Anyone lived on a boat?

[FatWhat?]

So I was talking with some friends in Santa Barbara and thought it would be fun to get a sail boat to live on for a couple years. I'm curious if anyone has done that or knows of another forum that talks about it. It looks like a lot of fun and fairly affordable, 4-6K for a boat and another 1k to learn how to sail. Docking fees about $350 a month.

Let me know.

[ghixon]

My friend in college did for a year or so. He hated it by the end.

Check out this forum.

http://www.livingaboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

[BoingBoing]

I worked with a couple that lived on a boat. It poses many challenges that all seem to boil down to lack of space (like laundry, cooking, showering). Plus your AC appliances won't work. But for them it was the best lifestyle ever. Eventually they quit to sail to New Zealand or some such place. Turns out they were just saving up (and fixing up the vessel).

If you think it's for you, go for it. But you gotta be pretty damn diehard. Oh yeah, sometimes there are long waiting lists to get a slip at a harbor.

[Blue Rat]

I've done it for the last 26 years ... I'm in the Navy.

It's a very different lifestyle and I'd really recommend talking at length with people who've done it before you jump in. I can't imagine that a 4-6K boat could qualify as a live-a-board.

[Shu]

Originally Posted by BoingBoing

Oh yeah, sometimes there are long waiting lists to get a slip at a harbor.

Locally(SoCal) that is the biggest problem...finding a boat W/ a slip..NOT all slips allow people to live on their boats....

[CalEpic]

Assuming you could even find a live-aboard slip, $350 sounds awful cheap.

[Fired Yo Momma]

Live on a boat Sunny Crockett from Miami Vice did and he is a pimp

[Au575]

Originally Posted by FatWhat?

... another forum that talks about it ... fairly affordable, 4-6K for a boat and another 1k to learn how to sail. Docking fees about $350 a month.

I have no idea where you came up with the $4-6K number, but that is wildly unreasonable, even asssuming you could do an incredible amount of repair work yourself. In SoCal, slip fees would likely cost more than $350/mo for a liveaboard, and that's if you could find one.

I 'liveaboard' a few weeks a year, but we call 'em vacations and long weekends. In other words, no need for lots of clothes or other household items. For this, a sailboat works great.

If you are prepared to give up most creature comforts, and are just looking for a floating condo, you'd be better off with a powerboat than a sailboat for the same overall length (although I hate to suggest it...). And I'm not sure the numbers will ever favor a boat over a small apartment or condo...

You can certainly live on a small, inexpensive boat - many of our neighboring slips are liveaboards - but there's no place to store the bike...


As for a forum, post your question here: http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showforum=22 . Be forewarned: they are not as kind a bunch as found on STR.

[gregOREO]

4-6k for a boat propably used
boat maintnance
no back yard
no garadge(pay for parking)
1k to learn like you said
propably you will need storage(ave 300 per month)

i dont think it would be that much cheaper

[Shannon]

Bruce and I have lived on a 48' sailboat. It's a lot more expensive then you'll ever imagine. There's a TON of maintenance that goes along with a boat. And after awhile the novelty wares off. Our boat was considered to have a lot of "living area", but it never felt like we had enough room. Specially with bikes, surfboards, etc.

[Red Hot Sloth]

The only experience I have actually living on a boat was while I was in the Marines. And essentially they weren't boats, but ships, some small, some larger...having the worst hangovers when leaving port at the beginning of a storm kinda sucked..my own fault. Being locked in your berthing area for hours at a time..bummer.
But seriously, for 4k, your not going to get the right kind of boat to live aboard. Maybe 20k will get you closer, but don't plan on having 2 people live in it full time. If you plan on living in your boat alone you can become quite comfortable, but 2 people will get cramped. I had a friend that lived on his skip-jack, and it had plenty of room..for 1 person to live comfortably, but anytime someone stayed over it was tight, and rarely would people last more than a few days before they just had to get out.

[sailcalifornia]

Originally Posted by Au575

As for a forum, post your question here: http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showforum=22 . Be forewarned: they are not as kind a bunch as found on STR.

That is the truth.

I did not realize how many other sailors there were here on the board, not to hijack the thread but what kind of sailboat do people have. My family has a J-37. Just got back from doing the Newport to Cabo race on a SC-50, what a ride down the coast we had

[kanga]

I spent a year on a maxi-class boat, working, crewing, racing and sailing. Then put in time on a tall ship, and a season on a swordfish boat in the atlantic. That was a long time ago. I owned a Newport 27S for about ten years and kept it at Channel Islands harbor. Never spent more than a week on it.

Space will be your biggest issue, maintenance and cost your second biggest, and freedom will be your reward, as long as your boat is seaworthy and you take advantage of that to go places. If you don't plan to sail, doing the liveaboard thing is not enough of a reward in and of itself to justify the lifestyle, IMO.

I miss the ocean a lot, but my two happiest days of boat ownership are long behind me (the day you buy it and the day you sell it!). I'm hoping to have two more such days sometime in the future.