Our Dream of Sailboat Living + Questions

[rbk]

Originally Posted by rabbi

See post #107. He says he has the money to pay everything cash and live for a few years.
He just wants to keep his liquidity so his cash earns more money than the interest on the boat loan.


Financial magic. Based on deprecating assets and a bull market at record hights.
Not my cup of coffee.

Keep liquidity in depreciating assets vs cash. Hmmm

[bluenomads]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

This thread makes me laugh. Every time the OP posts, he sounds like he has it all figured out, but each new post shows that he is clueless. A lot of marketing is listening to what people have to say to you. All I can say is good luck with it and record it all--YouTubes of disasters are very popular.

I was sceptical when they started asking, but I now suspect they'll be out there cruising before most of us (me included!!) have even pulled up anchor (that's overegging it in case the humour didn't come over).
The OPs have a certain way of communicating that, if I was a betting man, I'd be putting a little bit of money on them going ahead despite the negative people (learn to crawl before you walk, I did it this way so everyone else needs to as well, learn slowly, you'll die soon if you don't listen to me, etc.).

[Fore and Aft]

It could go a lot ways Neil. Imagine some of these pensioners with all there skills and thrift dealing with Small Guppy. You could see there being a boat issue and Small Gupppy just whips out the cheque book to fix it while the old timers want to actually fix it themselves.
You could imagine if it all got to hard for Small Guppy (Like spotty internet reception) him and the Mrs flying to the nearest resort and getting the oldies to deliver the boat for him.
It would be a riot of laughs just thinking about the generation clash.
Cheers

[Peregrine1983]

I think this thread just caused a spike in the VIX.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by KingGuppy

Let's say this happened on October 7th, 2008. I bought a $200k boat off a loan and invested $200k into the largest ETF on the planet, the Vanguard Total Stock Market. Majority of seniors 401k's are probably vested here and don't even know it.

Literally absolute worst case scenario, buying a $200k boat on 24month loan, which value tanks and then investing $200k, which value tanks.

10 years later, VTI is now +98% what it was PRIOR to the market collapse. My initial $200k investment is now worth $390k, the boat is value'd at $100k and I still owe $100k. I could pay the boat off, have made $190k in 10 years off taking the loan.

This is using the absolute worst case scenario in the history of the market for the past 50+ years.

So you don't want to use stop loss but you want to hold the positions through the storm.

Worst case scenario: the bank does not extend the 24month loan. You have to pay it back.
Your 200k boat is worth 100k because the boat market is down. Your 200k portfolio that is down 50%.
You just lost 200k.

There is no such thing as free lunch at the stock market.



But this is a sailing forum. Your sailing questions have all been answered in other threads, just use the search function.

For me its *over and out*

[KingGuppy]

Is anyone going to the Tampa boat show Sept 7-9th or has been at previous years?

I was thinking of going to checkout all the boats, but it looks like they may have slim to none actual cat's.

I think that's the soonest opportunity to at least step foot in some mono and multi hulls.

They have classes to go out for 3+ hours and start learning. Only about $129per person.

[KingGuppy]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

It could go a lot ways Neil. Imagine some of these pensioners with all there skills and thrift dealing with Small Guppy. You could see there being a boat issue and Small Gupppy just whips out the cheque book to fix it while the old timers want to actually fix it themselves.
You could imagine if it all got to hard for Small Guppy (Like spotty internet reception) him and the Mrs flying to the nearest resort and getting the oldies to deliver the boat for him.
It would be a riot of laughs just thinking about the generation clash.
Cheers

I certainly wish I could, but we haven't made it there.

When we bought our house it was original from the 70s so we tried hiring contractors for things but they never showed up. We ended up doing most stuff our self from watching YouTube videos. Ceiling fans, flooring, running water to kitchen for ice maker, replacing toilets, all types of terrible projects, but we saved a ton of money on it.

If there's a video under 15 minutes on YouTube explaining how to do it, I'll give it a shot.

Plus if I ever get stranded, ill just post on here and im sure someone will come out for support!

[laika]

As another child here of the great recession, leveraging dreams against the dow jones industrial average seems crazy. But you seem to have a good head on your shoulders, even if end of the day your betting against the house of cards. I'm certainly not your financial advisor.

You won't be judged on the water for your choice of boat or your financials. Most all that stuff gets left behind on the docks. People are equally happy on boats of all kinds, large and small. There's not a right or wrong way. As said by others, knowing what does it for you guys is something you can only get with experience.

I'm lucky enough to be in a similar financial situation to you. Spent years working web dev as a vagrant bum on a boat with zero overhead. Still happy a decade later, same gig, same lil 27'. Now just cruising winters with the girlfriend. The small boat gives us total flexibility to come and go from the boat each year wherever it ends up without having to bat an eye.

