Why do cruisers quit cruising?

[HadIt]

Originally Posted by thomm225

The simple solution is to have a home and a boat.

Having the home on the coast is best then you can cruise locally or great distances on an inexpensive boat to see if you enjoy it or to see if you can adjust.

The best thing is if the total cruising lifestyle isn't for you, you can still enjoy your boat day sailing or cruising locally.

There is no need totally quit boating all together unless its due to age or health problems.

Here on the lower Chesapeake Bay, we can sail offshore or up the Bay and back.

There are also tons of places to anchor and explore. You sail to heavily populated areas or areas where there are very few people.

You can sail across the lower bay in 3-5 hours and be totally away from the city.

Then anchor in a place where you are usually the only boat.

There are many trails that you can reach by boat as well as restaurants, etc.

Thanks, all your responses have been helpful. I am going to close you comments on this account so as not to get in a MOD Snit but will watch the thread. Thank you all.

[HadIt]

Originally Posted by Kinkircating

Again, sorry it didn't work out for you, but just to add to your response to me:

1) Yep, that is great you purchased a less expensive boat for cash and upgraded to make it yours. But instead of you and your wife starting your "cruising journey" when all the work needed was done, your wife spent 2 years of misery because you did not purchase a boat that was ready to go or at least close to it. This is not on the cruising lifestyle; this is on your choice of boat, and moving the Mrs. aboard before it was ready.

2) You did an admiral job (no pun intended) of vetting the process, but back to point one, it's lack of experience that had you believing buying a cheap boat in Guatemala and believing a retro-fit would be on budget and in a timely manner. That was silly, this forum (and YouTube) is littered with people who make this same mistake.

3) You did extensive research on FL and thought it would be okay to be a liveaboard...did you use the internet or go to the library and use a microfiche reader to look at old newspapers from the 1970's? I jest, but really this is a stretch. And getting to the Bahamas, yep it's haul to make it from the Gulf side, but just quit talking about it and do it. Even if you have an incredibly slow boat (which was one of my points on page one of this thread of why people quit), you could be there in 2 weeks with staging for a weather window. What boat did you purchase and refit for 2 years that can't handle this?

4) Overhead - money is an issue for us all and boats are phenomenal at consuming dollars, especially if you never get out there. I'm confident you and your wife's experience would have been exponentially better if you would have paid cash for the $350k boat that was ready to go, and not wasted the 2 years before even really getting started. I understand though that this isn't for everyone and absolutely if it's not worth the expense you should change course because you are damn right that your relationship with your wife comes first!

I'd just like to see you guys give it a go and make it to the spots that make it all worthwhile, you have crawled through the mud and there is light at the end of the tunnel. I guarantee you it gets way better than what you've experienced so far. Good luck and hope it works out!

Thanks I think you are right on pretty much all points. 100% of this is self inflicted like most issues. I just wanted to post my experience as a warning to those considering. There are a number of take aways I would, as a wannabe, take onboard:

* Do not buy a "good bones" boat and fix it up if you don't ***love*** the maintenance, coordination and fixing process as the *primary end* unto itself and also have some significant material advantage to cost containment - e.g. you are a boat maintenance pro and have non typical access to materials and skills. You are far better off waiting two years or more for a really well vetted and updated vessel and you'd better be educated on self survey (don't trust a surveyor, no matter the reputation to do a thoroughly detailed inspection). IOW if you are a newbie on a budget buying a higher price cruising boat - don't; you are going to get screwed. The older boat, great brand, "good bones" is a fantasy with few exceptions and those exceptions are not economically available to you; people in the boat industry likely grab the really good ones before they ever get on the market.

* Do not do a 3rd-world refit - and the boat being abroad may force that situation - even if it is not your intention.

[Kettlewell]

Plus, I would argue that forums like this one, YouTube, and the magazines push the falsehood that you "need" all the right stuff and it is unsafe to go places without it. Remember, many went before on boats that didn't have any of the expensive stuff considered bare essentials today. Every piece of technology you have or add to the boat ups the intital and ongoing costs in both time and money. If you don't have it, you don't have to fix it! The KISS principle goes double on a boat.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

Plus, I would argue that forums like this one, YouTube, and the magazines push the falsehood that you "need" all the right stuff and it is unsafe to go places without it. Remember, many went before on boats that didn't have any of the expensive stuff considered bare essentials today. Every piece of technology you have or add to the boat ups the intital and ongoing costs in both time and money. If you don't have it, you don't have to fix it! The KISS principle goes double on a boat.

