Cruising on $500 per Month . . .

[seagypsy2012]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

Before I disagree with you're definition of a budget Let me say that I feel exactly the same way. There's no reason to make life miserable for yourself just because you think you don't have the money, or because thats how someone else did it in the past. The ideal is to find ways to create comfort, with as few resources as possible. For me, that meant saving several thousands of dollars on the initial boat purchase, which free's up that money for 'nice things'

A budget is a method of managing whatever amount of money you have. 'Budget cruising', for our purposes, is when you actively change you're pre-conceived notions of comfort, to fit a budget that makes cruising a possibility. Otherwise, without the ability to 'do without', you would not be able to manage such a small budget in the first place. Going without, is precisely what budget cruising is all about IMO.

But, like you said, we don't have to go without everything. It doesn't have to become 'survivalist sailing', or living in the pre-gps era, eating nothing but beans and rice, or whatever other extremes people have done in the past.

Stuff like a motor, toilet, fresh water tanks, dinghy with a motor, etc... are all relative 'comforts', but, instead of going without, we can change our perception of what is acceptable quality. Do research, DIY, find good used gear (even if it's 40 years old), chinese electrical stuff, a thermos instead of a hotwater heater, a simple head installation instead of bucket, etc... as opposed to completely doing without, or overspending on the quality level others deem necessary.

We are simply doing without a certain level of quality, not necessarily the actual convenience/luxury items themselves.

you right, "The ideal is to find ways to create comfort, with as few resources as possible" you also have to be prepared to fix things when they break down, like a motor on your dinghy, be prepared with some oars. your boat must be set up to operate everything manually when you have no electric, there was a big fancy yacht that there electric system failed and they had no way to get at their water supply or raise the anchor. you need to not depend on electric powered items, they do and can fail. if your car broke down and you had no phone and no one around for miles, then you would have to manually walk to where you was going. only depend on these items as a convienance not a nessesity. always be aware and prepared for these things to stop working, and then it will not be that big a deal when it happens, if you are prepared.

[wolfenzee]

No matter what I have to be able to live on $1000/mo. Right now I am barely scraping by, but 80% if my costs are things that will not exist when I give up my slip and other land ties and leave here. Found a friend who is a wizard with metal (and owes me a big old debt) who will make my chain plates and brass compass guard, all I have to do is supply the metal.

[SunDevil]

Originally Posted by elliebell

Thanks a TON to the guy who posted about the Anarchy Yacht Club and Hold Fast! Just watched it and it pretty much sums up it can be done, on much less even.... How can you argue with that!!

They did it cheap, but could have shopped around for a much better 'free' boat in todays market. And they had one of these (or similar model), as part of proper safety gear that they should have.
ACR ELECTRONICS Category II Manual Release Satellite3 EPIRB at West Marine

And a new mast, sails and rigging had to cost a little. But, there would be other things that they could have bought to make the journey a little more comfortable.

But still for 4 people, it was cheaper than taking a cruise or airfare and hotel rooms. And less stressful not having a schedule.

[jacee]

Hello there, my wife and I are trying to come up with a realistic monthly budget for two. in the bahamas. we dont need to live like kings but want to be comfortable.
what do you think a realistic budget would be per month?
Thanks
Jay

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by jacee

Hello there, my wife and I are trying to come up with a realistic monthly budget for two. in the bahamas. we dont need to live like kings but want to be comfortable.
what do you think a realistic budget would be per month?
Thanks
Jay

Welcome to CF Jacee....
Thats a hard one to answer.. for a start... what do you consider a good meal...
Many consider my main course an 'Entree..'
For example while I lived in NC a GF liked 16oz steaks for breakfast.. could wolf a whole pizza easily... myself I cant finish a Big Mac-burger and fries... and the chicken salads I've been served in New Bern would feed me for two days...
I hate eating in restaurants... the leftovers wasted leave me with a guilt complex...
a couple of slices of cheese n tomato's on toast will see me good for 6-8hrs...
also your essential personal habits.. tobacco, alcohol, chocolate... etc, etc... also allow for the wifes anti aging creams etc... they can be upto $200/jar...
Your boats setup also makes a difference... the more gadgets... the more reserve need when they fail... your main 'Budget Killer..'
Try starting with $500/person living allowance then trim or expand from there... to quite a few out there thats living like a king...

