Cruising on $500 per Month . . .

[kenny chaos]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Sorry Alf.... maybe I shoulda used this quote....
hows the Alzheimer's....

He ain't Alf, he's Art.

[boatman61]

$hit............gonna have to start usin these FFFFing glasses....
Sorry Alf

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by Saucy Sailoress

Everyone has a computer nowadays, surely!! Even those kids who posted their amazing video of their tiny budget boat they fixed up had a digital camera and a computer (Mac, but never mind).

Besides, we have plenty of tale tellers here who pass on stories from those who haven't done the digital migration yet!

Actually those kid's didn't have a computer at the time, just the camera. They edited the film, very quickly, on a computer with a 14 day return policy

[Artif]

Originally Posted by boatman61

$hit............gonna have to start usin these FFFFing glasses....
Sorry Alf

Artif is French for aid climbing.
Something to do with pasties would have been more appropriate being as I'm Cornish. Ansome

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Artif

Artif is French for aid climbing.
Something to do with pasties would have been more appropriate being as I'm Cornish. Ansome

ARRrrrrr that be grand budget grub.... along wif a pinta scrumpy....

[hellosailor]

crazy-
"where else can you find galvanized chain at wholesale prices ( by the foot )? "
And if you reread that, you don't see any contradiction there?
"Wholesale" means THE WHOLE THING. Box, carton, truckload, rr carload, container load, THE WHOLE THING.
By the foot, means retail. You buy chain by the bucket, spool, or other WHOLE THING if you expect to buy it wholesale.
One or the other, by the foot? Or wholesale?

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

crazy-
"where else can you find galvanized chain at wholesale prices ( by the foot )? "
And if you reread that, you don't see any contradiction there?
"Wholesale" means THE WHOLE THING. Box, carton, truckload, rr carload, container load, THE WHOLE THING.
By the foot, means retail. You buy chain by the bucket, spool, or other WHOLE THING if you expect to buy it wholesale.
One or the other, by the foot? Or wholesale?

Ok then, by the foot, but not marked up as high as the 'marine' retailers

[Mark Johnson]

Originally Posted by w1651

T I hear you on that. I think that is going to be the hardest part of cruising for me. Thank God they still make rum.

Here's a little question I have been pondering since I checked a price at west marine. How much of your boat Mark did you get from the auto supply store as compared to the marine supply stores???
I went looking for a plug for thru hull to the head on my boat. Foam emergency plug at west marine 10.00 a rubber freeze plug with center nut to spread and secure the plug 4.00 at advanced auto parts.

These are the things I want to know about. Where to get the same or betterparts at a more reasonable cost. Another example, Polybutyl tape. the cheapest I have found is at a glass shop that does windshields. 1/16 tape 30.00 with more then enough to do all the fittings on deck.

I'm not sure which boat you mean? The first??? I lived far from the nearest big town and often didn't own a car then. My first boat was before nationwide marine stores, although I did use Defender Industries catalogs, for blocks & rigging. (LOTS of visits by the UPS man). I also worked building boats professionally, in exchange for materials @ coast rather than cash.

On Delphys, I never buy retail, (have a business), and always look for deals. I got much of my hardware, rigging, paint, epoxy, etc. @ 50% off. Although this is not always possible now, (Due to my less volume consumption... thank God).

I have used consignment stores on occasion, but find that the prices are too high for used gear, and I seldom find what I want.

With simple things like your example, I always go for hardware store stuff first. If it can flood my boat bigtime, I go for the marine grade Maralon through hulls & valves, but on the fresh water plumbing for example, I use common hardware store PVC parts. I make a LOT out of PVC!

Another example is the last boat building. These parts ALL came from Lowes, and even if I figure in a new plastic tarp cover every 1.5 years, over 5 years (=3), and the PVC pipe, cement, wires, fans, turnbuckles, lights, stereo, and the salvaged mobile home LP furnace that heated it in winter... the building still totaled < $1,000 over that time, to both build and maintain.

I also made specialized tools, like the sanding block made with brass hinges & furniture casters. I was always looking for the cheap, simple solution first, then got more complex and expensive as the situation dictated.

This High tech sanding outfit is called a PAPR. Powered Air Purifying Resperator. I DID buy it... However, 20 years earlier, I invented it, ("as far as I know"). I made the prototype out of a boyscout back pack frame, speaker wire, The blower motor for heating a school bus, respirator cartridges, duct tape, bilge pump hose, a welders mask, a canvass duffel bag, some plywood, and a train transformer. It cost "0", as my barn's "crap collection" supplied it all. Like a fool, instead of going to the patent office, I published my contraption, with photos in great detail, in Multihulls Magazine. Some years later, they appeared on the market, in a much refined form. Live & learn!

I recently made a device for retaining my stored staysail stay, rather than buy the catalog one for $80. Mine is made of PVC that I bent by boiling, cut a slit, glassed, and attached glass triangles. It cost about $5, and is self adjustable... (Took a week "off and on", though.)

So, yes and no about your question. It depended on how much of my life I would be willing to devote to searching, or how much safety I would give up. I did always ask myself, however, Is there an easy & cheaper way.

Mark

[Brent Swain]

When you talk about cruising on a micro budget, you get a lot of advice. As I point out in my book, you can judge the value of advice by taking a critical look at what it has done for the person offering it.
The most valuable comes from those who have actualy cruised for decades on micro budget, the least valuable is from those who have never done it.
So ask them how much micro budget cruising they have actually done.

[CaptainAlf]

Originally Posted by s/v Breakaway

Alf, any chance you can post some photos so we can get a glimpse of your cruising setup?

Thx

I didn't have a camera for a couple of years, almost the whole way through the pacific, since I did not buy anything what I didn't consider absolutely necessary (like beer) but I found one a friend took which gives at least a glimpse. Of course I have new pics of the boat, but that's the charter set up with everything removed what does not look nice.

[CaptainAlf]

Quite some people were considered how beer fits in the budget...

For me as a German it was new, that in NZ and OZ home brewing beer is legal and beer kits are readily available. The fermenting process is done in the tropics in 3 days in a 23l brew barrel and after bottling it's another 3 days until the carbonation process is over and the beer is drinkable but it's still better to wait another week or two.
One beer kit costs about 10$ and that's 23l beer which makes drinking beer very affordable to the low budget cruiser.

Cheers

[hellosailor]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

Ok then, by the foot, but not marked up as high as the 'marine' retailers

Go to your local post office, or go online, and ask for their "moving" kit. You'll get a coupon for 10% off any purchase at Lowes. And in theory, Home Depot will match that price and accept that coupon, if you prefer them or they're cheaper.

Still probably cheaper by the bucket.

[Wyoming pirate]

Yea, we traveled a couple thousand miles with 2 young men in a 30' C&C that spent probably less than 500. They never ran the engine, had no refrig, rowed the dink (or another cruiser would give them a tow) and utilized an excellent money saving technique. They would show up with their guitar about happy hour and before the evening was was over, my food allowance doubled. Well worth it though and great sailors as well! We sang the night away in many anchorages.

[dana-tenacity]

At the risk of thread drift - why would making beer be illegal?

[CaptainAlf]

Originally Posted by dana-tenacity

At the risk of thread drift - why would making beer be illegal?

In Germany home brewing was only allowed to a few 100s of years old farms who had the "home brew right". Beer kits were not available at all - at least 12 years ago, when I left Europe.
Destilling was for sure absolutely illegal because of the taxes.

Like for you it's a surprise that brewing beer could be illegal, it was a surprise to me that I can buy a beer kit in a supermarket.

Cheers