No sailing experience but wanting to buy a 41ft morgan out island as a liveaboard

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by jsizemore76

Thank you all for your input. I appreciate it. Unfortunately right after i posted this the boat was bought. I am still looking though.

Good for you. Those of us who have it and continue to even though we don't have to should mean somethig. A lot more than the never have done people.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by thomm225

And there lies the problem.

The guy comes to ask about living at anchor on a sailboat.

He has zero experience it appears on sailboats or boats period.

Then he gets responses like "Go For It" from people that do not think through all the potential problems the OP might face if he did.

I simply couldn't stand by without trying to caution him as to the possible downside(s) and there are many.

The guy is already complaining about the cost of an apartment in his area so he comes here and folks say Go For It!

Buy an old boat and live on it at anchor!

While at the same time, we all know what it can cost to get an old boat into decent shape.

Plus he will at least need good anchors, and a useable dinghy, plus A/C since his is in Panama City, FL.

And that's just for starts. Then he'll need fuel for the generator he will need to buy to power the A/C. Fuel for the boat and Dinghy.

Good chain and rode for the anchors will be needed.

He'll need to find a good spot to anchor his new home having zero experience anchoring much less picking out a good spot..

Plus a place to beach the dinghy where he can leave it when he goes to work.

Where to park his vehicle.

And the list goes on.

Then if bad weather (hurricane/tropical storm) approaches as a beginner, he is pretty much lost

I see the broken record is back.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by jsizemore76

Thank you all for your input. I appreciate it. Unfortunately right after i posted this the boat was bought. I am still looking though.

Man!!! You gots nerves of steel to endure the rhetoric in this thread...good for you. With that kind of determination, you're bound to be successful.

[OneBoatman]

The Morgan 41 OI is great choice. Being a liveaboard doesn't mean you won't choose to live at a dock. There are many liveaboard marinas that provide the things you may be used to that most boats don' have such as laundry facilities, WIFI, a clubhouse, swimming pools. You can also live on the hook or on a mooring but you need a good watermaker and a place to shop and buy fuel. You will soon have to learn how to maintain all of your systems yourself or you will always be poor as you will find not so many people do this for you cheaply. there are different approaches depending mostly on what your willing to do without but it quite an adventure and with time you will develop skills and methods to have most of the things that you once had living on land except for space to keep the things you just can't do without.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by thomm225

No.

All he can do is repeat the same old worn out arguments. Then mention beach cats which is fun since I then get to reminisce.

No worn out arguments, just repeated facts. You have never cruised or lived on a boat and don't know what you are talking about when you start your anti-cruising BS. To cover that you will go into some story of anchoring out 1 night and go into some useless beach cat story. As the full post the above is from proved once again.

[jipcho]

Hi Jesse,

I have lived aboard a few vessels and sailed around the world on a 42 foot sloop. Since selling my boat in 2018, I have watched a few Youtube channels showcasing attractive couples and their live aboard experiences. I have to warn you that much of what they show is fluff, bearing only occassional resemblance to my experiences). They don't show much of the hardships (physical and financial) or dangers. My suggestion to you before you literally buy in to the dream, is try it first. Find someone in the area who needs a "boat sitter" for a short time. Crew on a sailboat for a week. You may find out that you don't really like sailing. See what living aboard is really like. OPBs (other people's boats) are the way to go. It will save you money, and give you invaluable experience.

Then, if your dream matches your reality closely enough, do as others have suggested. Find a good surveyor to look at the vessel for you. If saving money is your primary motivation, you will likely be in for a shock. Maintaining a boat is never cheap. All that said, if it turns out that you really do enjoy living on the sailboat, I suggest actually sailing her to a distant shore (Caribbean?), where you will get the most benefit of the cruising sailor's lifestyle.

[embibb]

I moved aboard a year ago and have no regrets. I could’t imagine doing anything else. I am in a marina near Corpus Christi Texas.

[paul.devalier]

I would say go for it. I did. I sold my house and changed my life in order to live full time on a sailboat and always be on the water. It is not going to be cheap and it is not going to be easy. You will wake in the middle of the night with rain dripping down on to your face! 😉 Or something like it. Almost every day. But if you are in the right mood and mode for the lifestyle you won't feel the frustration but the joy of continuous learning. The mould and rust won't bother you because every time you look at the mountains from the water you will be reminded of the joy of living with nature.

Regret is usually from not doing something that drives you rather than backing out of something you tried and learned from. But if you do change your mind know that you will have lost a huge chunk of money.

