Cruising while NOT living aboard?

[Sailer_Med]

Originally Posted by wingssail

If you aren't too attached to your boat (and you can afford to pay for what happens), go ahead and leave it. But if you love your boat, and just want to hug it every day, don't let your eyes off of it for long.

Every time I get to the marina and see my boat is still there I am pleasantly surprised.

[gonesail]

it is feasible but boats don't take care of themselves. being a long distance owner is not as good as living close by or on the boat. also insurance costs more. but better than not having a boat at all.

[henleyhale]

Originally Posted by smac999

This is 99% of boat owners. Take a few weeks - month off In Summer go cruising. For 11 months a year you live normally and work. Boat sits at a dock plugged in.



Very few people live on a boat. Most marinas don’t even allow it.

I live aboard, with a family of 4. This boat would rot in hell if I didn't live on it. Much like 99% of boats plugged in.... Rotting. I see the lines, untouched, the hull salty, the reef of barnacles, the dock lines faded, dangerous, likely replaced by a live aboard that didn't want your trash to burden his home.the tattered canvas still up from the last sail. The teak gone grey, the bilge pump occasionally going off, I see the deferred maintenance, the cracked glaze on the hatch, the slack standing rigging. I see quarter million dollar yachts falling into disrepair and in tens of thousands in value to neglect. Then I hear the oft pan pan calls when I'm shipping water green some poor souls victim to their own ignorance, and deferred maintenance. I spend no less than 12 but often 16 hrs a week on maintenance. Cleaning, inspecting, repairing, protecting. If I get ahead a little I get to install a little upgrade. Today I removed an inboard generator. Lifted it up and over my main engine then through the boat and up into the cockpit. I found a diesel leak to repair, a fresh water leak, 2 clevis pins and 2 cotter rings to replace as well as my boom vang fiddle block that went south, a cheek block oh and now I get to refiber glass some PO's mistake that ruined the generator to begin with. The thing died with 580 hrs on the clock. Due to deferred maintenance. My waste tank hose is starting to permeate, I need to reseal the shower. Time for another round of boiled linseed oil on the bulkheads...... Get the picture? My boat is the nice one that gets the compliments, the boat that won't let me down because I didn't let it down. I'm not rich enough to pay a pro yard to do it, and I've worked in enough pro yards that I'd rather not let them touch it without my eyes on them. I'm a sailor, not a boat owner. If you wanna be a boat owner get a trailer sailor, get a nice little powerboat you put on the rack when you're done. There are a few weekend warriors around that can keep up. They spend about 10 days a month aboard working, or hiring out work to be done. That's 2 out of 100 boats about 20 live aboard. The rest..... Rot. Or the family comes once a month to "enjoy" the boat, maintenance deferred, But that only lasts a little while. Soon they won't come, but promise themselves they will, then they'll rot. It'll be a year later, and the boat needs 10 weeks worth of maintenance. You can't cruise that boat. At least no where I want to cruise, and definitely not in the boat I wanted to cruise in. If that's your time budget for cruising... Charter a boat and enjoy it'll be cheaper, the boat will be safer, the boat will be nicer, and you'll save a BOAT LOAD of money. No shame in that. Charter boats are nice. I do preseason rigging on lots of them, they have mechanics and engineers going through them, the boats have proper 10 year haulouts, the winches are serviced and ready. The roller furler is in good repair, the sails are serviced. The saildrive has a new boot. Or the packing is inspected and in good repair. My boat cost per year with a slip and maintenance is around 16 to 20k some slips alone cost 20k maintenance is minimum another 8k. If a month is all you got .... Charter for 20k save yourself 500 hrs of work and live well.

[Moana Bella]

Originally Posted by henleyhale

I live aboard, with a family of 4. This boat would rot in hell if I didn't live on it. Much like 99% of boats plugged in.... Rotting. My boat cost per year with a slip and maintenance is around 16 to 20k some slips alone cost 20k maintenance is minimum another 8k. If a month is all you got .... Charter for 20k save yourself 500 hrs of work and live well.

I completely agree.
It is heart breaking to see the number of boats rotting away in marinas, with nobody ever coming near them.
And of course at the other end of the scale are the big shiny ones with staff living on board to polish them every day, in readiness for a handful of days per year when the owners actually go out on them. Waste of resources in this case.
We live aboard full time cruising and wouldn't have it any other way ATM. But as soon as we stop doing that, she will go up for sale so all the hours of maintenance and $$$ we have spent don't go to waste.
Then we will have the money to spend on a charter each year, and we can explore different parts of the world without the hard slog of crossing oceans to do it.