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

They did it cheap, but could have shopped around for a much better 'free' boat in todays market. And they had one of these (or similar model), as part of proper safety gear that they should have.
ACR ELECTRONICS Category II Manual Release Satellite3 EPIRB at West Marine

And a new mast, sails and rigging had to cost a little. But, there would be other things that they could have bought to make the journey a little more comfortable.

But still for 4 people, it was cheaper than taking a cruise or airfare and hotel rooms. And less stressful not having a schedule.

What I recall from reading the archives at the AYC, they spent about $1000 on the boat itself, and it came with everything included-Just nothing was installed... They bought the rebuilt yanmar, and rebuilt the main bulkhead, and purchased the Epirb. All said and done, they spent around $3k and several months worth of work for their first season around FL. Then for each following season they spent another $1000 and 1 month worth of work.

What I like was how many 'rules' they broke about what is acceptable gear. They had no water tank, for 4 people, they just jerry jugged empty milk jugs for all their water needs. They had like 4 small danforth anchors with almost no chain at all. Rowing them out in star/bahamian moorings as needed, tieing rope together as needed, instead of just having 200' of rode on each anchor...

They sailed 99% of the time even though they had a shiny new yanmar. Hank on sails, with reef points in the jibs. when their forestay broke, they had a new stem attachment made, but you can see in the vid they had the forestay kinda jurry rigged after that, but it lasted another 2 seasons

The boat was not a Pearson 30 BTW. Which just goes to show how little it matters what type of boat you get, when they can do it without even knowing what kind of boat they have in the first place

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by seagypsy2012

. . . you also have to be prepared to fix things when they break down, like a motor on your dinghy, . . .

IMHO, a major factor in a minimalist budget cruiser is the ability to fix things yourself - but - even better if you do not have it, you don't have to fix it.
- - When you have some thing these days, fixing it yourself is not the budget buster - your time and labor is "free." What is the budget buster are the parts you have to pay for to fix the motor. Last time I purchased a "power pack" for a Merc 9.9hp outboard the little thing cost US$140. Parts for diesel engines are also very expensive.
- - Sure, doing the labor yourself saves big bucks over hiring somebody at US$75+ per hour, but the cost of parts is also a major burden on your budget. And that brings up -
- - from Callmecrazy: "What I like was how many 'rules' they broke about what is acceptable gear."
which is probably a bigger factor in staying a minimalist budget cruiser. Whenever I hear or read that "you must have this or that" I cringe because before the "this or that" was invented folks were cruising the world just fine.
- - Sure thing, the new "this or that" may make cruising easier or more comfortable, but you can do without if you are willing to use your brain, common sense and extra effort to not get into situations where you need "this or that" to pull your butt out of the fire, so to speak.
- - I am personally all for the modern "this or that's" but for a minimalist cruiser they can save significant money if they are willing to do it the "old way." It takes more time and effort and sweat - but it gets them out there cruising.

[MacG]

One of the basic things to avoid is the specialised boatshop. Sailing to my new mooring, the Bft 10 gale forced me to lie down for a day or two. I needed some lampoil but could not find it in the local supermarket and had to take the ferry to cross this hellish river and found a boatshop were I bought the lampoil against 3 time the supermarket price.
Same for electrical equipment, plumbing accessories, engine parts etc. Most items can be bought outside those costly businesses and if you are a bit of creative you might find a lot more.

Luckily there is a huge 2nd hand market for parts and accessories in Holland where you may find almost everything at brakedown prices. I am outfitting my boat for the next season and save tremendously on costs doing it this way.

