Best Liveaboard

[MikeinLA]

Liberty 458

Mike

[Knottysailorboy]

Originally Posted by Seahunter

I agree, if you're living on a boat condo, walk up to the amenities. Then again, why own a boat if you're always tied up to the dock? You can do the laundry in your home and you don't have to use an outhouse.

Valuable space? Electricity? Water? We live in the 21st century get over it. If I can use a little technology to make our life on the water as comfortable as possible, h€ll yes. I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to get a warmed blanket or jacket when on the midnight watch along with a nice thermos of freshly ground and brewed coffee. We're not the Pardy's who're minimalists and don't even have an engine. We're experienced and can get by with almost nothing; but why would we want to do that and not really enjoy our trips?

Again, to each his own. But I was referring to smaller size yachts (i.e. 40 feet or less).

[w1651]

I'm moving onto my contest 33 at the end of this month. I'm sticking with that.
Good space (feels roomier then it is) Good sailboat (Able to go anywhere and sails like a dream)
and has already been lived aboard so most things really necessary are already done. Couldn't beat the price either.
Still I am making it mine and safer for sailing. So I still want to customize it to my needs.And that's when it really is yours.

[Knottysailorboy]

I seen a Contest 33, lying in Massachusetts, for sale for just $ 49,500. A nice looking boat.
Since the financial crisis a couple years ago, that's still ongoing in many respects, people have been selling off their assets to get more cash flow and to cut ongoing expenses. The result is the ability to pick up houses, cars, boats, etc. at fire sale prices. If you are in good financial standing, now is the time to shop around for a great deal.

[mrohr]

So many issues here requiring multiple threads.Some of them: $$$ --- Got enough you can buy way out of a lot a trouble and discomfort, but for the 99% of us there are trade offs that cannot be discounted. Sailing vs sitting--as others have pointed out, if you are moving about and spending more than an occasional night on the hook different requirements arise. Tropical waters or nothern winters? --A new thread needed for just this one. Crew needed to move the boat? --big compromises here.
I'm going to stop here as the parameters are endless with no slam dunk answers' but this forum is the best thing I've found to get you afloat.

[w1651]

Originally Posted by Knottysailorboy

I seen a Contest 33, lying in Massachusetts, for sale for just $ 49,500. A nice looking boat.
Since the financial crisis a couple years ago, that's still ongoing in many respects, people have been selling off their assets to get more cash flow and to cut ongoing expenses. The result is the ability to pick up houses, cars, boats, etc. at fire sale prices. If you are in good financial standing, now is the time to shop around for a great deal.

There's one for sale in Salem on the internet for a pretty good chunk. Much much more then I paid. But I have a lot of elbow grease used and left to go on mine. Next year I have to haul it, scrape it, and paint the old girl after I change out the seacocks and thruhulls that need changing.

[oldcal46skipper]

Originally Posted by mentore

Hello all, I am new here

First post...

I wonder if you can give me some directions: I am looking for the
*** best***
live aboard sailboat.

If price was not an issue (although it is ) what would you pick?


Thanks

As many of our experienced compatriots have reported, you should first ask, "What do I want the boat to do for me?"
Define that.
You have asked your question of some very experienced, knowledgeable cruisers on this forum. Good start.
I suggest you determine what you really want vs. what you can afford, then quantify your WANTS assigning them values.
We did that 30 years ago, did a lot of research, bought the boat appropriate for us 29 1/2 years ago and still have it.
We are willing to lend our observations.
Tom & Bobbie, Cal Cruising 46 "SATORI" oldflathead@bshmarine.com

[Knottysailorboy]

Originally Posted by w1651

There's one for sale in Salem on the internet for a pretty good chunk. Much much more then I paid. But I have a lot of elbow grease used and left to go on mine. Next year I have to haul it, scrape it, and paint the old girl after I change out the seacocks and thruhulls that need changing.

Buying a "handyman special" can be reasonable route to go, if you know a lot about what you are getting into and also have the skills to deal with it. You will at least save a bunch in labor costs. It pays to shop around and to have the knowledge, or somebody who is knowledgeable with you, so you don't get burned. Like anything else that has been used, the devil is in the details, the details that are hidden in all those little nooks and crannies. There will always be some issues to deal with on any used boat. So ask yourself before you buy; will the cost of repairs outweigh any savings in initial cost? If I spend a few grand more on that one over there, will I be better off? Set a budget, shop around a lot, take lots of notes (pros and cons) on all that you see, then decide.
Anchors away.

