HOW TO MAKE MONEY WHILE SAILING?

[jambrw]

Buy a metal detector

[hamburking]

Originally Posted by jambrw

Buy a metal detector

Become a certified bikini inspector.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by jambrw

Buy an 'underwater metal detector

That's better..

[LoudMusic]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Vagabond and Delos really are video production companies that co-incidentally happen to sail. Pretty much like Rick Steves or any of the other successful travel authors, they are really putting out videos on "travel" not on "sailing". And there's nothing wrong with that, but it does take a particular skill set to run a video production company, or a travelogue.

I don't think Delos and Vagabonde are good examples of video production companies that sail. They both took up video making long after they began sailing.

The ones that come to mind as your description are Gone With the Wynns and Sea Change. These two were actually trained in arts pertaining to videography prior to setting sail.

Never-the-less, I wouldn't bank on making money from sailing videos unless I had a few interesting and attractive women on board who were willing to be eye candy for the world.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by inchcailloch

Governments and particularly the tax man does not like competition!

OK, slap a nice name on it, change to Privateer as opposed to Pirate.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by jambrw

Buy a metal detector

Picking up misc change on the beach can work.

If you find anything good, it's hard to stay legal when the govt calls it historical patrimony and ties it up in legal proceedings.

[hellosailor]

A pirate is self-employed. That's very different from a privateer, who typically sailed under "letters of marque and reprisal" that were issued by a Crown or State.

One is a loose cannon, the other is a faithful government agent, who only gets paid a commission if they collect revenue for the government. Kinda like a tax man who gets no salary, just commission.

In theory, letters of marque and reprisal can no longer legally be issued by the US, but in practice that's always been debated and I'm sure you could ask Donald for one.

[MicHughV]

I was an avid diver back in the day....I'd sell fish and lobster I caught to other yachties.
Was also a fair mechanic and fixed engines, etc.
I did most of my trade with other yachties so as not piss off the locals...
It didn't earn me much, but paid the bills for the best part of many years.

Making money was not really the reason I left to go cruising, if I had $10 in mah pocket I was a rich man, when it got down to 0.10c I knew I had to stop and earn some beer money..

[Hasbeen]

Most of my cruising was in the Pacific islands. After a year wandering around through the Solomons, North of mainland New Guinea & to other places like Guam, the Carolines & the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, I was offered a 2 month job reliving the parts manager in a Rabaul company, while he went on his long leave. I joined the Rabaul yacht club, & later the Honiara yacht club, on Guadalcanal. I made a point of getting to their major races each year. When a club only has a few yachts, they love any extras, fast or slow that join them.



I got to know many plantation owners in the isolated atolls & smaller islands, & was asked to repair some equipment. I'm no professional mechanic, but was better than anyone else they could get to these isolated places.


Then one found I had experience dynel sheathing, & asked me to do a new dugout canoe. These were used to load copra on the small 120 to 150Ft cargo boats. This was some canoe, 40 ft long, 7'6" beam, & they made a 25 Ft canoe from the other end of the log. It had been hollowed by burning in the traditional method, & took a lot of work, but ended up a great boat.


One night during this job he said what he really wanted was a jetty, but couldn't afford professional steel pile driving. He had tried twice, with first coconut log piles hand set, & again with hardwood logs brought in at considerable expense, but the teredo worms had said thank you, & destroyed them within a year.


I had heard of poured in place cement piles in coral bases, & suggested he might try that, using the dozens of used 44 gallon drums his fuel had come in as formers. Next day I got out the scuba gear & we went looking for a suitable sight. We didn't need scuba gear, there were number of spots where the coral flat was only a few yards wide, with the face falling very steeply down to 80 to 100 ft deep. With the piles in 5 ft of water the copra boats keel would be in 30 to 40 Ft.


We blew the sand away from our chosen spot with a high pressure pump, prepared the coral face to bond to cement with a pick, drove some 1" reo into the coral, fitted our 3 X 44 gallon drum former to the coral, & poured a pile using coral & sand from the beach, & some oldish cement he had lying around.


A month later he contacted me to tell me that after allowing curing time he attacked the pile with a rope from the tractor, then from the next copra boat. It was fine. Would I give him a list of what to order, & come out & over see the job when it arrived. We had a great time working out how to actually build a jetty, after pouring the piles, & it worked out great.


I had done this as a bit of fun helping a mate, but when I got back to Rabaul a couple of months later there was a quite substantial cheque waiting for me, but also 5 requests to build jetties for other plantations. The copra boat skippers had been enthusiastically spreading the word.


I build a dozen of these over the next 3 years, taking a month or so each, which provided great cruising funds. I'm sure there would be other services people in the islands would need today, particularly in modern technology.

[MicHughV]

My girlfriend at the time made jewelry from conch feet. Whenever I could, I would dive for conch. She had brought along a jewelry kit and a mini-paint kit....the jewelry kit had earring hangers, chains, etc, she would take a conch foot and paint a palm tree or some other nautical theme on it, drill a small hole and attach it to the hanger. Other conch feet she would hang on a chain with various baubles or small shells.

It was a wildly successful enterprise and she would sell everything she made. It required little room. Did everything on the dinette table. She knew her market...other women, who snapped these up.

[r spicer]

Watch GentleSailing on Utube. That’s the most informative video I’ve ever seen. AND NO T& A. No boob shots or butt cheeks on deck <.>

[Shrew]

Like we don't have enough of these threads?? We had to resurrect one that has been dead for 4 years??

[Sailing August]

Pay your house off and rent it.....$2000 a month.
Save enough money to bridge you until you reach social security age if you are younger than 65 in the USA.
$1500 a month for 10 years = $180,000.00 USD
$3500 a month will sustain a cruising life style. Have $3500 a month available but try to live on half that and save for a rainy day.... they will come.
If you have not prepared, saved and planned, your cruising career will be a short one or at least until you run out of cash.
Only a handful of young, beautiful and talented Youtube sailors have managed to make a career of it. For the 99.9% of us....you will not make enough money off of social media to sustain a cruising lifestyle.

[JC Reefer]

Originally Posted by Sailing August

Pay your house off and rent it.....$2000 a month.
Save enough money to bridge you until you reach social security age if you are younger than 65 in the USA.
$1500 a month for 10 years = $180,000.00 USD

Don’t bother with long term rentals, AirBnb it. The way I do it, there is more to setup upfront but it’s worth it. Houses are under LLCs (less liability) and we have a management company running everything day to day.

Much better margins [emoji102].

I have a 1,200 square foot property that was rented for $2,250/month 1 years ago. After all expenses I would make $500/month. I still have a mortgage, $1200/month.

I switched it to short term rental and the annual average gross is over 10k per month. Expenses are much higher with short term rental. There is the management company, hospitality taxes, fees, higher upkeep costs, so on.

Anyway, that little house puts 3k in the bank after all expenses are paid, on average. This March was our biggest month on record. It grossed 18k earning me $6,000 after all expenses were accounted for.

Short term rentals are changing the cost of living in many places, which is a sad reality, but the numbers are too good to resist if you are in such a position.

Just my 2 cents.

[seaductive]

Rental income and dividends. I also have a lot of different types of tools and skills that can make decent money in a pinch. I have learned it’s not so much how much money you can make, but how much you can save by learning how to do all your own work. If you must pay for someone to work on your boat or have to find someone with special tools, you will be working longer and harder to make money to pay them. Sailboats don’t run on wind, it’s true that they run on MONEY.