[goboatingnow]

I don’t agree. A private “ yacht “ must be the ultimate frivolous possession. Hence who are we to pass judgement.


Around me there are cheque book sailors who indirectly support a whole host of marine service workers , cleaning , polishing and fixing boats for owners to arrive for there 4-6 weeks holidays. These are often standard production cruisers from 32 feet up.

Chartering is very expensive and it’s not “ your “ boat.

So if you like to waste money and many it seems do. Buy a nice yacht , pay people to keep it nice , enjoy your limited holidays.

Remember many people are technically inept and should be banned from owning a screwdriver. So different strokes for different folks.

Happy days.

[Grith]

We are doing it another way. Our way is ok for two and for inshore and inland sailing but we won’t be crossing oceans!
( although I have done some costing on using a 40foot container and it’s feasible )
We have a 28 foot pretty close to maximum easily towed trailer sailer that has been extensively upgraded for longer term living aboard.
When not cruising it lives at our home either on our backyard pontoon ( for quick sailing trips ) or if we are off travelling by other means on its trailer beside our house. I hope to build a big enough shed for it soon.
No stress about what’s happening when we are not there, little likelihood of theft where we live and the usual crack about 50 knots upwind to distant cruising destinations allowing us to chase the sun.
We still have hot water onboard, over 6 foot standing headroom at the galley, shower toilet in a separate room and permanent queen sized bed ( if a bit height constrained), an onboard 240v system powered by lithium, solar and occasional use back up generator.
Last photo shows superb manufacturer one person mast stepping and raising system which can also be used whilst moving on water for bridge powerline transits.
Just an option!

[goboatingnow]

Clearly different people have different circumstances. Many people for example have no storage areas and have to use a marina.

Secondly many people want all “ mod cons “ of their house duplicated in their boat so the thing gets big.

There’s no “ best “ way just their way.

[mako]

OP, I have found that the #1 thing that gave me peace of mind was a camera. Even my house was 8,000 miles away, but first thing I did was install a handful of cameras with a local network.

It is so wonderful to be sitting somewhere far away, to pull out your smart phone and view what's going on around your boat, house, etc. Going steps further would be: remote monitoring of battery and solar; security sensors with lights/horns/sirens. Investing somewhere between $500 and $1000 will be the best money spent when your boat is at least a day's drive away, or on another coast or continent.

[Tenedos]

Originally Posted by thesaltytar

An idea I've wondered about is living in an area and keeping the boat someplace else. When I get breaks from work we could join the boat, sail on to a different destination, come back home, enjoy land life, then I could go back to work.

The concept has advantages and disadvantages. Our non live aboard boat wouldn't have to pull triple duty as home, attic, and basement, so we could keep her fairly lean and, God forbid anything happen such as a hurricane, not have all our proverbial eggs in one basket.

But is it feasible? Have any of you done this domestically or abroad? I'm curious what the pitfalls are.

We did this before Covid and cruised from San Francisco to Ensenada and back over the weekends, long weekends some occasional days off. It took 6 months in total. We were working in Bay Area so we had to be back during the week. We did overnight hops on weekends and found a slip for the boat and left her there. We visited the boat for a couple of weekends before we made the next hop. It was super tiring but a lot of fun. Boat was 32ft so was relatively easy to find transient slips along the way.

Path looked like this: San Francisco -> Santa Cruz -> Morro Bay (4 weeks stay at Morro Bay Yacht Club) -> Santa Barbara (2 weeks stay) -> Channel Islands -> Oxnard (1+ month stay at a transient slip) -> Marina Del Rey (2 months stay) -> San Diego (2 week stay) -> Ensenada (1+ month stay at Marina Coral). We did something similar back but on a much faster pace .

Getting back from the next anchorage to where we lived or where we parked our car was a major challenge until flying back was an option. We needed to take a couple of 3+ hours Uber rides, which were not easy to find, nor were they cheap. It was exhausting but a lot of fun!

[Tenedos]

Originally Posted by mako

OP, I have found that the #1 thing that gave me peace of mind was a camera. Even my house was 8,000 miles away, but first thing I did was install a handful of cameras with a local network.

It is so wonderful to be sitting somewhere far away, to pull out your smart phone and view what's going on around your boat, house, etc. Going steps further would be: remote monitoring of battery and solar; security sensors with lights/horns/sirens. Investing somewhere between $500 and $1000 will be the best money spent when your boat is at least a day's drive away, or on another coast or continent.

