Make Money While Cruising - List

[GringoOnStingo]

Originally Posted by Agility

Maybe an online cruising guide that get's added to from the community? Are there any good ones out there?

World Cruising & Sailing Wiki

[barnakiel]

Teaching.

Seen people teaching other people for money. Possible in the developed areas of the Western world where people understand the need for education and have the funds to buy it.

b.

[boatman61]

Delivery's.. when asked... Photography/Printing... splicing lines... varnish work... scrubbing boat bottoms...

[David_Old_Jersey]

Webcam

[Therapy]

You could stay green and sell your carbon credits. Even trade others.

3rd world countries are loving that stuff.

There have been millions trading hands these last few years. Untold billions or even trillions yet to be raked.....err traded.

It is the latest really, really BIG business.

And every single person on the planet is a customer. Think of it - every single one of them!!

[barnakiel]

Orgh #### - chartering own boat - it sucks ... but it pays.

If one has the boat that can take guests - having a small "charter-me!"company works.

Just make sure you like people - charter guests are ... guests - PLS treat them well!

b.

[gettinthere]

Originally Posted by Therapy

You could stay green and sell your carbon credits. Even trade others.

3rd world countries are loving that stuff.

There have been millions trading hands these last few years. Untold billions or even trillions yet to be raked.....err traded.

It is the latest really, really BIG business.

And every single person on the planet is a customer. Think of it - every single one of them!!

T

Can you elaborate? How does this really work? I know there is a carbon credit exchange in Chicago but do I exchange my credits to algore for his mansion and his 100' motor yacht? What does it pay?

[CaptainTtwo]

There are many technical jobs out there that work out of a home office and any could work out of a boat. I would also think about being a trader as you can do that as long as you have a Internet connection. If you are thinking of long distance cruising and you have a technical job see if anyone in the company is working out of a home office and maneuver into such a position.

[Randyonr3]

There's a woman that lives here in the marina, believe she's on a fixed income..but every couple of weeks she makes up a large batch of Tomales and sell them to people who live around here.. Never gave it much thought but I'd be one to pay to have a meal prepaired by a chef, someone who really knew how to take a regular fish and make something fantastic with it.. Kinda like a night out for the wife and I...
I'm sure if you pulled into an anchorage and passed out flyers of meals you'd be doing for a week, you'd get calls to have it delivered..

[barnakiel]

Randyonr3 - good point!

And good chefs can find a job nearly everywhere today.

b.

[MarkJ]

I haven't seen one yet where people are obviously making money whilst actively cruising.
I have seen some canvas makers/repairers but generally they stop to do it somewhere cheap. because they need a flat space.

The other problem with canvas & covers etc is that (damn) women don't just want any colour, they want a specific colour! Have you seen how many blues Sunbrella has? We currently have pacific Blue but Nicolle wants Ocean Blue... NOT Mediterranean Blue or Navy Blue. PLUS there’s more than one Sunbrella Ocean Blue! "4 fabrics found for "ocean blue".

So the difficulty to make it pay is that you would need to be able to order it, by the roll, wherever you are.

Trading: I’ve traded on the stock market before cruising, and between Tax, commissions and accountancy fees I reckon I made about $2 per hour.... in between loosing $hitloads of money in bulk in about 5 seconds flat when all the brokers know whats going on but you dont!

Cooking: I like that idea is new, unique and theses some great locations where people just can't have a dinner out. But the cook would need to be great! Cruisers are frugal to other cruisers. Whose boat is dinner on? Then your boat needs to be good/atmospheric/huge/unique. On their boat how do you cook in an unusual surrounding? What about beach BBQ? Few beaches, but love the idea.