[Adelie]

Money no object.
Buy a barge and have a house built on it. You could put in that new artificial grass and have a yard even.
Have some masts put up and presto, best LIVEABOARD sailboat you could imagine.

[Knottysailorboy]

Check out this website:

www.floatinghomes.com

If you are not planning on going anywhere (i.e. sailing), this may be just right for you.
You can still tie up that sailboat, that you are not using, right alongside of it. That could then be the guest house or the in-law suite.

Then, again, if you get hit by a hurricane or tsunami, you may end up 'sailing' anyway.

[Knottysailorboy]

The world now has 7,000,000,000 people and it is still rising! The population growth has accelerated immensely over the last 150 years or so. In many countries around the world habitable living space is in short supply. Some urban areas are extremely overcrowded. Perhaps a solution would be to have more people living afloat, either in boats or in floating homes anchored in sheltered bays.

In Holland and Belgium they have barge-homes tied up along the sides of canals. Very picturesque but those canals are polluted and smelly. Not where I would want to be living. The smell of raw sewage floating by 24/7 would not be very pleasant.

Any thoughts about this issue? Maybe this should go in as a seperate thread topic.

[w1651]

Originally Posted by Knottysailorboy

The world now has 7,000,000,000 people and it is still rising! The population growth has accelerated immensely over the last 150 years or so. In many countries around the world habitable living space is in short supply. Some urban areas are extremely overcrowded. Perhaps a solution would be to have more people living afloat, either in boats or in floating homes anchored in sheltered bays.

In Holland and Belgium they have barge-homes tied up along the sides of canals. Very picturesque but those canals are polluted and smelly. Not where I would want to be living. The smell of raw sewage floating by 24/7 would not be very pleasant.

Any thoughts about this issue? Maybe this should go in as a seperate thread topic.

The only place left without people is Greenland and Antartica. It seems if you feed the masses they reproduce. Funny how that works.
Maybe we should stop feeding everybody. Cut welfare now I say. Get the earth back to 4 billion where it belongs.
But honestly I think that China, India, and Asia in general will start a mass decline here in about 20 years. When I was in China every guy smoked cigarettes. That will catch up to them along with one child per couple and shipping out all the female children.

[Knottysailorboy]

Greenland and Antarctica are not hospitable places, and neither is the Sahara desert, etc. Waiting for the Asian population to die from lung cancer, brought on by smoking, will be a long wait. Those people have smoked for centuries and even with the one child per family rule, their population is still rising. They are the oldest civilizations on earth, so they have had big head start in getting their population growing. As for them sending their females out of the country, that doesn't decrease the overall population of the world, it's just within their country.

I think the population increase is due to advances in medicine. Most of the diseases which plagued the world a hundred years or so ago have been mostly contained or erradicated. This has led to people living longer and having children later in life than was previously possible. I think diseases, although very nasty, serve a very beneficial purpose in the overall scheme of things because they help keep population growth in check. A population explosion can go on for only so long. The end result, when it goes too far, will be far worse than what any disease will cause in the short term.

This world is only so big and its resources are limited to an absolute capacity. We have to come to grips with reality now. We are pushing our luck and nearing the breaking point of what this world can bear.

[Seahunter]

Originally Posted by w1651

The only place left without people is Greenland and Antartica. It seems if you feed the masses they reproduce. Funny how that works.

Umm, Greenland has 56615 (official) souls; inhabited for nearly 5000 years a far cry from "0".

[Knottysailorboy]

Originally Posted by Seahunter

Umm, Greenland has 56615 (official) souls; inhabited for nearly 5000 years a far cry from "0".

Ah, yes! The Thule (pronounced TOO lee) people. They have fished along the coast for quite some time. A very hardy, rugged people. But apart from a few small coastal communities, there is precious little habitable space in Greenland.

There are people on Antarctica too, but only at the several scientific research stations and they stay only a few months or a year at a time I think.

Having said all of this, I think we are straying off topic. This discussion ought to be in a seperate thread, although it is a broad subject and not directly related to the cruising lifestyle as such. But on second thought, maybe it is.