The Live aboard stereotype.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

You had to go there. while it's true I have had a cat aboard, Dekat passed away a few years ago. For the moment I remain a catless crazy cat lady

Well you don’t fit then.

Besides I didn't say “crazy cat lady”

[barnakiel]

If you live in a neatly policied country like NZ, AUS, US, etc. then maybe some reasonable laws could help solve the 'problem'. But since they are so neat and cleat out there, then how comes the laws do not exist yet? Oh la la (French: OMG). Yes, go ahead get even more regulated, policied and enslaved than you already are. Or stop and see that regulating everything and prohibiting everything just does not work.



Otherwise. many countries like say France or Spain have good anti garbage laws, just that these countries are very poor at enforcing their laws. Gods save me from living aboard in the marinas like Noumea or Benalmadena. Been there seen that.



On the other hand, I cannot see why live aboard boats should be seaworthy. They are not sailing, they are living aboard. Boats that go out to the sea need to be seaworthy. Live aboard boats do not.


My take is that in most countries, the matter tends to self-regulate: you will see marinas with plenty of smelly live aboard boats and other marinas with none. Huh! So where is there any problem? You do not like this neighbourhood? Move on! Find a place you like, share it with people you like.


Just one data point, you know. This world is a vast bag.

Cheers,
b.

[TCM1968]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Standards for how well you keep up your boat are hard and subjective. Then you get unintended consequences where good clients get caught up in those rules.

Much easier to use a simple rule, such as no liveaboards.

If you are a good client, they can look the other way and call you a cruiser who just stopped by for a while and then never bother to tell you to leave (as long as you keep the boat in good condition and make your slip payments). If you ever slack off or are late on payments, it's easy for them to remember the no liveaboard rule.

Really, this is the old...a few bad apples scenario.

This makes me want to bang my head against a wall. First of all what is it exactly that we are trying to accomplish here? Keeping trashy boats out of the marina? Keeping trashy people out of the marina? Making sure our piers stay clean and free of debri?

These seem to be the standard complaints I read about live-aboards when the the topic comes up about marinas having policies against them. And I think when looked at honestly these conditions are created far more by people who buy a boat put it in a marina with intentions of fixing it up and then for what ever reason either money or time don’t ever do it so the boat sits there and rots.
If you want a solution then you must fix the problem.

I am curious how these discussions would be going if it were the other way around and marinas were turning boat owners around who couldn’t live on the boat year round because the trashy people who park their boats in the marina and leave are not able to spend enough time on the boat to keep up with cleanliness and maintenance?

[RaymondR]

Don't know about the U.S. but in Australia it's very rare to find any place where one can hold freehold title to water (The exception being if you actually buy land and then dig out a hole for a marina) Usually marinas are situated on what are called "seabed leases" which are leased from the state. I have seen a couple of these and they included a "no live aboard clause which is the responsibility of the marina owner to enforce. So it may not be an aversion to folks living aboard on the part of the marina proprietor which is motivating a "no live aboard" policy.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by TCM1968

>>>>>>>>>>

I am curious how these discussions would be going if it were the other way around and marinas were turning boat owners around who couldn’t live on the boat year round because the trashy people who park their boats in the marina and leave are not able to spend enough time on the boat to keep up with cleanliness and maintenance?

Simply brilliant. Thanks. Always nice to see someone thinking outside the box.


And is consistent with my experience in post #7.

[barnakiel]

I do like it where someone says 'let's get our marinas and docks free of boats that are stuck there for ever'.


I too think boats should only be owned and allowed a berth, if sailed. People who rent or buy a berth and then never once come to the boat all season long should be forced by brutal police and very heavy financial penalties to keep their marina queens in their backyards. I would also consider torture, if they refused.



For once we would have empty marinas!


Cheers,
b.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by TCM1968

This makes me want to bang my head against a wall. First of all what is it exactly that we are trying to accomplish here? Keeping trashy boats out of the marina? Keeping trashy people out of the marina? Making sure our piers stay clean and free of debri?

Who is this "we" you speak of? Do you own the marina?

That fact you don't like their solution is irrelevant. As long as "thier" marina is profitable with a reasonably low level of hassle, they don't care that you don't like their plan.

[Jason Flare]

In my experience most of what what people are having a problem with is that everyone’s boat isn’t pretty.

[TCM1968]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Who is this "we" you speak of? Do you own the marina?

That fact you don't like their solution is irrelevant. As long as "thier" marina is profitable with a reasonably low level of hassle, they don't care that you don't like their plan.

“We” are those of us here on this forum who if in large enough numbers could change the way marina owners look at the live-aboard community.

