How Big ( or Small ) Was Your First Liveaboard Boat ?

[HappyMdRSailor]

8' Sabot... I outgrew her around my 12th birthday...

[hooligan6a]

I have lived aboard a Fuji 35,
Islander 24
Cascade 29
Cal 25
24' plywood sloop
Island Packet 29
Island Packet 320
#1 Allied Seawind 32
Ericson 35
#2 Allied Seawind32

Not just lived aboard but sailed them for a total 58,000 sea miles in 30
years. That comes to, a different boat every 3 years. And an average of
5800 miles a boat.

[jbpollock]

Two months aboard an 35' Irwin Citation, 1986, and about ready to go out on anchor for a month before putting her on the hard for about 7 months. I needed a change in my life and was happy to have it.
It's a good size so when I'm in my slip I can host dinner for four or five and have space for a couple (or more, I would imagine) to spend the night. I've been out single handing with some 15+ kt winds and real chop but nothing more (yet!). I think I need to reconfigure some lines to make it easier to manage singly, but it's been all right so far. I have a life jacket for the dog and haven't considered clipping her in yet as she stays in the cockpit.
The literature says the boat will sleep 7; two in the V berth, two in the port side C-shaped settee area, one on the starboard settee, and two in the port aft berth (more than a quarter berth as it goes somewhat athwartship).
Good luck!
Oh, does anybody know of a thread that discusses what ducks to have in a row before cutting ties to shore? I'm giving up my slip--I've already given notice working under the assumption that necessity is mother to invention.

[wolfenzee]

I worked for the US importer of a Swedish yacht, their 40 footer slept 6 comfortably, but for the US market they somehow found a way to squeeze in another couple of bunks.
To the question how many people does your boat sleep the best answer I have heard was "It has bunks for 6.......drinks for 6, dinner for 4, it sleeps 2". Just because marketing says a boat sleeps x people, doesn't mean it will sleep x people comfortably...it just means someone figured out how to squeeze that many bunks into a boat. This is alot more apparent over a long time.

[wingNwing]

Originally Posted by jbpollock

Oh, does anybody know of a thread that discusses what ducks to have in a row before cutting ties to shore? I'm giving up my slip--I've already given notice working under the assumption that necessity is mother to invention.

Haven't seen a thread per se, but:
- how you're going to get your mail/maintain legal address for drivers license, etc
- insurance
- communications
- medical
- how are you going to make power, get water, aboard
seem to me to be the big ducks.

And here's a link to a collection of blog posts written by folks in the transition to liveaboard: The Monkey's Fist: Collecting Cruisers' Perspectives: Moving Aboard: Transitions

[jbpollock]

Thanks! All very good things to consider! I will look at the link you posted, too.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by jbpollock

.................Oh, does anybody know of a thread that discusses what ducks to have in a row before cutting ties to shore? I'm giving up my slip-.................

JB, Instead of drifting away form "what's the smallest boat did you live on......" I'm starting a thread here on the Liveaboard Forum with your question. For sure, you can't search with success for "ducks in a row". We gave up our liveaboard slip in 2002 after over thirty years of livingaboard and have owned nothing ashore since that year. Look for the "Ducks in a Row".

[wolfenzee]

The marina here gives a proper physical address to satisfy the "powers that be".....funny thing is it's not a real address.

[Ballenxj]

Originally Posted by wolfenzee

The marina here gives a proper physical address to satisfy the "powers that be".....funny thing is it's not a real address.

Do they collect your mail for you?
This is the same problem that full time RVers face. You have to find a place to use as an address and get mail. Other than that you may be in an entire different country, and as long as they can forward your mail to you, or keep it until you collect it you're good.
-Bruce

[Captain-Shawn28]

Mine is a martin 29 liveaboard in cowichan bay b.c.

Size is for sure a consideration but I would be looking for things like
How do I shower, cook, heat, refridgeration, on the dock or off the hook,
Power. Those should be your main consderation 27 feet to 32 is great for
One person if more you will want a bigger boat.

[hooligan6a]

Originally Posted by Ballenxj

Do they collect your mail for you?
This is the same problem that full time RVers face. You have to find a place to use as an address and get mail. Other than that you may be in an entire different country, and as long as they can forward your mail to you, or keep it until you collect it you're good.
-Bruce

Google St. Brendans Isle mail service, They are very good. For Cruisers and RV's

[wolfenzee]

The Marina gives an address to use, but we can't have mail sent to it because it is a non existent address. My mailing address is "Mail Boxes" It actually counts as a permanent address and I can send/recieve all manner of package there, best of all they do remailing so I can call an have mail forwarded to anywhere I want.

[Tropicyachty]

First liveaboard was a 40' Mariner Ketch, I was 19yo and in college. She was wood, I learned never to buy another wood boat, nor a slow boat to china that can't point.

[JanetGroene]

29 feet LOA, 8 foot abeam, stand-up head room only in the tiny galley. It was the boat we could afford, the boat that could take the Gulf Stream in a norther, the boat we could have NOW instead of waiting for pie in the sky. Carpe diem.

[Mark Johnson]

Although I had been building, repairing, and "messing about in boats" since early childhood, my first full time liveaboard boat was a Wharram "Hinemoa 23" catamaran.

It took me 3 years to finance & build, (while living in a barn), and I launched it as a 23 year old. After sailing her to the Fl Keys, I lived on the hook and went sailing or diving daily. LIFE WAS GOOD!

For the first several months, my only dinghy was a HUGE pair of French freediving fins! To get to "Namaste" from shore, I swam the side stroke against the strong Key West Harbor current, "balancing" my laundry or bag of groceries over head with my free hand.

7 months later, during Fantisy Fest, some chemically altered idiots in a high speed powerboat, ran Namaste down at about 100 mph, when I was on shore.

With the uninsured culprit in the hospital, and my uninsured boat wrecked, I sold the mess at almost a total loss, and returned to my SC country boatyard to regroup.

Then I built my Hippie van to live in REALLY cheaply, and returned to working in Key West boatyards, to finance my next boat project...

But that's another story.

Mark