Web/internet business: Ahh the bliss of having a one hour per day, but can have weeks in between whilst cruising, that makes enough to supplement the budget. Ahhh t'would be bliss indeed. I would think there would be very few jobs and the person would be pretty smart. But with the internet anything is possible. Just show me the way

Cutting Hair. Seriously, if you were not heading off for a year yet, how about doing a hairdressing course?
My whole head needs fixing, but the hair is reeeeeaaaaalllllly bad! Nic normally cuts it but last time she chopped my fringe too short, so I then refused to let her near it and cut it myself. Put it this way, I think people laugh at me because I'm funny
I would sure pay a cruiser $5 for a cut. but if it was $10 I would enlist Nic again... or go to the local barber...
Tools of the trade: Scissors, comb, spray bottle.


Mark

[boatman61]

The reality is when your on the move the chances of earning are restricted to those with paying crew and any small profit that can be made there... thats why people do it...
The cost/reliability/quota of satellite wireless makes Internet earnings borderline profitable as Mark says.. I can't send info over a certain size to many of the addresses on my mailing lists... apart froma quick HI GUY's
So one has to stop for a while to earn anything of any use in most forms of work.
I've found no one who'll hire you without a recommendation from someone they know in a marina or on anchorage... there's to many cowboys out there as many have found to their cost... anyone can say they're capable.. but the reality is, very often that they're not as capable as you'd like them to be...
Varnish work sounds simple but it isn't really... its not what it looks like the day its finished but what it looks like 3 months down the line.
Someone I knew was blagged into having his teak deck epoxied to preserve it long term... ended up with a ruined deck inside 6mths... teak and epoxy do not mix... the natural oils resist it so you end up paying loads for a yellow pox after the "Expert" has moved on.... then more to have it put right.
The cooking idea is great in theory... but in practice I found it does not work...
You've just pulled into an anchorage.. leap in your dinghy and charge round the other boats with your 'Menu'... how many orders..??? NONE..
Cruisers are tight fisted by nature... who's gonna risk cash on a fly by nite chef when there's places ashore where the amount of people sitting inside eating is a recommendation in itself.
I cook great Indian/Thai/European food and folks love it when I entertain... but there's a mental block when it comes to paying for it as a "Boat Delivery" carryout .... Barbies... you've laid out the cash then no one turns up... how much can you eat before it goes of...??
The only person I've met who was actively earning on the move was a guy doing research of ports/anchorages along the way and their facilities/value etc for a proposed Lonely Planet for Sailors style publication and he was on a stipend plus expenses.. the rest have been stop a while and move on.. stop..move..
If you can cover your expenses and keep the hands out of the kitty your a successful earner... few achieve this... and its getting harder every day.
20yrs ago was a lot simpler, 30 yrs ago even easier...

[MarkJ]

I just had a thought.

I saw a thread with a photo of a dog with a jacket on it with "First Mate" embroided on the jacket.

OK you might be able to buy such stuff in big countires, but when out crusing you can't.

Logo Tshirts are the same.

I don't know how computerised embriodery works, but if a machine is cheapish, you already have the computer.

Personalizing boat names on any sort of product could be something that other crusiers would pay a premium for.

Welcome Mats, Tshirts, drink coasters, pet clothes, hats... the list is endless.

A quick look at Google shows:

Embroidery Sewing Machine PE 750D ... [more on the Singer Quantum Futura Embroidery Machine] PRICE: $899.99 ...

http://www.brother-usa.com/HomeSewing/ProductList.aspx?cat=embroidery&WT.svl=EmbroideryL eftNav



Jus a thought

Mark

[ActiveCaptain]

I'm a little surprised by this thread. I've been building companies and products and selling services for my entire career. The moment you step onto your boat and cut the lines, the opportunity to "touch" vast numbers of customers reduces - if you need to physically be in contact with them. So businesses onboard and cruising (as contrasted from fixed location liveaboards) need to find a way to generate a lot of money from the single few prospects or they need to find a way to not have to "touch" the customer. The internet provides the latter solution.

Now I'm not saying that having a service business while cruising is bad. It can easily generate money. But it sure will take a lot of effort because you'll need to make contact with a lot of people to get a few sales. And since the point of cruising is to go out and explore, you're constantly in an environment of explaining what you do individually to other boats you happen to come into contact with. That's really tough.

