Is this even a feasible idea? living far away from your boat

[Dave9111]

I do some crazy stuff. But I'm sorry; in this case I have to be a joy killer.....



I'd like to propose an analogy to what the OP asked... Instead of a boat, lets say they want to own a small plane and this was an airplane cruisers forum.



____

My wife and I are dreaming of becoming small airplane pilots and we only want to fly in warm air... so would it be practical for us to buy an airplane in Florida or someplace warm and keep it hangered there... then travel to the plane and learn to fly, but only for a few weeks per year?

Oh, and we have never sat in a pilots seat before.. we are total newbies. What do you guys think?
____



Does ANYONE think this is at all reasonable?

Why do you think that handling a 35 to 40 ft sailboat for a total newbie is any easier than learning to fly a small plane? And yes, I am suggesting that a 35 to 40 ft sailboat is more difficult to operate/handle than a small single engine plane.



I suggest the op buy a used sailboat close to home and use it when they can during the summer.

If they use it they will:
1. Determine if they actually like sailboats. (good to know!)

2. Learn some sailing skills that apply to all sailboats.

3. Be prepared to make better decisions in the future.
4. Not go bankrupt supporting a boat they can only look at via a webcam most of the year.



Dave

[Carl-T705]

Originally Posted by Ecos

How much does a shrink cost? How much is getting away from Donald Trump wanting to nuke hurricanes worth? Our boat may be a money pit but it can be somewhere else anytime I want.

Does anyone understand what the He** this is suppose to mean? Is English your second language ?

[Carl-T705]

No , It's not a feasible plan unless you have a very (very) large disposable income that can replenish itself every twelve months.

[Dave9111]

Originally Posted by Carl-T705

Does anyone understand what the He** this is suppose to mean? Is English your second language ?

Yes.

No. English is my first language.



Dave

[Rothblum]

An alternative to chartering is to join a club that owns the boats and makes them available to members. I wasn't sure that I would enjoy cruising because I used to get seriously seasick when I worked for the Navy (as a civilian). I didn't know whether I would grow out of it if I sailed regularly, so I joined a club on the Chesapeake that my neighbor in Washington DC introduced me to. After many years of sailing the club boats, I bought my own and so far am pretty happy with lack of sea sickness. I haven't really been challenged with a big storm yet, so I had better not speak too quickly. Chartering with a club is a fraction of the cost of commercial charters or owning. One of the principal drawbacks of owning is not the cost. It is the time spent fixing things or otherwise caring for the boat when you are not using it. Again, the club option is the solution. The drawback of the club is that I couldn't just sail anywhere. I was limited to the Chesapeake. As I gained confidence that I could be comfortable in somewhat rough seas, I chartered a couple of catamarans and sailed around the BVI's. I didn't have a problem even sailing in somewhat rough weather ahead of a hurricane. Still waiting for some really big waves, but not looking for them.

[waterman46]

Lots of people do just what you proposed. Most have a bit more experience in sailing and cruising but you have to start somewhere. We have left our boat on land in La Paz and in Panama. Go south for the winter and cruise, north in summer and work on house or tour on land. Variety is spice of life, eh?

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by Dave9111

I do some crazy stuff. But I'm sorry; in this case I have to be a joy killer.....



I'd like to propose an analogy to what the OP asked... Instead of a boat, lets say they want to own a small plane and this was an airplane cruisers forum.



____

My wife and I are dreaming of becoming small airplane pilots and we only want to fly in warm air... so would it be practical for us to buy an airplane in Florida or someplace warm and keep it hangered there... then travel to the plane and learn to fly, but only for a few weeks per year?

Oh, and we have never sat in a pilots seat before.. we are total newbies. What do you guys think?
____



Does ANYONE think this is at all reasonable?

Why do you think that handling a 35 to 40 ft sailboat for a total newbie is any easier than learning to fly a small plane? And yes, I am suggesting that a 35 to 40 ft sailboat is more difficult to operate/handle than a small single engine plane.



I suggest the op buy a used sailboat close to home and use it when they can during the summer.

If they use it they will:
1. Determine if they actually like sailboats. (good to know!)

2. Learn some sailing skills that apply to all sailboats.

3. Be prepared to make better decisions in the future.
4. Not go bankrupt supporting a boat they can only look at via a webcam most of the year.



Dave

Ridiculous, on every possible level. Stop boat near pier, you sit and figure out next move. Stop an airplane at 500 ft off runway, you die.

[sdj]

Originally Posted by waterman46

Ridiculous, on every possible level. Stop boat near pier, you sit and figure out next move. Stop an airplane at 500 ft off runway, you die.

Ridiculous, on every possible level. There are only piers to stop at where there are piers, and you don't just 'stop' at them - substantial experience is required to not ; a.) ram it b.) get sucked under it in the current, c.) rip your rigging off in some overhead, d.) run it aground, e.) find it to begin with. Your oversimplification either indicates immense experience where you could do such a thing blindfolded, OR no experience at all. Whatever it is, it would be completely lost on a stressed and inexperienced yacht owner doing it under pressure.

I can trivially orbit a plane at 500ft for 30 minutes and figure out what to do next. It is entirely NON-TRIVIAL in a narrow channel at night after your nav laptop battery went flat - you will be emergency anchoring and crossing your fingers. Little mistakes in planes result in easy altitude or position holds. Little mistakes in yachts go unnoticed until you are completely snookered, and then you're aground or worse.

