like 3x that if you're not used to it.
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Nov 10, 2014 14:47
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AA is for Quitters posted:If you want to get good at the basics of sailing without loving up your house, see if anyone else down the marina has a small sailboat (IE laser, sunfish, etc) they would let you borrow for a few hours. There's a few differences between small craft sailing and large craft sailing (IE, hiking out, getting smashed by the boom way more often), but you'll get really good at reading wind and being able to handle yourself aboard with nothing but wind to power you, how to use your sail to help you turn, how to get the most speed out of wind conditions, etc. A weeklong sailing class is nice, but a lot of that stuff is practical experience, and until you do it until it's second nature, you're going to gently caress stuff up, and small boats are designed so that its really hard to completely break them beyond repair - capsizing happens pretty drat frequently, so short of completely turtling and getting the mast stuck on the bottom you're not going to ruin a sunfish learning to sail on it. I jsut found out the local yacht club does racing every Sunday, so I am going to volunteer as crew on someone elses boat. I'll also try to see if I can rent a tiny sailboat, that sounds a lot of fun. AA is for Quitters posted:How do you handle electricity/wifi? I'm assuming the marina has wifi, do you run a generator/the engine? Small solar setup for a phone/laptop? When you go live off hook, you planning on getting a 4G data plan, or just going completely without the internet? As a radio geek, what radio setup do you have? The berths actually have hookups for cable modems, as well as 120 volt AC at least post, so I have my own internet and electricity - the AC is on a separate circuit to the DC and all the outlets only go to it. No inverter, so when I'm out none of the AC sockets work. As part of the refits next year I'll be adding shitload of solar power/wind generator + a new battery bank + an inverter. With some of the new solar tech coming out I hope to be able to get 2000 watts of solar panels + a small wind genny which should allow me to do all kinds of crazy poo poo without AC power. I currently have a handheld VHF radio, and a mounted DSC one (that I hooked up to GPS) that came with the boat. Sadly, it's mounted inside the cabin which is pretty useless for sailing around, so I am going to swap it out for another model that has the ability to have additional wireless handheld transmitter/speakers. For now I just use the handheld one, not DSC though. Motley posted:So can anyone just buy a boat, pay to park it in a marina, and make it their permanent residence? Does your mail get delivered to your boat? I may be ignorant but I don't know anything about this type of life. Well, yes, but most marinas around here require references and proof of insurance (and to get that you have to pass a survey to make sure it isn't a floating deathtrap). A lot of marinas don't take liveaboards either. mastershakeman posted:Do you have heat yet??? You aren't a real Canadian and will get cold in the winter. I have a little oil electric heater, I haven't managed to hook up my fancy diesel one yet. I had to send a bunch of parts back. Squido posted:Sailing into a marina could be hard as poo poo depending on its layout and the conditions, I would have thought dropping the hook and trying to sort out the engine would be the best bet. And if the towing service wasn't available then I imagine the marina would assist if you called them up on your VHF? Yeah, a huge thing I've tried to do is put in redundancies for critical systems. If I had an engine failure outside the harbour and the tow service wasn't available, there is an auxiliary coast guard + actual coast guard station right at the entrance to the harbour. Hopefully they would come to the rescue. Thanks for the kind words, I've been travelling a ton the last few weeks so haven't updated it for a while. Hope to do it in the next few days. Alctel fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 00:32
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Alctel posted:
On that note, what does getting towed by the pseudo or actual coast guard entail? Would you have to pay them back if it wasn't a life threatening emergency? This might seem like a silly question, but I've never really thought about it and now I'm intrigued.
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Nov 11, 2014 07:35
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