New Family from San Francisco

[reltub86]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks in advance to all you for your thoughts and advice. I have followed many of you over the past years. Thank you for the endless info.

My wife and I are 28 and have a 3 year old boy an soon will have another. We live an hour from SF and have been wanting to make the leap to liveaboards but something is holding our feet on solid ground and we can't see what it is.
We decided to sell our stuff and put the house on the market and get out of the american dream and get into a sailboat. I'm an IT guy and plan to work in SF while we get comfortable living in a marina and sailing the bay. We sold alot of our "junk" and the house has offers but now we are afraid of the unknown.
We stand to make close to 70k on the sell of the house and after paying our debt will have about 60k. We went to many marinas in SF and the East Bay to view boats. It seems that a 34' would be the smallest we could possibly live on and that would be tight.

Our main concerns:

Finding a livaboard slip. We know we can stay in the slip 3 nights a week not as a liveaboards but what about the other 4 days?
Is purchasing a condo for a rental a good idea ?
How much of our profit should we spend on a boat?
Thank you all and any advice or reassurance would be appreciated.
~Trav~

[Stu Jackson]

Did you read this one?

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ay-133233.html

[ontherocks83]

Welcome Aboard! It's great to hear you are following the dream of just doing it. I wish I could say the same at this moment. The good thing is you are committed. As far as the rental/financial question I would interview some good financial planners and find one that can tailor your needs. Good luck with you adventure!

[reltub86]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Did you read this one?

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ay-133233.html

Thanks for the quick response. We read that post but would really rather be legit and not have to worry about being a sneak a board. The Delta could be an option but not much for sailing I suppose.

Sent from my XT1080 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard!
It's good to have you here. There are a lot of CFers in the SF area that will respond if they see a post in the right thread. You might try the liveaboard thread.
kind regards,

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by reltub86

The Delta could be an option but not much for sailing I suppose.

Thats a misconception about the delta.. one of the largest sailing clubs in northern California is in Stockton..
At the present we're at Bruno's Island on 7 mile slough and only a few hundred yards from some of the best sailing in the state.. many sailboats use the island and across from us is Owl Harbor, probably about 90 % sailboats..
One of the nicest things about the delta is the good weather almost all year round.....

[MarkSF]

Most marinas that allow liveaboards charge an extra fee, that allows you to be on the boat 7 days a week. They normally limit them to a certain percentage of the total slips, eg 10%.

My impression is that availability is normally slim, but also wildly variable. There's no substitute for contacting the individual marinas, but even then they might not be willing to commit until you are, ie when you have purchased a boat and are ready to sign a contract.