++++ x 100

[hpeer]

We went part time for a few years before retiring. Every other week we lived on the boat. Hot and cold, rain and snow. So when we left we were used to boat living. Our boat does boat do marinas, she backs to her own drummer. And we don’t like moorings. So we anchor out, always. We spend 5 to 6 months aboard in the East Caribbean. 71 and 73.

At some point we will quit, but I don’t know why. If nothing else we will become too infirm or have a medical issue. Our PLAN is to continue here and eventually go to the Bahamas for a year or so. Then move to the Mid-Atlantic.

So far we have no one place were either one of us wants to live all year every year.

Someday we will quit, why we will quit remains unknow.

[thomm225]

Boats like this one have sailed Round the World. (Southern Cross 28)

https://easternshore.craigslist.org/...719513751.html

It doesn't cost a lot to buy a boat for cruising, but you must be prepared and have some experience as to what you are getting yourself into to deal with it.

Things have changed so much since when folks started cruising in the early 1990's before the internet and streaming video.

Click the arrow at the top for her music.

https://www.sailtwicearound.com/

https://www.sailtwicearound.com/insp...tbox=image20qe

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by thomm225

.things have changed since folks started cruising in the early 1990's before the internet and streaming video.

Back then, the lament was that the cruisers of the 1990s were spoiled by GPS and watermakers and Pactor modems. The "back in the day" stories are the same - some details change with the decade and prevailing technology but undercurrent is eerily similar. Every generation of cruiser since Joshua Slocum has told stories about how it was harder when they did it - I'm sure the Hiscocks thought the Pardeys had it easy with self-steering vane. A lot of cruisers washed out in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s too, mostly for the same reasons they do today. They ran out of money or it wasn't fun. Others decided it was time to do something new such as buy a cabin in the mountains or go back to work. Or they became caretakers of parents or their kids had children and they want to be grandparents. Or they aged out or found a place where they felt grounded and didn't want to leave.

In 20 years, the talk will be how hard it was back in the 2000s.....

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Back then, the lament was that the cruisers of the 1990s were spoiled by GPS and watermakers and Pactor modems. The "back in the day" stories are the same - some details change with the decade and prevailing technology but undercurrent is eerily similar. Every generation of cruiser since Joshua Slocum has told stories about how it was harder when they did it - I'm sure the Hiscocks thought the Pardeys had it easy with self-steering vane. A lot of cruisers washed out in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s too, mostly for the same reasons they do today. They ran out of money or it wasn't fun. Others decided it was time to do something new such as buy a cabin in the mountains or go back to work. Or they became caretakers of parents or their kids had children and they want to be grandparents. Or they aged out or found a place where they felt grounded and didn't want to leave.

In 20 years, the talk will be how hard it was back in the 2000s.....

Well, I certainly enjoyed my time talking to the old cruisers guys back in the mid-1990's at our Apartments Dock in Pensacola, FL.

Slip fee was $50/month then if you had an apartment there.

My 2 bedroom apartment was $450/month.

These guys were a colorful group and accepted me even though they saw me as a crazy beach cat racer with at least 2 boats tied down just above high water at all times masts up.

They are probably the reason I bought an old full keel very seaworthy old cruising boat as they were very high on that style boat back then.

Photo is after the apartment complex was rebuilt following Cat 3/4 Hurricane Ivan in 2004. It was closed for 2 years.

Ivan was a Cat 5 coming in.

I had moved across town a couple years before.

