Anyone live aboard a sailboat and motor everywhere?

[windycityxx]

Does anyone here own a sailboat, moves around a decent amount; and just motors everywhere?

If you do, what are your circumstances for doing so?

Or maybe you know of people who do?

[sailorboy1]

Depends on where you are, the season, and where you want to go, and when you want to get there. I tell people we used to be sailors, but now we are cruisers.

I’ve even come across a fair number of motorsailors that have taken all their rigging off the boat because they are mainly doing the ICW and some short coastal hops. Lots of cruisers will turn on the engine if doing less than 5 knots.

[LoudMusic]

People seem to be more fixed on getting to a destination. Often times the wind doesn't agree with your plans.

[CaptsWife]

We seem to, and not necessarily because we want to. We've found ourselves on numerous occasions in the Bahamas with no wind, but we wanted to get from point A to point B and had a narrow window to do it, so the motor goes on.

Also depends on wind direction. If wind is on the nose and we need to move, we motor.

Now, we're headed up the ICW and we motor. We will put the jib out and that has greatly increased our speeds, especially the last couple of days. But we need to motor to have increased maneuverability for the bridges. I wouldn't be caught dead without the motor under a bridge in the ICW, especially with the increased number of a$$holes who call themselves "captains" operating megayachts (but that's another story).

[windycityxx]

Yes, I've seen a few without rigging as well as a few for sale and was wondering about it.

Was curious on if anyone here does it..

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Depends on where you are, the season, and where you want to go, and when you want to get there. I tell people we used to be sailors, but now we are cruisers.

I’ve even come across a fair number of motorsailors that have taken all their rigging off the boat because they are mainly doing the ICW and some short coastal hops. Lots of cruisers will turn on the engine if doing less than 5 knots.

[windycityxx]

Where in the ICW have you been? How is it finding decent anchorages?

Originally Posted by CaptsWife

We seem to, and not necessarily because we want to. We've found ourselves on numerous occasions in the Bahamas with no wind, but we wanted to get from point A to point B and had a narrow window to do it, so the motor goes on.

Also depends on wind direction. If wind is on the nose and we need to move, we motor.

Now, we're headed up the ICW and we motor. We will put the jib out and that has greatly increased our speeds, especially the last couple of days. But we need to motor to have increased maneuverability for the bridges. I wouldn't be caught dead without the motor under a bridge in the ICW, especially with the increased number of a$$holes who call themselves "captains" operating megayachts (but that's another story).

[sailorboy1]

Icw anchorages are easy to find and it just depends on where and when you want to be somewhere

[CaptsWife]

And plenty of marinas with transient slips, as well.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by windycityxx

Does anyone here own a sailboat, moves around a decent amount; and just motors everywhere?

If you do, what are your circumstances for doing so?

Or maybe you know of people who do?

This is a fundamental difference between sailing and cruising.

Go down to the ICW and I bet you will find 90% of the sailboats motoring by.

Once you get away from weekend sailing, it's the rare cruiser who sails from point A to B exclusively. Really only on long open water crossings where most sail and much of that is they don't have the range to motor the whole way. Sure if the wind is out of the right direction, they will sail but most won't tack up a narrow channel making 1.5kts towards their destination when they can crank up the motor and make 5-7kts.

Sailboats make really efficient motorboats as long as you accept the lower speeds.

[Group9]

We bought our powerboat last year after coming back from the Bahamas, and facing up to the fact that we were motoring ninety per cent of the time.

[Bill whitmore]

the good news is that sailboats typically motor with very high fuel efficiency!

[akprb]

https://www.sailblogs.com/member/sailingohana/

Scroll down to “motoring” if it doesn’t pop up :-)

[windycityxx]

Thanks for the post, read a few of your articles, nice work! Great website/blog!

I was actually posting more along the lines of people buying sailboats just to motor everywhere over powerboats because of the reliability and efficiency of most sailboats etc.?

It wouldn't let me EDIT my question ;(

Any thoughts on this?

Originally Posted by akprb

https://www.sailblogs.com/member/sailingohana/

Scroll down to “motoring” if it doesn’t pop up :-)

[a64pilot]

Before we started cruising, we always sailed most weekends. Direction of sailing was whatever put us on a beam reach usually, but did a lot of upwind and downwind too. Motor was used to get us into and out of our slip, maybe set the anchor, but it was fun sailing onto and off of anchor.

Now we are cruising, and I have come to find that we motor more than we sail.
Maybe when the time really comes when time is irrelevant, we will sail more than motor, but try as we might we seem to always be on at least a loose schedule.
Think of it this way, you have been waiting a week for favorable crossing conditions sea state wise, you get them, but no wind to speak of and the grib files don’t show a favorable wind for more than a week. Do you crank the motor and go, or sit for who knows how long waiting?
Or do you go when there are six ft, short interval seas, when the wind is good and get sick and beat the boat to death?

The one day you realize that your boat burns so little fuel that in the budget it really doesn’t matter, and that at 150 hours a year, the motor likely has more life left in it than you do

[akprb]

I have lots of thoughts on this and at a point in our sailing life that it’s germane.

All things being equal I would buy a power cat or trawler next.

That being said having a rig is an insurance policy that I am weighing carefully.

If I want to get to Hawaii from AK and the world goes to custard well that mainsail will be looking real appealing.

So to answer your question most sailboats I know perform under power superbly. Back in the 70s not so much but late 80s most manufacturers started putting in 50hp plus auxiliaries.

Our current Hunter 40.5 legend has a 4jh2e 50 and will motor into anything. So it does double duty but without the nice air conditioned bridge :-)

So yes. I would say some buy a sailboat and motor ton with the comfort that if they had to .......... ;-)