Is the Cruising Lifestyle Dying ?

[SurferShane]

Originally Posted by Butler

Shane, there is absolutely no vitrol in this and I don't know how old you are but if you are fortunate enough to make it into your 50s and 60s you will understand why some might take offense....,,,


I often find myself quoting Betty Davis these days:
"Getting old isn't for sissys"

The generation gap is alive and well!

Its not that I don’t understand the underlying conflict. Even when I did my apprenticeship in my mid to late 20’s I had other workers making snide comments about age. Then in my late 30’s I completed a double uni degree. In the first degree having to do group work with kids who had no respect for life experience was no joy.

Now in my early 40’s I still surf harder than ever and am expanding my waterman exploits cruising. The cruising is just a logical progression from all the time I have spent around the ocean and on boats.

One of the reasons it has taken me this long to get my first decent boat is that I have never been in a hurry to cross the finish line; I just take life as it comes. In this advance, aging is something that should be done gracefully.

[Sabbatical II]

Originally Posted by timbenner

A question regarding your post crossed my mind. WHAT IS OLD??

Well I'm 53. Do you want my definition or my teenage daughters?

Greg

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by tager

I have made all the mistakes.

I remember at that age my father (and every other adult) didn't know squat and I knew it all.

Well, I must have forgot a ton of stuff, 'cuz I'm still learning today.

[VirtualVagabond]

Every time I come close to knowing it all... 'it all' changes

[troppo]

A couple of thoughts:

(1) I am old (but don't think of myself that way) and I am happy if you can tell me the places where the young good looking ladies sail so I can sail there too.

(2) My 20 yo son who lives away from home initially had only the slightest interst in 'dad's obsession' about getting a sailing boat. He was interested only because I was and he did not want to even set foot on it much less actually go somewhere in it like a four hour sail. However, once when he was home and I was showing him charts and navigation books and places to explore and dangers to overcome, something changed. Maybe he caught some of my passion, realised the adventure that can be in it.

I have now just bought the boat, it hasn't been brought back into its home port yet but the lad keeps making suggestions such as, "I'll crew for you Dad so we can get it home." and "Do you think you could take me and my mate out exploring up past the Percy Islands or somewhere for a few weeks?" and even "There must be stuff on board that needs work, I'm keen to help you repair it.". I am amazed but pleased.

Perhaps he and his friends will take up sailing more than me. Not only can he borrow the boat, I'll give him the list I compile from answers from the above (1).

[dennisail]

I'm 29 and my GF and sailing mates are similar age to me. My GF actually owns her own yacht. Most of my sailing buddys struggle to actually own a yacht. But the ones that don't own them all wish they could. In fact I reckon I have converted about 25% of my mates to love sailing. Cost is a major factor and younger people don't have the money to go world cruising. I will probably be in my mid 30s or later before I can afford world cruising. But anyone that can afford a car and afford some sort of boat. A trailer sailer will get you many places a larger boat cant even go and will be good enough when you only have 4 weeks holiday a year anyway.

Here is a clip of flying across Bass Strait last week in my mates Duncanson 35.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb-NkTP5P-w

[AllezCat]

I'm in Grenada, and am happy to report there are many youngish ladies working on the deck in their bikinis.

[sgtPluck]

We're in our 30s (ok, I'll be 40 next year) and just started out, we're also on our way south and have also noticed that there are very few young people doing this.
I think it is great that there are so many older people out there cruising. I watched a 60-something single-hander expertly haul in his anchor and 100+ foot of chain by hand yesterday and felt ashamed of my electric windlass, good health, and lack of skill. All the cruisers I've met, regardless of age, have been good sorts and more interesting than most land-borne people I meet. I've learned something from everyone.
I think there is hope for younger generations, it seems to be getting easier and cheaper every year. These FRP boats seem like they may go forever given a little TLC, as such I imagine used boats will only get more affordable. A bigger problem for the younger generation might be getting over the ADD - expecting everything to be easy and instant (I suffer from this affliction myself.)

[Graywolf77]

Baby boomers are retiring, bottom line. Some have money, some do not. Some live frugally, some do not. My kids are all either grown or nearly so. I found a fairly nice and sturdy boat I could afford to pay cash for, am retiring to the sea on a sailboat. No more houses, I live cheap, I do not need much. Made lots of money, spent lots of money. Love the ocean, worked the sea for better part of 13 years on ships and smaller boats. social security not looking so good though it is a number of years away for me.

I do feel for younger folks, just as my parents felt for me when I set off to join the Navy at 17. So much so, that I am paying for my 18 year old nephew to take sailing lessons, going to bring him aboard and set off in November for South America. Guess he would be considered a young man. My hope is he falls for the sea as I did, if not he will have stories to tell anyway. My hat is off to all the young people who decide to venture out, to all the older folks who have cast off their mooring lines, and to all those, like myslef, who just decided to finally do it. Sailing has been around for thousands of years. It will be around as long as folks look at the ocean and wonder what it would be like. Do it spartan, do it in style, on a little sloop, or a ship. Just go and do it and the heck with'em.

[flink]

Man, this thread is funny.

I bought my boat in Rhode Island last year and sailed it south to Texas. I couldn't help but notice that 100% of the cruisers I met were older than my parents.

Then I read your post and all of the replys are from people my parents age taking offense to it.

The irony is that all of the seniors replying to this thread just proved your point.

I know you weren't trying to offend anyone. You had a lagit question. You got a lagit answer. There are three other cruisers besides myself who are below the eligability limit for SS benifits.

I haven't met the others yet but I hear they're out there. I'll keep you posted.