[Kettlewell]

The big difference between "back then" and today is that cruisers have changed in attitude from go-small, go-now types to go-big or don't go types. I started long-distance sailing back in the '70s, and the type of people that did it tended to have been backpackers and back-to-nature sorts. Small, simple boats were what was desired, with the idea to live a simpler, closer-to-nature lifestyle. I frequent some of the exact same harbors I went to more than 40 years ago, and they aren't more crowded in terms of numbers but the boats are much, much bigger. The stuff that is considered standard now, like refrigeration, electronic charting, radar, GPS, etc. either wasn't available or just way too expensive to keep on the average cruising boat back in the day. The typical cruising boat electrical system was maybe one start battery and two Group 31 house batteries, charged by a 50-amp alternator, so you couldn't really load up on electrical gear. I think too boats used to sail a lot more, and many only had a tiny auxiliary engine that couldn't really push the boat into high winds and seas anyway. We used to joke about the Sunday afternoon "race" back to Narragansett Bay from Buzzards Bay, when the water would be covered with sails all tacking their way home against the stiff southwester. Today you see many fewer sails, and many of the sailboats are slogging under power into the wind, plus there are lots more big, fast powerboats. Not saying things are worse, or were better back then, just they were different, and the types of people attracted to the lifestyle were different. Just look at this forum with endless discussions about various technology issues. How many posts on the home page relate to cruising information vs. technology?

[rognvald]

The biggest reasons cruisers quit:
1. Thought a boat was like a car and only needed periodic maintenance
2. Cannot perform maintenance tasks and must pay everyone to fix their boat
3. Want to be entertained 24/7 at anchor
4. Their relationship was based on a house, kids, and extended family. They
discover they really are really not compatible 24/7
5. It was never the wife's dream . . . it was the man's dream. After 6 months,
she misses the grandkids and wants to go to Disney World
6. Oh, yea . . . the boat was way too big for their needs since Ma wanted a
kitchen, dining room with big screen TV, and a walk in shower. She turned
the useful quarterberth into a storage shed for every item she couldn't live
without on the boat including her trusty Mixmaster and her well-packed box
of Lladro statues she displayed for visitors who visited the boat . . .
In 35 years of full and part-time cruising, we have seen the soap opera play over and over again with painful memories of women jumping ship and leaving their husbands with tiller in hand, so to speak, and heading home. This life is not for everyone. Period. It cannot withstand incompetence, lack of direction, or marginal relationships.
Rognvald

*****Disclaimer
For those women like my wife and a few on this Forum, remember you are the exception . . . not the norm. Kudos to your passion for sailing and the love of adventure. Your lives have been well enriched. R

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Back then, the lament was that the cruisers of the 1990s were spoiled by GPS and watermakers and Pactor modems. The "back in the day" stories are the same - some details change with the decade and prevailing technology but undercurrent is eerily similar. Every generation of cruiser since Joshua Slocum has told stories about how it was harder when they did it - I'm sure the Hiscocks thought the Pardeys had it easy with self-steering vane. A lot of cruisers washed out in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s too, mostly for the same reasons they do today. They ran out of money or it wasn't fun. Others decided it was time to do something new such as buy a cabin in the mountains or go back to work. Or they became caretakers of parents or their kids had children and they want to be grandparents. Or they aged out or found a place where they felt grounded and didn't want to leave.

In 20 years, the talk will be how hard it was back in the 2000s.....

The point was the internet.

The majority of the population didn't use the internet in the early to mid 1990's.

By 2000, most everyone had it and now with smart phones folks don't like to be without their "connection."

Whereas before that even if far offshore you didn't miss the internet because very few used it.

You can get something like Starlink for a satellite connection, but it isn't cheap.

So if you don't have internet you don't have video streaming and we have all gotten so used to those things that when you go out without a phone or computer connection things get very slow very fast and it's quite quiet all of a sudden.

Technology has changed everything.

A good example would be the recent Global Solo Challenge where Cole Brauer was making and watching videos 1000's of miles offshore.

She had to rebuild her hydrogenerator twice and got expert advice from on shore.

She also dodged a strong weather system after finding out the winds in that system were 80 knots.

That is how technology has changed things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkKgKSz8L5w

[Mike OReilly]

I suspect the reasons people quit the life are as varied and wide as any other lifestyle. For me (us) it will likely be when something better comes along, and/or we simply want to try something else. Physical barriers might eventually be an issue, but we're both relatively young, and still pretty healthy.