I wish you the best with whatever you end up doing. But I'd say youre in a prime position to get off the carousel permanently if you just dampen your expectations. The gap between more and enough never closes.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by KingGuppy

Let's say this happened on October 7th, 2008. I bought a $200k boat off a loan and invested $200k into the largest ETF on the planet, the Vanguard Total Stock Market. Majority of seniors 401k's are probably vested here and don't even know it.

Literally absolute worst case scenario, buying a $200k boat on 24month loan, which value tanks and then investing $200k, which value tanks.

10 years later, VTI is now +98% what it was PRIOR to the market collapse. My initial $200k investment is now worth $390k, the boat is value'd at $100k and I still owe $100k. I could pay the boat off, have made $190k in 10 years off taking the loan.

This is using the absolute worst case scenario in the history of the market for the past 50+ years.

I would look into the fundamentals that have been driving the longest Bull run ever. Why are interest rates still hovering around historic lows after such a long economic expansion?

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by daletournier

I would look into the fundamentals that have been driving the longest Bull run ever. Why are interest rates still hovering around historic lows after such a long economic expansion?

because some folks think that paying off debt using even more debt was a smart way. Worked well for a selected few. Leverage in line with what the PO wnats to do.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by daletournier

I would look into the fundamentals that have been driving the longest Bull run ever. Why are interest rates still hovering around historic lows after such a long economic expansion?

That is a question that I have pondered for, well decades to be honest.
I am no financial wizard, but have enough sense to realize when something sounds too good to be true, it often is. Dot com crash, housing crash, now the bitcoin thing, they aren’t hard to predict.

However the interest rate confuses me, its manipulated obviously, but how and to what end I don’t know, it smacks of borrowing money from a bank to pay credit card bills myself.

From my very rudimentary understand, things are occurring in the financial world that has no precedence.

[Tdh001]

Originally Posted by KingGuppy

Insurance information is great advice! I'm sure other future cruisers reading this want to know it as well.



I understand you're trying hard to be negative on this post, but don't take it out on other forum members that are offering actual help.

Or...
You could go big!)
I did!
Bought a 44 footer halfway around the world and did a “seat of the pants” thing crossing the Atlantic.
Of course if you’re smarter than me, you might not want to listen to MY advice.
Bottom line is: “Just Do It!”
You can always find reasons not to do xyz.
Nobody would insure me. For no price)
But I didn’t give up until I found one possibly not-so-great insurer who’d take the risk.
That meant NEVER taking my eyes off the water and the charts unless someone COMPETENT was on watch.
But it was also a blast!
Look, there’s not a single sailor out there who knows everything and has all the stuff his/her boat needs -in working condition that is)
My hat off to you both for daring and the wisdom to get out of the rat race waay ahead of schedule)
A cat is -as a real sailor onboard a brand new 62 lagoon told me- a condo with sails. That is the compromise for all that space. They don’t handle well in bad weather but that doesn’t mean they automatically sink in the first storm.
Just stay out of stormy places if you can unless you enjoy that kind of thing)

[mark_morwood]

Originally Posted by KingGuppy

Great information to know!

How difficult is it to increase the coverage once you arrive? We were assuming around 2.5% boat value per year in insurance.

As the poster says, this is true if you are looking at domestic US insurance only, but that is not what you want. Insurance is certainly available for blue water sailing and is not a big deal, though every now and then (after big hurricanes) it gets a little harder to find. And yes it is more expensive as you are insuring against a bigger risk. In terms of numbers, you are probably looking at closer to 4% to 6% for blue water insurance, but it really depends on where you are cruising. Pacific is expensive, Atlantic much cheaper.You should just budget for it.

If you want to stop in a marina in most places in the world (particularly Europe) you will require at least liability insurance. If there is any sort of financing associated with your boat (I'm afraid I skipped the financial pissing match above) you'll need full insurance. Lots of threads already on here about insurance. Just do a search.

Mark.

[mark_morwood]

Originally Posted by Tdh001

Or...
A cat is -as a real sailor onboard a brand new 62 lagoon told me- a condo with sails. That is the compromise for all that space. They don’t handle well in bad weather but that doesn’t mean they automatically sink in the first storm.
Just stay out of stormy places if you can unless you enjoy that kind of thing)

I agree with all the stuff you said about just going for it, but the bit quoted above is just not true. Yes, the Lagoon 62 is a floating condo, but many of the catamarans owned or sailed by real cruisers on here are not. It's your choice. This is like suggesting all monohull cruisers are traditional full keel crab smashers.

Mark.

[ShellBack89]

Originally Posted by jharding

This is a great adventure you will do. you need to get off the internet and get out on the water, take a week long sailing class where you live on the boat. I took Blue water sailing school,Loved it. You will learn more in a week on a boat with a experienced pro than you can in a year on the internet. I took two different week long classes, one on a monohull and one on a Cat. Doing deliveries is another great way to learn, get out on the water. You will find a lot of things you thought were important are not. It's a great life get going.

Did you take the mono course for the initial experience and then the Cat course to refine your knowledge or to see which platform you enjoyed more or both?