+1 to this. If you have solar, you can put a simple Internet solution on the boat and cameras (Blink recommended). When I leave the boat, I normally leave 5 motion activated security cameras, 2 inside and 3 outside. Not that it will deter everyone but at least you have realtime visibility into what may be happening to your boat.

[mako]

@Tenedos, regarding to deterrence, which is really important, there have been several threads especially on the sister TrawlerForum. Installing some extremely bright LED deck lights, maybe a strobe and perhaps a police siren, would be the response wanted to scare away pretty much 100% of burglars, bay-pirates or squatters. Various sensors can be employed depending on how sophisticated one wishes to get, including pressure sensors.

The thing that I wrestle with when designing my own system is making sure it is programmable. You need a double or multi-knock system. If a big wake passes by or a bird lands on your railing, that would be the first-knock but would not set off a response. However, if a 2nd incident is recorded within XX seconds (say 30 seconds) then a bright deck light comes on. And so on leading up to a loud siren.

My little Blink doorbell even has a speaker, and I was speaking to the UPS delivery driver while in Europe.

If one does not want an automated security response then at the least, install the bright deck lights and siren onboard, but connected to your phone so you can manually initiate it.

Fun stuff, but important stuff!

[rwallace]

Originally Posted by henleyhale

I live aboard, with a family of 4. This boat would rot in hell if I didn't live on it. Much like 99% of boats plugged in.... Rotting. I see the lines, untouched, the hull salty, the reef of barnacles, the dock lines faded, dangerous, likely replaced by a live aboard that didn't want your trash to burden his home.the tattered canvas still up from the last sail. The teak gone grey, the bilge pump occasionally going off, I see the deferred maintenance, the cracked glaze on the hatch, the slack standing rigging. I see quarter million dollar yachts falling into disrepair and in tens of thousands in value to neglect. Then I hear the oft pan pan calls when I'm shipping water green some poor souls victim to their own ignorance, and deferred maintenance. I spend no less than 12 but often 16 hrs a week on maintenance. Cleaning, inspecting, repairing, protecting. If I get ahead a little I get to install a little upgrade. Today I removed an inboard generator. Lifted it up and over my main engine then through the boat and up into the cockpit. I found a diesel leak to repair, a fresh water leak, 2 clevis pins and 2 cotter rings to replace as well as my boom vang fiddle block that went south, a cheek block oh and now I get to refiber glass some PO's mistake that ruined the generator to begin with. The thing died with 580 hrs on the clock. Due to deferred maintenance. My waste tank hose is starting to permeate, I need to reseal the shower. Time for another round of boiled linseed oil on the bulkheads...... Get the picture? My boat is the nice one that gets the compliments, the boat that won't let me down because I didn't let it down. I'm not rich enough to pay a pro yard to do it, and I've worked in enough pro yards that I'd rather not let them touch it without my eyes on them. I'm a sailor, not a boat owner. If you wanna be a boat owner get a trailer sailor, get a nice little powerboat you put on the rack when you're done. There are a few weekend warriors around that can keep up. They spend about 10 days a month aboard working, or hiring out work to be done. That's 2 out of 100 boats about 20 live aboard. The rest..... Rot. Or the family comes once a month to "enjoy" the boat, maintenance deferred, But that only lasts a little while. Soon they won't come, but promise themselves they will, then they'll rot. It'll be a year later, and the boat needs 10 weeks worth of maintenance. You can't cruise that boat. At least no where I want to cruise, and definitely not in the boat I wanted to cruise in. If that's your time budget for cruising... Charter a boat and enjoy it'll be cheaper, the boat will be safer, the boat will be nicer, and you'll save a BOAT LOAD of money. No shame in that. Charter boats are nice. I do preseason rigging on lots of them, they have mechanics and engineers going through them, the boats have proper 10 year haulouts, the winches are serviced and ready. The roller furler is in good repair, the sails are serviced. The saildrive has a new boot. Or the packing is inspected and in good repair. My boat cost per year with a slip and maintenance is around 16 to 20k some slips alone cost 20k maintenance is minimum another 8k. If a month is all you got .... Charter for 20k save yourself 500 hrs of work and live well.

Took a lot of effort to write this. Where’d you find the time with all that maintenance? 😉 It’s wrong to assume a boat in disrepair is due to not “living aboard” full time. Plenty of derelict boats floating around with full time captains. This gulf between full time live aboard and seasonal cruisers is a bit silly. It’s a difference without a distinction. I’ve cruised seasonally for the past 12 years, which included crossing an ocean, Maine to Grenada, Mexico and most points in between - more than 30,000 nm. Yet the full timers always think they’re more “salty”. Whatever. I’ll just smile, throw off the dock lines and start another cruise.