Cruising Sailboats: a Dying Breed?

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by laika

Some here would seem to have it that instead of us all being people responding to our times, there was once a great generation who bore a bunch of me me me'ers, who then spawned a bunch of walking selfie-sticks. My how fast things fall apart!

I think there are two sides to the coin, of which what you describe is certainly one.

The other is that "our time" isn't any external force but something that is actively being created by all of us who are alive creating it.

So, for example, if someone is worried about people getting too addicted to their mobile phones and think more sailing (or yoga or reading or ...) would make humankind better for the humans living it, feel free to have an opinion about what we're doing "wrong" and what maybe could lead to something better.

I think there are a lot of "grumpy old men" actively trying to do something about climate change, for instance, highlighting the unsustainable parts of "our times" that might need to be changed.

[ctl411]

Originally Posted by Jimroda06

When you sail into a marina:
Two words on your forehead "Meal Ticket" and boy do they take advantage.
The Marina's are killing it. "Do not bite the hand that feeds you"
In most places you could stay ashore fully inclusive for what it costs to tie the boat up.
Anchorages are disappearing.
Having said that I am about to buy my fifth boat!!!

This has a lot to do with the decline. Plus loss of marinas to condos.

[tarian]

Lot of opinions and facts and assumptions , great thread , now I would like to opinion of the forum in what do we know classify as young people , middle aged and old. We know that we are in statistical terms living longer , more agile more healthy , less aliments to lets say than the 70,s.
So I will be 49 the good lady 43 when we head off next year , would we be considered young, would people who wear vans and listen to loud music talk to us and will the older fun loving criminals look down at us as young trouble makers,
Or will we be in the void of no mans land and cant fit into the cruising society , I appreciate this is a little tongue in cheek , but the real question is still there what is young these days

[Kenomac]

People just have different things to do that interest them today, plus add in the increasing numbers of people uninterested or unable to fix things themselves, the result is a decrease in the sailing/cruising lifestyle. Has nothing to do with income or debt. Even wealthy people we know sell their boats in frustration because things break and they don't either don't know how or are unwilling to fix stuff or they can't buy the help quick enough to satisfy their need to hurry about.

[sailorboy1]

Maybe its just that sailing and boating aren't for everyone. Thank God for that!

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Maybe its just that sailing and boating aren't for everyone. Thank God for that!

Here here!! Agreed.

[Luckyknot]

I've determined recently that I will be designing my own boat to sail around the world. Again, I'm 34, vintage millenia.

I learned drafting in middle school and high school and then transitioned to CAD junior year. Went to college and got a BE in mechanical engineering with a minor in naval architecture. College further expanded my abilities in CAD both 2D and 3D (very much a part of my working life now). I designed two boats (one power, one sail) in Maxsurf. I'll be designing MY boat by hand. I have commissionied an artisan to craft for me a set of spline ducks. I am awaiting the arrival of my new-to-me mechanical planimeter and have all of the other manual drafting supplies I'll need which have not been touched in years. Calculations will be done by hand. I'm seriously considering purchasing a slide rule and learning how to use it but if I don't it'll be calculator and paper.

I can fix a tractor, sail a boat, and know my way around Halo and Call of Duty. My 11 year old can handle a circular saw and also beat me butt in the above mentioned games. I know, I'm the worst kind of parent but I'm just doing what I feel is best.

As a family we ride our bikes on city streets EVERYWHERE. We don't own a car and instead use Zipcar when we absolutely need to drive. Riding is just more fun I guess.

I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of generalizations happening here that really don't hold up. You have to get to know individuals and their interests and talents before you can say ALL millenials this or ALL old people that. Just because there is a lot of new things happening that garner interest doesn't mean that all things of the past are gone and forgotten. I would say MOST people find a balance they are comfortable with without being overly any specific thing. That's just been my experience though with the people of all ages that I've interacted with.

So I guess I'm part of the issue with the decline in boat production. I haven't purchased a new boat of the two that I've owned and don't plan on purchasing a new boat when I set off again. I'll be making my own.