[AussieGeoff]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

As for the sextant/GPS stuff, the worse case is that you are cruising away from shore and a lightning strike takes out all your electronics. But, you should still know which direction your compass is pointing you in, and that the Sun comes up in the East and sets in the West. Then there is the North Star thing at night. But, most likely there will be other boats in the popular cruising spots. I think the really tight budget cruiser could take the risk and go without, but that is just my opinion.

I'm new at this, but I think you need redundant systems. Realistically, they can be a combination of electronic and non-electronic systems.

Handheld GPSRs are dirt cheap. I have a Magellan Meridian Platinum which has both basic maps for the country and marine charts (no depths, but at least buoys etc are marked).

It's fairly trivial (GPSGate is your friend) to feed that as Garmin binary mode to Garmin NRoute (you have to dig around to find it - Garmin no longer support it or have it availabl for D/L, probably to force you to buy a chart plotter.) which reads Garmin Bluecharts just fine. So you get a chartplotter on your laptop. Additionally, you can use GPSGate to put the GPS data stream on your onboard wired or wireless network (if you have a couple of wifi lappies, you have a potential network) to another GPSGate and another copy of NRoute and Blue charts. One sits on the chart table, one goes with you in the cockpit or berth or wherever. Rinse and repeat for as many as you like.

Additionally there is a crappy old Humminbird NS10 that drives the autohelm, it's nothing startling, and its maps are pretty crude, but it works. If it quits, I can feed the Magellan to the autohelm with a simple interface or if the Magellan quits, I patch the NS10 into the laptop system.

For more redundancy I will be getting some 'mouse' USB GPSRs, one for each laptop and they will also put the GPS stream on an IP port (just a different port number for each one). We then have multiple redundant systems, if a laptop dies, the others still work. If a GPS dies, you just reset GPSGate on the machine concerned to use one of the streams from another laptop on a virtual serial port created by GPSGate instead of the failed GPS.

Lighting is bad news. Hard to predict what it will do, but a couple of cheap h/h GPSRs in a grounded box somewhere is likely to be fine even if everything else isn't.

With just a couple of HH GPSR, you can plot positions on paper charts with ease and still have redundancy.

We go one step further and have a Telstra Elite 3G Hotspot (about the size of a small mobile phone) that can handle up to 8 wireless clients. The laptops all tie into this for weather and email etc and as a simple means of networking to a central 'hub'.

I do have a sextant and I'm learning to use it more effectively, but for coastal cruising the above method seems adequate, along with plain vanilla DR and basic coastal nav techniques like running fixes.

That's my solution. By the time I'm ready to tackle a passage rather than coastal, I will be sufficiently proficient with the sextant to get by.

AussieGeoff

[w1651]

I do have a sextant and I'm learning to use it more effectively, but for coastal cruising the above method seems adequate, along with plain vanilla DR and basic coastal nav techniques like running fixes.

Me thinks the above method is overkill for coastal cruising.
Where are you going to get your wifi when you do decide to cross a Ocean? A hand held GPS and a sextant with paper chart is all you need. And there is something to be said on Dead reckoning as well as finding what your looking for with just a sextant and your wits.

[s/v Beth]

Originally Posted by w1651

A hand held GPS and a sextant with paper chart is all you need. And there is something to be said on Dead reckoning as well as finding what your looking for with just a sextant and your wits.

I will double vote for that equation. In fact, if you are coastal cruising and can read markers, how about a chart and a compass. (OK add a spyglass if you want to do it easily) For instruments, how about a depth sounder.
I main aid to navigation is what is in your head not what is in your boat.

[AussieGeoff]

Originally Posted by w1651

Me thinks the above method is overkill for coastal cruising.

Probably, but I can do it, so I have it. I don't have a true chartplotter, the NS10 is a very basic device, it's quite old and doesn't have any detail. But it's ok to drive the autohelm. The detail charts are on the laptops or on paper.

Originally Posted by w1651

Where are you going to get your wifi when you do decide to cross a Ocean?