[dennisail]

I just sailed from LA to Brisbane. We started the trip at 30. We met many people under 40 and and even many under 30. In fact even in a small place like Niue we were able to have a party on a friends yacht with about 15 cruisers all under 35.

Yes cruisers are usually older but and I find most to be just just as good company as the younger ones anyway. I think ipad style cruising has now allowed younger people to get out there for gap years etc.

Sailing might cost more these days but its a lot easier and people who don't even know what they are doing can now leave for a round the world trip and will probably be OK. (not that I condone this!) Plus boats have become RVs so that people who don't even like sailing or are hardly interested can do it as a means to an end to move their RV from one place to another because they cant afford a large motor cruiser.

[goboatingnow]

1n 2010, climbing the corporate ladder and being a sheep is the norm among those who are forming their first wet-behind-the-ears dreams. Oh sure, they want to travel after college- on well organized safe tours. They want to do good, and make a difference- by joining a group on facebook or wearing a ribbon. Sure, some still dream of cruising, but show them what cruisers were cruising on in 1970? They'd sneer that there was no way they would ever spend any time on something that crude. When they discover what a boat with everything they absolutely positively cannot live without is going to cost.... they decide to keep driving money into their 401K and they will cruise when they retire. Or they decide that they will continue to be a minimum wage barrista at Fourbucks and living in mom and dad's basement, because they will never ever, like be able to afford that, y'know. Besides, there is probably a bitchin' sailing game on Xbox. As the world has become smaller through technology, so have those in it.

Wow!

Dave

[settingsun]

Dudeman - I don't think your post is funny.

I think it's something all would-be cruisers should think about before setting sail. We've been cruising Mexico for 3 years and 99% of cruisers are over 50. We've met 4 families with kids, two single-handers under 30, one couple in their 20's. In 3 years.

From reading the cruising magazines, I thought the ocean was teeming with adventurous younger folks taking a sabbatical to see the world by boat. Perhaps they are elsewhere, but they sure aren't in Pacific Mexico.

As for the dwindling (growing?) overall number of cruisers, I have no idea. But an older local fellow on the beach yesterday here in Huatulco, Mexico said that the anchorage we are in now -- which has had 2-4 sailboats in it for the last 2 months -- used to have "lots of boats" all winter long a decade or two ago. Not sure what to make of that statement.

I don't know why there aren't more young people out here. But I think the reason lots of older folks try cruising for 1-3 years and then quit (in our experience that is the case for 70% of cruisers we've met), is that it is a very grubby and very challenging lifestyle.

Boats are very complicated nowadays, so keeping all the systems going can be a 20 to 40 hour a week job involving expensive parts that are costly to ship overseas.

Perhaps more importantly, all of us cruisers spent decades living a very clean and sanitary life in the lap of luxury in a developed western nation. For a lot of us it's fun to read about other people having seafaring adventures, but the reality of being salty, sandy and smelly much of the time, sleeping on sticky sheets and wearing the same clothes for days in a row is not all that fun.

Cruising is like tent camping. Ironically, our boat is far more sophisticated and cost three times what our truck-and-trailer RV rig did. Yet in our RV we feel like we live in a rolling condo...

The bottom line is that the whole world can be seen by other means besides a boat nowadays. There is nowhere we've cruised so far that we couldn't have gotten to by another mode of transportation, and some of our best experiences have happened inland at places we could have easily reached if we were still living in a house. Sleeping in a bed that doesn't move and waking up to a long hot shower is surely preferable for most folks than rocking around all night long in the swell and taking a one-gallon spritz bath.

Before we left to go south, we talked at length with every boat that was returning from a few years in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Invariably they were returning to sell their boat after 1-4 years of cruising. They had enjoyed their cruise, but every single one made a statement along the lines of, "cruising is all about the boat"... It dominates the budget and dominates your time.

Most of those cruisers we talked to wanted to return to the places they'd visited by boat -- but they wanted to fly there...

If you are passionate about boating, fixing boats, maintaining boats and living on a boat, the cruising life is the one for you. But if you are going cruising to see new countries, experience different cultures, learn new languages, mingle with the locals and generally TRAVEL, then it is not the best way to achieve your dream...

We have traveled full-time by RV and sailboat for almost six years, split about evenly. In comparison to boats, RVs have ultra simple systems that don't break -- the environment is not corrosive. So you can focus on sightseeing and all that other fun stuff.

In our experience, the full-time RVing and cruising lifestyles can be summed up this way:

RVing is about the destinations. Cruising is about the journey.

Both have been fulfilling for us. We enjoy living off the grid -- we never stay in marinas, campgrounds or RV parks. But in the end, I'm not sure that the cushy way we baby boomers were raised and the cushy way we've raised our kids has created a population that wants to journey as much as it wants to enjoy the cool and fun destinations of this world...

[MarkJ]

SettingSun what a good post!

I think you are spot on in a lot of your thoughts.

I try to keep the cruisng thing about tourism. It is, but because its tourism on a budget I need to do it slowly.
I agree about the maintenance of aboat being all consuming. That's one of the reasons why I shudder at some threads where someone is indicating what they going to buy and I think they are just buying a never ending job.

If I had some un allocated cash right now I would like to tie the boat up, hop a plane and go see the game parks in Africa. now, not when I can sail there. Paris too, I would like to do immediately. Both are time consuming as a cruiser to get to.

Anyway, your thoughts were great and I appreciate them.

By the way, there are some younger people in the Caribbean, no, not the cruisers so much, but lots of younger people racing and in the super yacht industry. It does send a vibe through the area.

Mark

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Paris too, I would like to do immediately. Both are time consuming as a cruiser to get to.

Can sail up to Paris (well, motor!) - and I beleive even "park" the boat pretty much under the Eiffel Tower .