Only advice I could offer is to not rush it. You are decided but start sailing and find the right boat. Make sure you are not buying a boat that will be more problem than you can manage. And start sailing even if you haven't found the right boat. I had my skippers license and had been in a few club regattas and sailing crews which are easy to find as a novice and I'd stayed overnight and stayed in boats up to 10 days to check my "comfort"

Things I miss : a real kitchen. Cooking just isn't the same.
My own washer /dryer. Laundry is a PITA
It's nice that someone else cleans the bathroom but the reality is that they rarely do. The reality is that indoor head and shower in an old sailboat is an accessory. I miss a plumbed bathroom of my own (others may disagree) where I am not obsessed about wate moistur,water usage, clean head routines and maintenance and tight space.
Storage. I sold or recycled everything. I mean everything. Childhood mementos, kitchen appliances, family photos, tv...baseball, bat and mitt, the list is long... Sometimes I miss THINGS.

I do not regret buying a trashed 42 footer compared to a newer 33 footer. For me a smaller space would have changed my mind about living full time on board. I definitely would have bought a different boat.

But you will never know what's right for you until you turn dream to action and learning.

But do learn to sail! Not from You Tube.

[OneBoatman]

Because you may have visited some folks that live the floating home lifestyle doesn't mean that it's for you. Yes, in time and practice it is theoretically possible to live cheaper than in many places on land. We lived aboard albeit at a marina in Back Creek by plan to avoid having to either rent an apt. or purchase a second home yet kept a home far away on of us being a Fed that accepted a job in D.C. All told about 7 yrs. During this experiment we particularly wanted to be able to take mini trips in Chesapeake Bay and sail periodically as is possible there for about 8 months out the year. Not so easy as it sounds, but I can say we did quite well, much owed to some 30 yrs plus of sailing experience and being a boater. Most of the other liveaboard folks rarely left the dock, and some only for emergency haul out having ignored maintenance. You will quickly learn that comfort means keeping things orderly, and if you want to someday actually use the boat you will have to learn how to take care of it. If you go all in, you will absolutely have to get rid of anything you might have already accumulated while residing on land, otherwise pay to store it or put it in your vehicle(s) should you decide to keep them near your boat. A Morgan 41 is a great choice for a liveaboard in that it has a lot of space for a 40 fter. Most were rigged as a center cockpit ketches. Liveaboards we knew with boats having aft cabins tended to use it as a garage for storing things they may only need occasionally, spare bicycles, extra blankets, tarps, various toys, maintenance stuff, and the like. If you are doing this not expecting to sail you might do just as well to live in a houseboat or an RV park. By the way, it may snow pretty heavy occasionally in Annapolis causing much havoc, but it usually melts quickly.

[timothytrespas]

Adventure is the word

[Iron E]

Man, this thread was ridiculous. Like watching a couple of kids bicker.

When I was young whether in the service or working construction, I could live anywhere. ... boat, shack, camper,...whatever.

The only thing I used to tell people who were considering the cruiser life (and had never been on a boat) was to go out for a couple of weeks before committing, just to see if they were prone to sea sickness. We had people make it through boot camp, only to find themselves miserable and sick when underway.

[Brian Keil]

Originally Posted by SV Confianza

Welcome to the forum. Well, you're going to get a lot of flack on here for trying to save money with a boat haha. Just make sure you've got the right amount of savings for the maintenance and repairs. Get a good surveyor to tell you what the boat really needs and how much you'll spend.

I would suggest to start with something smaller and work you're way up, but everyone has to live their dream =).

Im looking at 1974 45 morgan never been in the pond. Thats old fiberglass? What do you think? Brian

[OneBoatman]

Keep it to yourself that it is a pretty rare surveyor you might find willing to stand between you and your dreamboat. Most will correctly identify a good number of the obvious problems, but you still need to be smart enough to walk away and recognize the issues which you would be better off avoiding regardless of whether or not you have the time, skill, and money to put it right and ready to go to sea. The need for surveying larger boats, meaning the kind that you might be comfortable on as a liveaboard, is mostly a matter of interest to anyone that expects to carry a note and for that reason needs to purchase comprehensive insurance. Insurance companies today, as strange and contradictory as we might think, prefer to write policies for boats less than ten years old. Anyway, that's just how the game is played, and it comes directly from their management, statistics folks, and bean counters as how to do it best for their bottom line.