If you have a business that is internet-based, you have as much access to the millions of people you'd like to reach as easily as anyone in an office in Manhattan. You'll need internet access and that will limit some cruising areas - it's hard to do a 19 day crossing and run an internet business for example.

Here's the easiest model for creating an internet business while cruising:

1. Find something you know a lot about. It's especially appropriate if it's something that cruisers would want - watermakers, chartplotters, anchors, inverters, LED lighting, holding tank vents, hose materials, sealants...it doesn't matter what the subject is.

2. Pick your mountain top and be THE expert in it. Create a web site that is the be-all information source on that one subject. Part of the subject selection process is looking around to make sure you can be THE site.

3. Don't write articles at first for others - write them for your own site. Write lots of them on every aspect of your subject area.

4. Have a place on the web site where you sell the products you talk about. One mistake people make here is to change the articles and information presented on the site based on the products they actually sell. That's a sure way to slit your throat in the short term. Be honest about the products you sell and be 100% truthful about the articles you write - even if it makes a product you sell look less than perfect.

5. Set up relationships with distributors who can drop ship their products directly to the customer. No inventory, no stocking, no return handling, etc. This will reduce your possible profit but a lot of this economic engine is just going to run without you having to touch it. This won't be without hassles. Every business has hassles.


A couple of major, odd things about this that are different from almost every other business and model - something the internet tends to produce:

- Your customer is the person who comes to your site to read your material. That customer might never buy anything from you. It is his needs you have to serve though. If you concentrate only on the people who buy from you, you'll lose the real marketing advantage of attracting large numbers of people. This is a very backwards way of looking at a "store". Most stores hate tire kickers. You have to love them.

- You pretty much have to know web site technologies to make this happen. If you have to pay someone every time you need to make a small change, you're going to eat up all of your profits. Learning html, css, shopping carts, etc. might seem like a lot. There are vast resources and to be honest, it's really not that hard if you have an open mind about it. Think about all of the thousands of web sites you've run across - the people running them aren't all experienced software developers.

- It takes time. It's not going to be like that UPS ad from a few years ago where the website goes public and the counter starts flying with the number of customers served. Any business worth anything doesn't happen overnight. It takes investment and continuous effort. For most internet businesses like I've described, the investment is your time. Every business requires time or money.


We are full-time cruisers. We've been operating under this model for a few years. We decided that the world was going to change from paper guidebooks (that we used and understood very well) to electronic guidebooks. I'm a software developer so our model is slightly different than I described above but it is very similar. Our primary mountain top is that guidebook type of cruising and planning information and the integration and capabilities it can provide. We have a secondary mountain top about mobile phones. See our 18-part article series about using mobile phones on boats - four hundred thousand people have read them. The series was the first ever recipient of a web-based Boat Writers International award. Today magazines come to us looking for information about electronic cruising guides and mobile phones on boats. My picture was in the November issue of Passagemaker and the April 2010 issue of Yachting along with articles about mobile phones and the iPad. We've been talked about in every major boating magazine - recipient of SAIL's Pittman Innovation Award for 2009, Power & Motoryacht - multiple articles, Soundings, Panbo.com (every month or so), OceanLines.com (multiple articles), and on and on. My point isn't to blow our horn - it's to prove that this marketing technique works with zero budget: (1) be THE expert, and (2) stick with it. Do that and the media (and customers) will come running to you, even if you're on a boat. Heck, especially if you're on a boat - it makes for a better story.

[boatman61]

And if anyone wants a web page built theres a boat friendly sometimes cruising lady/friend I know in the US who does them extremely well... funnily enough she also builds Shaker furniture and strip cedar canoes/kayaks... if your interested hahaha.... heres hoping this throws some work her way..
Currently shes in Florida..
Keep it in the boating world... create our own economy... lmao

PM for her web address/page.