Hello

[SmallSkipper]

Hello, I am from Europe, I joined the forum to learn from all your experiences. I have done sailing in the past in the northern sea as a crew member on a tall ship and inland on small vessels but I am totally inexperienced if I had to sail on my own.

I am planning on working up to get a license and setting a couple achievable goals:

1. motorboat license by next month (easy)

2. 100h sea training in the baltic by autumn (+ inland training near where I live)

3. skipper training and exam by next year.

4. chartering a small ship next summer for a few weeks and executing a few weeks long trip.

5. 2 years from now perhaps owning and maintaining a small yacht 26-40 feet, I am aware of the costs, time and skill required for it and looking if I could earn some of the money back by renting the ship out or perhaps selling passes for cruise passengers in a distant future.

I already spoke to friends about my idea and of course heard how hard and expensive it is and how bad of an idea it is in general, even heard of people regretting owning a ship and how expensive it is to just marina it. I wasn't surprised.

The things going my way are small but, I have no ties attached, no kids, no pets, no 9/5 job, nowhere I have to be. I speak some languages and I know people I could come visit around the world. I have no problems doing small repairs, cooking, processing fish and I am willing to spend time to skill up in the basics of ship maintenance.

The things against me, I have no idea about, ship construction, engine mechanics, electronics engineering, basics of electrical maintenance. My budget is limited (whose isn't).

Thanks to everyone who posts such valuable info here, this forum is a goldmine.

[LittleWing77]

Welcome aboard, SS,

You'll want to update your profile to reflect "Copenhagen, Denmark" or whereever you are locally. It will help you (and us) long-term in providing useful answers.

Good luck with your plan. It's great to set those thresholds out there to reach toward.

Fair winds,
LittleWing77

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Skipper.

[tkeithlu]

Do be aware that recreational use and commercial use of a boat (and you as skipper) are two very different things.

It may be time for you to do some reading. Let me suggest Nigel Calder's series, starting with:

https://www.amazon.com/Boatowners-Me...s%2C247&sr=8-1

He has another purely on marine diesels and one on chart reading.

Good luck with it. You've gotten the traditional greeting from Gord May, who can answer a wide variety of questions you may have along the way.

[jeanathon]

I have no doubt you will figure out how to make the financial side of it work. I have stayed on boats a couple times through airbnb. That would be one way to recuperate marina costs.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by jeanathon

I have no doubt you will figure out how to make the financial side of it work. I have stayed on boats a couple times through airbnb. That would be one way to recuperate marina costs.

Possibly, but Small Skipper will have to investigate the rules about it in his/her area.

The whole deal of chartering (getting people to pay you for a ride on your boat) will also be fraught with local regulations on such endeavours. As skipper, they add a lot to your responsibilities, and there is likely to be some legislation around all of it. Plus the local outfits don't really like wildcats very much, and can also interfere, sometimes quite unpleasantly.

Ann

[SmallSkipper]

Thank you everyone for your kind welcome and the insightful comments, I will investigate about regulations on my local forums. I'm trying to take it a step at the time so for now my work is about learning to sail on my own at sea and training towards acquiring a skipper license, this will take many months.


The Nigel Calder's book looks great, it's on my list