I could ask you the same question. Who is this “they” you speak of? Do you own the marina? The fact you don’t care about my opinion is irrelevant. Although I might add you must care enough to have opined about it yourself. There may be marina owners who do care about this opinion, and if there is enough support amongst the cruising community then maybe it will make a difference. Probably not because there are always people who support stupid policies because it doesn’t effect them personally. There are a lot of people on this forum who think that the way they chose to enjoy their boat is the only correct way and everyone else should go away.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by TCM1968

“We” are those of us here on this forum who if in large enough numbers could change the way marina owners look at the live-aboard community.

I doubt that, even if I wished it true. If it were true there wouldn't be any "liveaboard fees". Yet when I asked recently on the forum why there was I got trashed, by boaters!

[TCM1968]

I fear you are correct but none the less I will do my part to try. Sometimes I feel like I am arguing with the same people who listened to the news and believe George Bush conjured up Hurricane Katrina to personally wipe out New Orleans.

When something gets repeatedly said over and over again uneducated people start accepting it as fact without any personal knowledge about the subject.

I was reading one of these live-aboard posts last night and there were comments from people who not only don’t live-aboard but some don’t even own boats! They know someone who knows someone. And now they are spewing mis information as if it were a fact.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by TCM1968

“We” are those of us here on this forum who if in large enough numbers could change the way marina owners look at the live-aboard community.

I could ask you the same question. Who is this “they” you speak of? Do you own the marina? The fact you don’t care about my opinion is irrelevant. Although I might add you must care enough to have opined about it yourself. There may be marina owners who do care about this opinion, and if there is enough support amongst the cruising community then maybe it will make a difference. Probably not because there are always people who support stupid policies because it doesn’t effect them personally. There are a lot of people on this forum who think that the way they chose to enjoy their boat is the only correct way and everyone else should go away.

But the liveaboard community isn't large numbers and often more profitable customers are discouraged by their presence (whether fair, right or just, it's true). Marinas are business. They respond to what makes them a profit not what the latest social justice priorities are.

It's not that I don't care about your opinion. Your post assumed the marina owners opinion should match your opinion. I'm giving you the owners point of view. To ignore their viewpoint and expect them to work against their interests, is silly.

[TCM1968]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

But the liveaboard community isn't large numbers and often more profitable customers are discouraged by their presence (whether fair, right or just, it's true). Marinas are business. They respond to what makes them a profit not what the latest social justice priorities are.

It's not that I don't care about your opinion. Your post assumed the marina owners opinion should match your opinion. I'm giving you the owners point of view. To ignore their viewpoint and expect them to work against their interests, is silly.

Explain to me please from your expert business knowledge just how other users are more profitable to marina owners? My marina charges an extra fee for live-aboards, electricy is individually metered, live-aboards are using other pay for use services more. How is more profitable for someone to park their boat in a slip and never return? Slip fees are slip fees.

As a matter of fact in an actual example I’ll give you that happened this last weekend. I arrived to spend my usual weekend on the boat the boat in the slip next to me which happens to be a boat in disrepair had some deck cushions on the bow and the aft deck railings sitting on them holding them down. a thunderstorm blew in earlier that day blowing the deck cushions against my boat, luckily the deck railings hung up on his boat before flipping over on my boat. So I report this to the marina office as I do not know the owner and am not going to board his boat and secure anything without his permission. Now the Harbor master has to come and investigate and they are attempting to reach the owner to come secure his boat and to my knowledge unsuccessful so far. That means the Harbor master has to now determine it as a safety hazard and deal with it himself.

So tell me how it is more profitable to deal with this boat owner vs. one who lives there that they could just tell fix the problem.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

.............
.............
On the other hand, I cannot see why live aboard boats should be seaworthy. They are not sailing, they are living aboard. Boats that go out to the sea need to be seaworthy. Live aboard boats do not.
..................... b.

I fully agree with barnakiel's post, but I'm selecting this quote as an example of how the connotation for the term "liveaboard" is different by geography and time. Back when I first became a liveaboard in the early 1970's the term was most often for those cruisers who did not return to their houses ashore, but had their fully operational cruising boat as their only home. There was the well known enclave of boat dwellers in Sausalito that was an exception and houseboats on the banks of some rivers, but "liveaboards" were using their sailboats. Of course, there's a long history of "liveaboards" in Southeast Asia that are not cruisers. In more recent decades in the US people have become "liveaboards" as a means of low income housing. Starting about twenty years ago my wife and I stopping using the term "liveaboard" when we were selecting a marina, but used "full time cruisers" instead.
Here, on the Liveaboard Forum there are people that use the same term with a very different meaning. This makes for some misunderstanding and conflict. I need to be mindful of how people more often now think of the term as barnakiel describes.

[Discovery 15797]

Originally Posted by TCM1968

Explain to me please from your expert business knowledge just how other users are more profitable to marina owners?

Many marinas limit the number of 'liveaboards' for various reasons (lease agreements, state regs, etc.)

The number of slips allocated for liveaboards are a commodity.

The prices charged for commodities are often based on supply/demand, or the price which someone is willing to pay.