The onboard WIFI will still work for computer to computer connectivity, it just won't have internet connectivity once I get too far offshore. (We have an external 3G antenna for that and Telstra confirm it is ok up to 50nm off shore.) Naturally I would substitute HF and WINMOR (I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices for PACTOR modems, that's probably the biggest ripoff in recorded history - WINMOR is free - incentive to get a ham license if you don't have one already and the tones are generated by the sound card in the computer.) connected email for weather updates etc.

Originally Posted by w1651

A hand held GPS and a sextant with paper chart is all you need. And there is something to be said on Dead reckoning as well as finding what your looking for with just a sextant and your wits.

Sure, that's the minimum you need. And a compass of course. With deviation properly carded.

And I want to be able to use the sextant - I have software for the math, but I need to learn how to do it on paper, using an emphemeris etc - if there's an electronics blackout, the software is just magnetic regions on a metal disc in a dead plastic box.

Consider that elite WW2 Pathfinder Force Navigators couldn't get closer than a few miles even on the ground using a bubble sextant, even with the help of their leader who literally wrote the book on the art of aerial navigation (Ex Imperial Airways Navigator pre war) and it wasn't because they made mistakes, the accuracy required for more precise navigation is simply not achievable with portable equipment using reference points that are so distant.

But if you're in mid ocean, even a few miles of error is way better than a hundred if you are relying on DR with no way to accurately measure drift, leeway etc.


AussieGeoff

[goprisko]

Hi,

While enjoying Christmas Lunch with friends, an unknown
person(s) took my dink from where it was tied to the Cocoa Town Docks, and made off with it.

My dink was hand built by myself. The ash oars were carved by myself to a pattern by Pete Culler.

If you see it, please call the Cocoa Police Dept. or phone me at: 340-514-1588.

Of course, I am looking for a replacement 11 ft dink.


INDY

[atoll]

my vote is that dinghy thieves be treated the same way as horse thieves in the old days.
hope you get it back,probably kids,so look down wind,or in the next bay.

[goprisko]

Originally Posted by AussieGeoff

Probably, but I can do it, so I have it. I don't have a true chartplotter, the NS10 is a very basic device, it's quite old and doesn't have any detail. But it's ok to drive the autohelm. The detail charts are on the laptops or on paper.



The onboard WIFI will still work for computer to computer connectivity, it just won't have internet connectivity once I get too far offshore. (We have an external 3G antenna for that and Telstra confirm it is ok up to 50nm off shore.) Naturally I would substitute HF and WINMOR (I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices for PACTOR modems, that's probably the biggest ripoff in recorded history - WINMOR is free - incentive to get a ham license if you don't have one already and the tones are generated by the sound card in the computer.) connected email for weather updates etc.



Sure, that's the minimum you need. And a compass of course. With deviation properly carded.

And I want to be able to use the sextant - I have software for the math, but I need to learn how to do it on paper, using an emphemeris etc - if there's an electronics blackout, the software is just magnetic regions on a metal disc in a dead plastic box.

Consider that elite WW2 Pathfinder Force Navigators couldn't get closer than a few miles even on the ground using a bubble sextant, even with the help of their leader who literally wrote the book on the art of aerial navigation (Ex Imperial Airways Navigator pre war) and it wasn't because they made mistakes, the accuracy required for more precise navigation is simply not achievable with portable equipment using reference points that are so distant.

But if you're in mid ocean, even a few miles of error is way better than a hundred if you are relying on DR with no way to accurately measure drift, leeway etc.


AussieGeoff

The boat, particularly with a metal sextant like the friberger or the Tamya does not have the precession and acceleration problems common to bubble sextants in Bombers.

Given a 5 body fix, you can definitely get a position to within a mile, and with practice, to half that easily.

Given the size of your target, and it's visibility, this is more than adequate for the small boat navigator to make landfall.

Should you invest time in learning the habits of seabirds, you can discover your landfall's location from a distances as great as 100 miles.

The above discussion is more suited to a thread on the latest electronic navigation gimmicry.

Thousands of navigators made their landfalls using compass, sextant, stopwatch, and chronometer, including Kevin, myself, Eric Hiscock, Larry Pardey, Miles Smeeton, Annie Hill, and George Day.

You can too.

INDY