‘We feel truly alive’ - Observer article about the newest crop of liveaboards.

[Lake-Effect]

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2...-to-a-new-life

How does this article align with what y'all are seeing out there?

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2...-to-a-new-life

How does this article align with what y'all are seeing out there?

Stopped reading after they said they live on 5 pounds a day.

[Franziska]

Actually you can be very modest when it comes to money for the day to day life.

5GBP is very low, but there may be places in Asia where you can still do it perhaps.

Avoid marinas, make restaurant visits a special occasion, wait for the right wind instead running the engine, cook yourself, avoid expensive food items, get a lot of solar (industrial panels) and a big battery, cook from solar power, you can even run a modest water heater occasionally for short periods or a space heater if you have solar.

The list is endless.

We do it that way and it's nice so far. Anchoring is no issue, had no problem finding a spot so far.
We do not cut back on money to pay for museums or local public transport.

So yes, there are folks doing it out there. Most of them avoid the expensive places though.

[carlosproa]

So I only saw one YouTube session from their site. Just looking at the catamaran, dinghy, engine, etc…probably much much higher than the $150 a month claim. I am sure is a goal and feels good for their audience, but costs are cost and you must fit there all cost related to boat upgrade and maintenance.

[thomm225]

I believe when Sean D' sailed most of the way around the world his goal was to live on $1.00/day

He came close to that it appears but you have to willing to make a few sacrifices and have a tech/engineer type mind set

[Celestialsailor]

5 pounds (around $6US) a day? I'd like to know what all the Youtube stars would say to that. I think the article focused on the couple that restored a rotting Cat and anchored out. They're certainly not in a marina. I find that the article leans towards that this is a new movement of people doing this...parallel to the tiny house movement but I wonder where these people are going to live on their boats with the diminishing availability of liveaboard marinas.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

5 pounds (around $6US) a day? I'd like to know what all the Youtube stars would say to that. I think the article focused on the couple that restored a rotting Cat and anchored out. They're certainly not in a marina. I find that the article leans towards that this is a new movement of people doing this...parallel to the tiny house movement but I wonder where these people are going to live on their boats with the diminishing availability of liveaboard marinas.

Doubt they would be the type to pay the liveaboard marina fee anyway so that isn't a problem they would have to deal with.

The marina liveaboard type seems to be those that really like living on land but buy a boat thinking they can save money by doing the liveaboard thing.

They basically live like folks in homes do with Cable TV/Internet/HBO etc, air conditioning, vehicle in the parking lot and so on.

Their boat rarely moves though

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

5 pounds (around $6US) a day? I'd like to know what all the Youtube stars would say to that. I think the article focused on the couple that restored a rotting Cat and anchored out. They're certainly not in a marina. I find that the article leans towards that this is a new movement of people doing this...parallel to the tiny house movement but I wonder where these people are going to live on their boats with the diminishing availability of liveaboard marinas.

You don't live in the marina. You cruise and anchor.

The need for marinas is grossly exaggerated by folks just cruising for few weeks vacation or are afraid of anchoring.
A good ground tackle can save you tons of money.
Of course your home needs to be seaworthy enough that you can move out of the path of bad weather. If you anchor out you always have to be aware of bad weather brewing. Be it local or on a larger scale.

Of course sometimes a harbour is helpful, but in 90% of the time one does not need one.

No need for a home base, just rent it out if you happen to own a place.

I agree, it's nothing new, frugal cruisers have been around for a very long time, as have other types of sailors.

[Mariefred]

Aqua-pikeys, scrounging their way around chunks of the world. The land part of coastlines has planning regulations, the wet bit usually doesn't. As the number of hydro-hippies increases, they'll come.

[Anders]

£5 a night is not going to happen long term even if you stay at anchor in one anchorage and cruise nowhere
Add a zero to that and you can cruise a bit if you are frugal.

[thomm225]

I think the misunderstanding comes from folks that are used to spending a lot.

And that doesn't change when they go cruising so they cannot understand folks that cross a few oceans and live onboard for a few years on a few dollars a day.

I mean folks here on CF spend ungodly amounts of money just to monitor their batteries while others just us a meter or their solar controller readout.

It goes from there with very expensive boats, electronics, sails, SATCOM, generators, you name it.

Others do the same thing with a $1,000-$2,000 boat with a Raspberry Pi and OpenCPN........and go engineless

[sailorboy1]

"myth" verse "reality"

"never done it" verse "doing it"

Creative book keeping at it finest.

[boatman61]

I think if they're living on the hook in Asia £5/day is very possible when one considers for many that's what they take home for a days work..
Plus if she cooks and he's happy with Asian food.
Shopping for local produce in markets costs a lot less than the Westernised supermarket uptown.

[Simi 60]

From the first pic

We live on around £5 a day. The liveaboard lifestyle can be for anyone, not just the super-rich’: Nadiyana Na with her partner Mark Farnworth in Mallorca.

[Chotu]

to be honest, kind of reminded me of myself when I first got into boats. Had a partner like that, it didn’t cost anything at all. But, that’s a deferred maintenance daily cost. Soon the boat costs will start to add up a bit. I didn’t look at any links or videos, but if they have a dinghy and they are using fuel for that they forgot to add that as well. Not to mention any health insurance, clearing costs to get into different countries, etc.

That’s definitely just the food they’re talking about.

I actually did a little social experiment for almost a year. I tried to live on no money. To see if you could get away from that. But you’re always going to need a new anchor chain, a new anchor, things like that. It adds up pretty fast. And those are things you can’t make. You can fish for food, but you just can’t make a new anchor chain.