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Old 05-12-2016, 12:48   #16
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Location: Yaquina Bay, Oregon
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

Spent last week seriously considering leaving now. Appreciate all the posts... we ended up working out a budget on the cheapest monthly we feel realistic about sticking to while sailing. And, I've started a blog about all this (will post that when I've got some more posts to show). We're about $300 a month short - which isn't bad actually! We could do that now and make up the extra as suggested. That might still happen within the next year or 2 max. But, I think we made a decision...


Doing kinda what Byrdman just suggested. We're looking for a smaller boat (around 30ft cruiser) to spend days / weekends and a vacation or two on as time permits. Maybe we'll buy another rental during that time / maybe not - market depending. Wife and I are working on another online / side business that could net us the extra and one more rental under our belts would be nice. She made a good point that while both she and I have pretty much always been ready for anything, we have no idea how delighted or miserable our 4 and 6 yr old will be. They've never been on the water for more than an hour on lakes.


So, I'm in the market for something 28ft-30ft. I've got a few other posts about my dilemas on that so far. I know people say they don't sail the OR coast much in winter. But, after living here for 4 months now, i don't see why not. And, I see the occasional boat out on nice days. Would be nice to do some sailing soon. Rain or shine... more fun than working! But there's not much for sale here... yacht club was no help at all. Not going to attempt a trip with a new boat from Seattle to Newport till summer. Probably going to be a trucked boat from Seattle in all likely-hood or Vancouver BC.
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Old 06-12-2016, 03:43   #17
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

Also, dont be afraid to keep an eye out for something up to 35'. Im looking now, and after looking at a lot of 28's, I'm finding that just a little more $$ can buy a lot more boat when you get into the 30'-35' boats. Plus in your area, the winter may bring out a few real deals out there.

Good luck!!
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Old 06-12-2016, 07:38   #18
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

Yep.

If the target boat is less than (say) 40ft, it makes sense to go right for the target size. Up to a size, they all handle the same. Swapping boats is just expense.

If you need an in-between boat, charter something.

b.
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Old 06-12-2016, 14:57   #19
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

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Originally Posted by barnakiel View Post
Yep.

If the target boat is less than (say) 40ft, it makes sense to go right for the target size. Up to a size, they all handle the same. Swapping boats is just expense.

If you need an in-between boat, charter something.

b.
Never paid much attention to the charter vs. own debate for 2 reasons:

1. I don't think they exist anywhere near me locally?
2. Part of the experience gathering is going to be doing my own maint.


You're right though, the expenses are starting to add up as I"m researching. I need a survey ($500 approx). I need insurance ($600-$700 a year). Slip fees ($1500 a year). All sunk costs I don't get back. All costs that change almost zero between a 25ft or a 35ft boat. The only major cost savings I'm seeing is buying a trailer boat. Not sure I want to spend what little time we have demasting and trailering etc. not to mention trailer boats are very limiting in choices / function. I've seen some nice J24s... and a p26. Even the P26, sounds like a PITA getting it in and out of the water.
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Old 06-12-2016, 16:37   #20
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

Quote:
Originally Posted by maplemale View Post
Never paid much attention to the charter vs. own debate for 2 reasons:

1. I don't think they exist anywhere near me locally?
2. Part of the experience gathering is going to be doing my own maint.


You're right though, the expenses are starting to add up as I"m researching. I need a survey ($500 approx). I need insurance ($600-$700 a year). Slip fees ($1500 a year). All sunk costs I don't get back. All costs that change almost zero between a 25ft or a 35ft boat. The only major cost savings I'm seeing is buying a trailer boat. Not sure I want to spend what little time we have demasting and trailering etc. not to mention trailer boats are very limiting in choices / function. I've seen some nice J24s... and a p26. Even the P26, sounds like a PITA getting it in and out of the water.


Trawler...
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Old 06-12-2016, 17:13   #21
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

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Trawler...

Completely different world I'm not currently living in. I've met folks in the Caribbean who love their motored yacht and just can't understand why anyone would want to sail anywhere. To be 100% honest, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to motor anywhere.
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Old 06-12-2016, 17:21   #22
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

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Originally Posted by maplemale View Post
This is my first post! Some background on myself...


We have been dreaming of living aboard for about 3-5 years now. We - being me, my wife and 2 kids (4 and 6). We are from MT and Canada originally, we live on the OR coast and are pretty tough folks, mentally and physically. We currently home-school the kids. I'm a .NET dev of 15 years for a large company. Me and my wife have worked hard for the last 5 years with the hope of getting the residual income to a point where we can leave and not stress too much about ever coming back unless we want to. We currently rake in about $20-$25k net residual from rental property. That's a conservative estimate after all repairs. We'd pull in another $3-5k yr by renting our current house and we've saved about $120k - $160k so far in cash to buy a boat. I've mostly been looking at 41 - 50ft Beneteau, Hylas etc. in the $120k range. My wife and I are definitely the more adventurous types. We won't be content to live in a slip for 4-6 months a year! We want to sail! We want adventure, trials and rich experiences and we want that for our kids!


And now the dilemma... to buy another rental property with what we've saved and increase our monthly residual, putting off sailing for probably another 3 years or, is it time to get out of here? I realize that might be hard for anyone but us to answer. Maybe someone could help with the things I might not be considering?


I know $25k - $30k a year for a family of 4 is probably not much. But, consider that I am a very experienced full stack dev. Though, I'm 100% .NET - not open source. I've never looked for side work in my industry and I'm not certain how difficult it will be for me to convert to being a moonlighter from my cushy engineering job at a fortune 500 company - a job I quite honestly am sick of. Also, the challenges of coding while traveling in other countries? Realistically, is there anyone else who sails and does part time dev work that can tell me how much time they spend working and how they go about finding said work? Are you also doing all the maintenance yourself (something I'd like to do) or would you rather spend the time working while maintenance is being done? Anyone with experience sailing the Caribbean while working part time? What are your internet / computing solutions? Also, considering my other skills: how likely is it I'll randomly find work doing other things aside from coding? Is $30k a year for a family of 4 on a 40-50ft boat really kind of a joke?
Coding while sailing doesn't mix quite as well as you might think.

If you have customers who don't care when you can deliver then that could work.

It's also boom and bust. If you can manage this then again it could work.

Our approach is to liveaboard and work tech then go off cruising when the next downturn strikes. And it will eventually.

The rental income could be sufficient if you just cruise. Sans big and unplanned maintenance.

We have most tech options from mifi to HF and pactor. We spent a few months coding and grabbing last minute cruise ship deals in 2013. Code for a week then git push when we returned. It sounds better than it actually is. Who wants to be stuck on a keyboard when nature beckons.

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Old 06-12-2016, 21:32   #23
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Re: Time to go or wait? Sailing and coding anyone?

If you can back off a bit on spending some time in a slip, lots of options open up. 4-6months in a slip sure beats 12 months in an office cubicle.


I don't do coding but do a lot of remote technical work. I find it's really helpful if I can spend time with clients. Even at half time, you budget goes up dramatically and you can ride out getting another rental or two so that in 3-5yrs, you might have a $40k/yr budget.


You can "survive" on $25k/yr but anything extra is tough particularly with kids added to the equation.
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