[ol1970]

Yep definitely a dwindling breed. My partner and crime and I are 47/41 and 3 years ago I thought for sure we'd retire permanently to a boat and cruise the world. So fast forward I got myself real world experience with captaining multiple charters over thousand miles sailed (nothing I know)and close to 300 days on the water/boat. What we love about it seeing new places, challenging ourselves, and the adventure of it all. What I dislike is really only the old codger internet sailing police.

That being said, I'm cursed to be good at math, owning a big boat is just a PITA. Since we are fortunate to have the means to travel and have a very nice lifestyle in our retirement (3 years now), and have flight benefits where we can hop on a plane to Paris/Hawaii/Tahiti/Costa Rica/Rome/Hong Kong/Sydney/Athens/(basically you name it)...for free or close to it, we've really rethought our sailing plans. Being able to fly to a spot (say Croatia) rent a boat for 2-3 weeks then give the keys back, then stay another 2 weeks at a VRBO exploring inland, is not only cheaper, it is way less stressful. For now we do 2 big charters a year, then travel to cool places that we want to see too. I get that we are probably missing something in the emersion into a culture and area that you get when you slow travel by boat, but there are just so damn many places we want to see before we croak that I don't know how we could do it if we only traveled by boat. Granted we have a unique circumstance, but if we were tied to a boat we'd have missed out on so many places and experiences. It essentially allows us to fast forward through the boring/stressful parts of sailing. You can't go hike Half Dome or board in fresh powder from your anchorage

Once we have been to all the best places, I think it will give us perspective on where we want our forever home base to be. It will a spectacular view, boating/sailing, tropical weather, stuff to do other than start drinking at noon, and interesting/fun people.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by GoatGuy

This is a very interesting thread, and one that I can relate to in many ways, and also with several comments that are, in my opinion pretty hostile and aggressive towards my generation.

I'll start from the top and explain where I'm at, keeping in mind, this is a case study and doesn't necessarily reflect my generation as a whole.

I'm 33, I have a bachelors degree with no school debt (I worked 20-40hrs every week while going to college). and I am now 8 years into a career in research and development for a fortune 50 chemical company. I make a decent amount of money for my area and with a bachelors, but at my company I'll never be six figure without an advanced degree.

My wife is a registered nurse and carries a small debt (got it below $8k now) for her schooling. She brings in an average amount of money for being an RN.

A year ago, we got the opportunity to buy an apartment complex, knowing that both of our jobs (her's only exists as long as a certain gov program gets funding each year, and my job is on the whim of the economy) we jumped at it. We sold our house to get the equity out and took a small ($25k) loan from my 401k to get the downpayment for the apartment complex.

Best case each month, The apartment complex after servicing the loan (15 year total), expenses, capital and taxes, gives us about $3-3.5k each month in profit. We also bought and live on the 1st floor of a 4plex house that we own (w/mortgage) and currently AirBnB 1 upstairs unit and are in the process of rehabbing the other 2 upstairs apartments.

EVERYTHING together, we might make $110k after tax this year. I assure you, this is far more than the average for my generation cohort for my area, but it is far from making us "rich".

On top of this, we also have 3 kids (1, 4 & 6). They come with all the time commitments, and costs that it takes to raise a kid (Last year, we spent $21k in childcare/daycare expenses alone, not to mention medical, food, clothes, etc)

We work our butts off to have what we have. Between 2 full time jobs, managing a 17 unit low income apartment complex, running an airbnb that averages 30% occupancy, rehabbing 2 apartments and raising 3 kids, we have Zero time, none. I assure you, we (and most of my generation) are NOT lazy, we are not slackers. What we are, is a group of people with absolutely no trust in the future or our long term financial security. Neither my wife or I have pensions, or secure jobs, so we try our best to set up a few other revenue streams "just in case".

Now, to tie this back into sailing...

My wife and I long to leave this ratrace as we are both very burned out (yes, I know, we are only 33, but we've been going 100% for years) on everything and not getting enough time with our kids. We love watching the youtubers, reading these forums, and dreaming about someday casting off and enjoying our time instead of just working through it all.

However, there are complications of course...

