Quote:
Originally Posted by Jammer
Everyone
It was not my goal for us to reprise the derelict boat discussion. Nor was it my goal for us to reprise the conflict over the eons of the proletariat vs. the bourgeois.
Those discussions are predictable and tiresome. Could we please stop.
This discussion is about boats that are (quite possibly at least) well maintained. Ones that are perhaps finely built. Ones that are, in some cases, quite new. But boats that, by design or circumstance, are not capable of navigation. Boats belonging to and used by people from all walks of life, many of them well off financially. Boats, in some cases, being offered for rental on AirBnB and like places.
I have posted examples upthread.
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For as long as I can remember there have been high end house boats not capable of moving. Back when I was a kid there was a TV show "Surfside 6" about such a house boat. As time passed these boats wound up being more and more regulated. When I was in the Ft. Myers City Marina there was a house boat sorta like the one in this vid that was a chic beauty
salon and had legit business licenses from the city. There were also some other what I call house boats in the marina that were well maintained.
Part of the problem with your question is that there were also some what I will call real, but broken down, boats not capable of navigation. One had to keep the
bilge pump plugged into
shore power 24/7 to keep afloat and even then it was listing. But the boat was paying it's bills. Never the less the marina wanted it moved out.
There was also some
mooring balls out in the river which cost a little coin of the realm but allowed access to showers,
dinghy dock, and the day room with
wifi. Some boats also anchored close to the area and would use the
dinghy dock, day room, and often ask for the combination to the showers.
As has been posted previously the real issue is where do you draw the line between something like the boat at Surfside 6 and a boat that has trouble staying afloat without
shore power. One guy had an old cat he was converting from sail to
power. While the boat was a little unsightly it did seem
seaworthy and I guess the
outboard setup he was working would make the boat able to navigate.
Ft. Myers City Marina was an interesting place. The office was centrally located and the West Side had what I would call the high end boats, then the office/showers/dayroom/store/fuel dock and then the East side with the lower end boats. I have noticed that several
marinas I have been in have a similar good side and not so good side.
Another thing I have noticed is that while my
Seawind qualified for the good side in Ft. Myers when I was at the Clearwater marina I was relegated to the not so good side. While I was treated well there, and viewed as a real sailor who had sailed to far away places (at least for Clearwater) my neighbor was on a
power boat with a 65 inch color TV set up on the flying bridge which I could easily view from my
cockpit; and so could he. My understanding was that boat never moved, and it certainly did not in the two weeks I was there. For those of you who know anything about sports
fishing there was also a Yellowfin 32 there; it was the
tender for a 110 foot custom
motor boat.
The point is that while each of us can assess which live aboards can be justified I doubt that we would all
wind up with the same list. The boat next to the 65 inch color TV was a similar in size boat. As I was sitting in
cockpit I over heard the owner talking to a
mechanic about fixing the Detroit Diesel engines on the boat; seems they were not working. The
mechanic gave him an estimate of $US28,000 for one
engine and said the other would likely cost more. The guy ran his law firm from the boat and did not impress me as a sailor; rather someone who was looking for a
cheap water front office compared to the rent in close by high rises.
Florida is famous for high dollar
marinas which have priced out a lot of boats like my
Seawind that most here would view as a nice boat. Not to mention that a lot of marinas in Florida are being torn down to make way for high rise condos on the
water.
It is all to easy to ignore the reality that market forces and an increase in the number of boats has changed the landscape.