Our boat is purposely simple, just like me . I (try to) only use systems that I can fix and maintain myself, or that are highly reliable. We can't afford to run to the professionals for every problem, so we try and follow the KISS principle most of the time.

The other aspect I wonder about is simple temperament. The folks who I see struggle the most are what I would call "perfectionists." If you've got to have everything perfect all the time, you'll never be content in this lifestyle.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by thomm225

The point was the internet.

I got your point. But I think you missed mine. There's always something new that opens doors to enable more cruisers. Self steering vanes in the early 1960s was huge.

But the biggest quantum leap is not the Internet but rather GPS that displaced need for celestial navigation skills. Before that, LORAN displaced RDF for most coastal regions.

Every generation had some sort of hardship they had to get over. The one you're talking about - the 1990s era cruisers - lament how they used to have to conserve power. Yawn.

Sure the Internet has been a big marketing tool. And starlink has enabled all sorts of communications that has, in some ways, served to isolate the cruiser community vs the old practice of knocking on hulls to introduce yourself in an anchorage. But you know what? Knocking on hulls still works. Just gotta get off your boat and do it. It's a two way street.

Not much has changed. More money out there now than ever before. Sure, boats have gotten bigger - Latitude 38 (SF Bay magazine) has written for decades how the average LOA went from the mid 30s in the 1970s to mid 40s by mid/late 90s. Things change.

[Kettlewell]

Not much has changed. More money out there now than ever before. Sure, boats have gotten bigger - Latitude 38 (SF Bay magazine) has written for decades how the average LOA went from the mid 30s in the 1970s to mid 40s by mid/late 90s. Things change.

Yes, and it's the same on land. I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly big old homes converted to multiple apartments. Many of the apartments had families with multiple kids. Today those same buildings are back to huge homes, often with just a retired couple living in them rattling around with granite countertops, fridges big enough for a restaurant, central everything, big screen TVs etc. When these same people go cruising they want all the comforts of home and therefore have to pay for them, including the maintenance. The problem is with boats, no matter how much money you have, maintenance means you having to do stuff, even if it is just troubleshooting the repairs just done by the boatyard at enormous cost, twice the time originally budgeted, and with stuff still not working right. Some cruisers love working on all that stuff, but others don't.

EDIT: Forgot to add that when I first started cruising a big boat was a 40-footer. Block Island 40. Freedom 40. Etc. Mainstream cruisers were boats 32-38 feet or so. A lot of companies today don't even build a sub-40 boat. Today, there are lots of people starting out on mid-40 cats. All else being equal, a 45-foot boat is a lot more work to maintain than a 35-footer, and then the systems make it substantially more work than a 1975 boat.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

I got your point. But I think you missed mine. There's always something new that opens doors to enable more cruisers. Self steering vanes in the early 1960s was huge.

But the biggest quantum leap is not the Internet but rather GPS that displaced need for celestial navigation skills. Before that, LORAN displaced RDF for most coastal regions.

Every generation had some sort of hardship they had to get over. The one you're talking about - the 1990s era cruisers - lament how they used to have to conserve power. Yawn.

Sure the Internet has been a big marketing tool. And starlink has enabled all sorts of communications that has, in some ways, served to isolate the cruiser community vs the old practice of knocking on hulls to introduce yourself in an anchorage. But you know what? Knocking on hulls still works. Just gotta get off your boat and do it. It's a two way street.

Not much has changed. More money out there now than ever before. Sure, boats have gotten bigger - Latitude 38 (SF Bay magazine) has written for decades how the average LOA went from the mid 30s in the 1970s to mid 40s by mid/late 90s. Things change.

People get bored without their internet which can affect them while cruising.

If they see "no service" on their phone and cannot receive internet, this may result in less cruising unless they get Starlink etc.

Most people have gotten so used to checking the latest news, weather, email, bank accounts etc. on the computers quite frequently or daily that it would be sorely missed if they suddenly didn't have it.

Having GPS makes things easier, but it has also removed one more thing that used to keep sailors busy while offshore which was figuring out their position.

This also contributes to the boredom unless someone wants to do Celestial Navigation also and compare their findings to their GPS position.