Financially:

A boat that can hold my family of 5, is generally in the 45-55' range. These boats are listed on yatchworld and craigslist for $100-200k (minimum, for a 1980's boat in ok shape) and that doesn't include whatever refit it would need.

Health insurance, if we both quit our jobs, we lose health insurance, obviously. But with 1 kid with severe allergies (has been to the ER 2x in the last year for anaphlactic reactions) we either need to buy super expensive non employer subsidized healthcare, or have a huge emergency savings fund.

Ongoing income, Best case scenario, We find a fantastic property manager who is able to manage our properties as effectively as we do ourselves and takes 10%. That would leave us with about $4-5k /month income which, from my research is enough to get by on cruising with a family of 5, but doesn't leave tons left over to continue building any kind of savings.

All in all, we'd need probably $300k to buy a boat, outfit it, and retain enough to have a comfortable emergency fund/kitty. And that represents another ~3ish years of hard savings, cutting our lifestyles down to the financial bone.

Time:

This past June, we purchased a nice Catalina 30. It's big enough to give us a feel for sailing around as a family, with enough space for everyone to sleep, but small enough to still be cheap and relatively easy to maintain. it has been fun, and we've enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as we'd like to. With the apartments taking up a lot of our weekends, we were only able to get out 1-2x each month, and never for more than 1 night. It was frustrating as this was supposed to be our barometer in how our family took to the water, and we never really even got to test that.

Conclusion:

Without actually casting off, we can only really say that we "THINK" we'd like cruising and that is sounds like a great way to bond as a family while getting away from all that hectic stuff. However, we don't really KNOW if it's for us and there seems to be only 1 way to find out, actually doing it.

But how can we make that decision? Quiet our jobs, take the kids out of school, move 2000 miles away, and risk >$100k, to hope that this lifestyle works for us? That's a huge huge HUGE risk. And maybe someday we'll try it, but if I'm being honest, realistically we probably wont, there are too many hurtles. I'll continue to read the forums, watch the youtubers and browse yatchworld, if nothing else that to vicariously enjoy the momentary escape it gives. Again, we hope one day to join those blue water fleets.... but who knows...


Lastly, My wife and I are both very handy, I've enjoyed doing my own car work (from changing brakes, to replacing the clutch), we cook as much of our own meals that we can, we make decent money and STILL live in an apartment just so that we can set ourselves up better for the future. However, we will still eat out when we are working so much we can make a meal at home, I will hire someone to fix my brakes because otherwise I'ds have to do it on my weekend and sacrifice more of the limited time I have with my kids, We hired someone to paint some rooms in our house for the same reason.

In my experience, millennials DO like doing stuff with their hands (they started the whole craft/artisan movement), They try to be fiscally responsible (they started the AirBNB, Turo, kickstarter, etc movements to try and make some extra side money), and often, if young kid has to hire something out, it's generally either time restricted (like me) or knowledge restricted (few of my peers grew up with fathers that taught them the basics of home & car maintenance like mine did). I see now reason to fault them for that.

And don't get so down on them for having high college debts. These kids were pushed by thier parents and high school counselors to 1. go to college, everyone has to go to college, and 2. study what you love/like. We all know that those are the best reasons to go to school or choose a major... But how does a young 18 year old know that when it's what everyone told them to do?

Be nice to these folks, they were taken advantage of by cheap government loans and ridiculously expensive costs, when they were too young to know better. If you can tell me you didn't make stupid mistakes between the years 17 and 25, I'll be the first to call you liar.

That turned into much more of a ramble than I anticipated when I first started typing, haha. Thanks for reading!

You’re only 33, the rewards from all the hard work come later in life. We purchased our Hunter 450 when I was 55... be patient.

