What are the disadvantages of living aboard?

[rtbates]

Most liveaboards I see take quite awhile to clear the decks and below for sailing. Your fondest memories will be the weekend you stayed at the Motel 8 and the bed didn't move! You won't have a garage.

Best wishes on your dream.

[jzk]

Why do you want to live aboard? I know many people who have tried it, and it seems like there are too many downsides to count. I knew a girl that lived aboard a 54' sailboat. She never went sailing. There was just too much stuff everywhere, and it would take too much effort to stow it all to actually go sailing.

One of the benefits in living in a house is that the house appreciates (or rather the real estate does). And, many things in a house are much cheaper than the same things for a sailboat. Then, when you are ready to go cruising, sell or rent your appreciated asset, and buy a better cruising vessel.

Then go!

[JGarrick]

Originally Posted by markpj23

There are liveaboard slips available in San Diego with a reasonable wait list. Chula Vista marina and now the soon-to-open Pier 32 Marina complex in National City...

Thanks for the heads up. Most of the other places I looked into accepted few, if any, liveaboards, and typically they were limited to singles or couples with no kids.

Just from looking around, it also appeared that a lot of the boats at the moorings near Shelter Island, downtown, and Coronado were also either liveaboards or cruisers passing through (I wasn't there long enough to figure out which), but if living on a boat at a dock is impractical, living on a boat at a mooring seems downright nutty. On the other hand, it's dirt cheap at around $120/mo at Shelter Island.

[Kai Nui]

Kids consume electricity. A mooring could be a problem. Consider the number of trips you make every day on land with school, soccer practice, football, birthday parties, scouts or whatever else your kids are into. Now consider how much effort it is to get them all ready and in the car. No think how much harder it would be to do all this in a walk in closet, then stuff them all in an MG and push the car to the destination. Moorings are not ideal for every day living.
Still, to rtbates, I would say, I can not sleep on land anymore. I miss the motion.
To jzk I will say I love it, and can not think of a single thing that I miss about living on land. Only trade-offs. Still, I wouldn't do it if my kids were still at home and in school.

[S/V Elusive]

For those that don't know - Kai owns three boats and two houses, and definately qualifies as an authority on various places to sleep (we won't even mention the land based vehicles). <veg>

As for live aboards not sailing much. I believe, that like most things, trying to generalize people usually leads to gross misunderstandings. In Kai's case, he has a 'throw down' boat so he can go sailing when ever he wants. But we both have boats that we live aboard (or will be living aboard) that will also function as our recreational sailing venues and eventual cruisers.

I took my boat out July 4th (oh what fun it is to ride amongst so many that know so little) for a little sail. It took me 30 minutes below decks to prepare the boat to get under way (including making and eating a sandwich), and 20 minutes above deck.

The sail was lovely, thank you for asking - winds were 13 knots out of the WSW, with W swells of 5 to 6 feet at 8 seconds. My first tack, after sailing out of the harbor, was toward Gina (an offshore oil platform) about 6 miles out , closely hauled. I made an average of 6.5 knots with the wind 50 degrees to starboard. Then a nice beam to broad reach, getting an average of 7.6 knots for about 6 miles. Then the very broad reach to run back to the harbor (only averaged about 5 knots). A little victory sail around the harbor -heavy on the horn, before I dropped sails and motored into my slip.

Three and a half hours or so of sailing (single handed). Then, about an hour to put the boat to bed topside, and about 40 minutes to straighten up and put the boat back to live aboard condition below. So about a 1:1 correlation between the work necessary to go sailing, and the actual sailing. This is not always appealing to a live aboard. It is so much easier to go on someone else's boat. And yes, I could have stayed out longer, but there were other considerations that limited my time - just like all of us.

It is very easy to fall into a liveaboard frame of mind and think of your boat as a home, rather than transportation that you can live in. I keep reminding myself that I'm a cruiser who is temporarily forced to be a liveaboard until I can resume cruising. That is what keeps me taking these little trips - and keeping track of how much time it took to prepare and resume vs. the time I was out.

I like to think - and I suspect many others are of simillar mind - that when you live aboard, you are, to some extent, cruising; maybe not far away, but when you climb into your bunk and doze off, there is no telling what island you are then at.

[Kai Nui]

No wonder you weren't returning your calls