[Jmacburn65]

Try going to findacrew.com. You can go sailing and learn from some great captains here for free or very low cost. Had many great experiences on this website.

[Marathon1150]

The quick answer is "yes you can have a boat in a far away place and use it for short periods of time, at least for a while". We did this in stages as follows.

We were dinghy sailors so we had ample sailing skills on a variety of dinghies, both our own and club boats. Most of these skills transfer well to a keel boat and in fact probably create skills that are harder to learn on a larger boat.

Then we did some "cruise and learns". One week sailing courses on a charter boat with an instructor on board. By this point we had two young children (young children made dinghy sailing difficult). The week long "cruise and learn" courses on a coastal cruising boat demonstrated that we enjoyed cruising, even on a 30' boat with 3 adults and two kids. We experienced a range of weather and cruising conditions and learned a lot about sailing a larger boat and maintaining a cruising sail boat. I highly recommend this approach if you are not experienced sailors.

Then we bought a one third share in a Van de Stadt 34. This provided lots of sailing experience in difficult conditions. We lived and sailed in and around Jakarta, Indonesia. Charts are terrible, weather reports non-existent (this period pre-dated the internet). We could sail every third weekend and because the other two owners were more religiously inclined than we were, Sundays on "off" weekends were usually available too.

Then we bought a 28' foot keel boat (Sunstar) built by Spencer Yachts, Vancouver, Canada). We did lots of coastal cruising in and around Vancouver, with and without kids on board.

Then we bought our current boat (38' Beneteau Idylle) and kept it in Vancouver for about five years before prepping and sailing it to Mexico. At that point, I was still working so we only used the boat for 2-4 weeks per year in Mexico for about 5 years. It was great. Sailing the Sea of Cortez, avoiding the damp, grey skies of winter in Vancouver even for two weeks, made it worthwhile. The downside was that with only two weeks on the boat there was not a lot of time to do basic maintenance. We could pay people to do some, but not all of this maintenance, so some things just didn't get done. Plus, it took about 1-2 days to put the boat to sleep for hurricane season at the end of our 2 weeks plus 1-2 days to wake it up again when we started our two week visit. This means that we typically only had 8-10 days of time for sailing. Sometimes the weather was such, particularly in December/January, that the port of La Paz was closed and we could not go out. We would not have wanted to go out anyway if the weather was severe enough to close the port. So sometimes we only had a week or so of sailing but it was still very pleasant to be living on the boat in a really terrific part of the world.

Once more or less retired we were able to use the boat for four to five months at a time. Family and other reasons required that we be in Vancouver for more than half of the year.

We sailed the boat to Tahiti earlier this year and we will keep it there for a year or two but we will not be living on it full time. Our intention is to be on the boat and sail for about 5 months of the year only.

So the range of responses in this thread makes it clear that there is no universally correct answer to your questions. It all depends on your personal preference and how much you are willing to spend to maintain a boat at a distance. But it will be important to know how much you like sailing, how much you enjoy living on a boat for short and long periods of time and how much risk you are willing to accept owning a boat that you will not be able to see for periods of time.

Our boat lived through Hurricane Odile in La Paz, Mexico. It suffered very minor damage. Others were a total loss. We were not there at the time but somebody was keeping an eye on, and replacing our docklines as they chafed through. We have someone looking after our boat in Tahiti too. He starts the engine, pumps the head, checks the bilge, etc. Having someone reliable to keep an eye on your boat is, IMHO, a very important component of owning a boat at a distance.

Good luck with all of this.

[glcatlow]

Not sure if this has been brought up in the thread, but another possibility is a partnership arrangement in a boat. A good friend has been doing this for the past few years and it has worked out well for them. One sixth ownership gave them eight weeks out of the year to sail the boat. All partners shared in maintenance and upkeep.

I said “gave”- past tense. The boat was kept in Great Abaco, and Dorian just ended the dream.

[Lepke]

If I had zero sailing experience I'd rent or charter a boat after lessons. Not everyone is cut out for the ocean. It's not lake sailing. If you like the experience, then buy.

[RSH]

The boat as plane analogy is laughably ludicrous on two levels:

1. I'm going around 3-5 kts in the bay when I'm practicing. The average Cessna is doing 188 mph. The decisions you have to make at high speeds are fundamentally different from when you're puttering along at walking speed.

2. Water vs. air. Boats use the buoyancy of the water; planes depend on lift to go through the air. No velocity, no lift, no bueno. Your boat is going going to be buoyant regardless of speed.

So yeah, boats are not like planes and your analogy doesn't hold water.

[avnbuff]

There are parallels between some aircraft and sailing vessels. Aviation stoled many terms from the sailing world.

Speed and bleed - trying to slow a craft, deals with mass and momentum. Seeing the dock approaching it isn’t easy to judge closure without much practice. Smacking the dock or overshooting a turn off are at least similar..

Thinking the reverses or breaks will fix your errors is to misjudge the momentum. A quick reverse ma help but delivers a yawl as well.

Best choice, planning and consistent speed. Don’t be going faster than you want to hit something.

The Aviation Buff

[danielhwolf]

Originally Posted by Ecos

There are a thousand boats down here doing the same thing. They come in November and leave in May. $4-5 US per foot per month, dry or wet storage. Europeans, Russians even!

There are no hurricanes in Southern California, but in San Diego and L.A. we pay $15/foot slip fees.