Ken. RN

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by tarian

Lot of opinions and facts and assumptions , great thread , now I would like to opinion of the forum in what do we know classify as young people , middle aged and old. We know that we are in statistical terms living longer , more agile more healthy , less aliments to lets say than the 70,s.
So I will be 49 the good lady 43 when we head off next year , would we be considered young, would people who wear vans and listen to loud music talk to us and will the older fun loving criminals look down at us as young trouble makers,
Or will we be in the void of no mans land and cant fit into the cruising society , I appreciate this is a little tongue in cheek , but the real question is still there what is young these days

Out in the real cruising world (as opposed to the virtual cruising forums), no one really cares how old you are, what you look like, or what you do. As long as you’re open, generous and kind, you will find a welcoming home in the actual cruising community. Of course, if you’re closed, selfish and mean, then you’ll probably feel more comfortable in the virtual world .

My spouse and I left our land house when in our late 40s/early 50s. I hang out with eighty year olds who are far nimbler than I, and with 20-somethings who are just loving the life. We all get there in our own time. All that matters is that we’re out there.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by tarian

Lot of opinions and facts and assumptions , great thread , now I would like to opinion of the forum in what do we know classify as young people , middle aged and old. We know that we are in statistical terms living longer , more agile more healthy , less aliments to lets say than the 70,s.
So I will be 49 the good lady 43 when we head off next year , would we be considered young, would people who wear vans and listen to loud music talk to us and will the older fun loving criminals look down at us as young trouble makers,
Or will we be in the void of no mans land and cant fit into the cruising society , I appreciate this is a little tongue in cheek , but the real question is still there what is young these days

Young is a state of mind in my opinion..
I've known ancient folk in their 20's.. and kids who can party and dance many into the ground in their 60's.
Don't sweat it.. just get out there and be yourselves and you will find like on land some will gravitate towards you.. others away.. age is irrelevant.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

People just have different things to do that interest them today, plus add in the increasing numbers of people uninterested or unable to fix things themselves, the result is a decrease in the sailing/cruising lifestyle. Has nothing to do with income or debt. Even wealthy people we know sell their boats in frustration because things break and they don't either don't know how or are unwilling to fix stuff or they can't buy the help quick enough to satisfy their need to hurry about.

Good points...
On that note, I thought it would be interesting to find some clues about the start of the (long since faded) cruising fad in the early 1970s. Some claim that the Westsail 32 was at the heart of this adventure-seeking trend in the early days, pointing to a Time magazine article in 1973 that launched so many dreams of far away shores...

[Kim Gregory]

Cyan said

I thought it would be interesting to find some clues about the start of the (long since faded) cruising fad in the early 1970s.

For me it was the songs of the day, forecasting the doom of civilization. I wanted to be among the survivors, to pick my new home from the least radio-active part of the planet. I sailed away in 1981, lucky for all of us, it did not happen.

"Wooden Ships" was a song written and composed by David Crosby, Paul Kantner, and Stephen Stills. It was written and composed in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a boat named the Mayan, owned by Crosby, who composed the music, while Kantner and Stills wrote most of the lyrics.

"Wooden Ships" was written at the height of the Vietnam War, a time of great tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, nuclear-armed rivals in the Cold War. It has been likened to Tom Lehrer's "We Will All Go Together When We Go" and Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction," in that it describes the consequences of an apocalyptic nuclear war.

"And it's a fair wind blowin' warm
Out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go"

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by cyan

Good points...
On that note, I thought it would be interesting to find some clues about the start of the (long since faded) cruising fad in the early 1970s. Some claim that the Westsail 32 was at the heart of this adventure-seeking trend in the early days, pointing to a Time magazine article in 1973 that launched so many dreams of far away shores...

In the UK it was before that.. then Knox Johnson widened the appeal in the 60's.

[Cherod]

Bernard for me mate.. but there were lots, personally i never fell for the eve of desrtuction / cold war ( sell more guns ) propoganda escape thing , tho i accept it was previlant, the likes of C Blyth , RKJohnstone , Taberlay ( all of whoms books i read from cover to cover ) etc were not really cruisers / travellers in the ilk of Moitessier , Gerbault , Smeetons etc ,even the Hiscocks who were more travellers than survivilists ( Lewis ) / racers , record setters ( egotists ) , of course there have always been the bahama set, the Rhode island set, the Marsailles set, and then along came the one and only James Wharram who offered the ordinary ( if not so ) person who wanted to just go and now had the means of doing so.