Living aboard and the impact on sailing

[Mithril Bham]

My family lived aboard. We sailed more, I think. Everything was always ready to go. Would sail out on the bay many times and eat dinner on the water and watch the sunset. Could easily leave for days without the hassle of packing everything up. I found it to be the thing I liked the most about living aboard.

[Tessellate]

I've been worried about this too (thinking of trying liveaboard life this spring).

To me, it's not about boat readiness. The challenge seems to be about "fitting it in" when there are two people, both with full time jobs, and going from having two homes (boat + apt) to one.

To me the word liveaboard means living aboard with one or two people going to typical 9-5 jobs on land. If you don't have to go to jobs on land, then we normally call that "cruising".

When we have an apartment plus a boat home, we have two homes - if one person wants to go sailing and the other wants to go out to happy hour or watch TV on the couch, we can do that. As liveaboards, if one person has more vacation time and can afford to go for multi-day overnight trips but the other can't, the other person needs to find a place to sleep after work each night.

What strategies have other liveaboard couples with jobs found for improving how often you can go sailing?

[alctel]

I sail a lot (and do a lot of salmon trolling) during the summer and sporadically during the winter, but that involves a conscious effort to keep stuff on the boat in a state of packed away. Not too tricky as it's just me living on it. I think if I didn't have everything packed away I wouldn't go out nearly as much.

[DMCantor]

We live aboard 5 months a year, in the Caribbean. We sail at least once a week, and sometimes every day. It only takes us about 20 minutes to get things ship-shape before we go, a bit longer if we hoist the dinghy onto the foredeck. In an emergency, we could be underway in 5 minutes or less, just have to do some tidying up after we start.

Even living aboard, you really need to be able to take off at short notice. Sudden changes in weather conditions can make staying where you are untenable or even dangerous.

[knockabout]

if your yachts your home you are still washing clothes, doing your housework, ongoing boat maintenance, preparing meals as well as normal sail care (drying and storing sails after changing headsails) /you don't have to mow the lawn but still have to keep an eye on marine paint / barnacle growth on the rudder / a multitude of other important necessary checks that end up daily routine / sometimes even at anchor and having to move fast anything on deck that's not needed for sailing gets moved hurriedly below usually while the anchor is being pulled up / the dinghy tied to the side has suffered a considerable beating on occasions before being let go and towed behind.
depending on your fuel situation(we don't have a main engine and carry 60ltrs of 2 stroke for our outboard) sails are the main propulsion / and are cared for first then personal care / a lot of hoarded up on shore orientated extras are good to take to give away days at yacht clubs for trading for useful nik nak's

[CoolBeans]

I live aboard and it does impact my ability to untie at a moments notice. For the years I've lived on my boat vs the years I didn't, all ventures out were planned in advance. If the weekend looked good, I'd spend a couple nights readying the boat, clean the bottom if needed, fresh gas, make sure the engine starts, etc. Once the boat was "ship-shape", when I didn't live aboard, it would stay "ship-shape" at least until I started the next project.

Now that I live on the boat, I can keep it "ship-shape" and ready to go for about a week. If the next weekend is nice and I have nothing else planned, it doesn't take but maybe 20 minutes to get underway. But if the weather sucks, or I have other obligations, then we're talking 2 weeks. Then the coffee maker comes out, the models get spread out on the table, might as well fix that whatever, etc. After a month of no-goes for a weekend sail I'm back to needing to spend 4-5 hours cleaning up to make 'er ready again. . .

[tinkrman69]

In my observations, there are people who live on boats, sailors that live on boats and sailor that do small trips. I see people come down the ICW and dock or anchor at a destination for the winter and then go back home. Others live on boats for affordable housing. Some llicaboard sailors like to sail and their anchor or dock lines hit many ports and at times just go for day/sails. i fall in the last sentence. altho I fall partly in some of the other descriptions too, as I can't afford a house and a boat, but prefer living on the sea. I've made just over 1300 nautical miles and eleven ports this year.

I'd like to say I can set sail at any moment, but I can't. some times I get scattered whilst being distracted in one port or another or am working on a repair or project. I'm happy with this choice of lifestyle, as I hope others are with their choices. If someone else's lifestyle seems to make life wanting, then it's time to look inside and take stock of the choices made, in said lifestyle.

Life isn't a bowl full of cherries, as I don't like being here in Key West...the anchorage is rollie, this time of year. But a friend needed some things fixed and I needed some money. I'll be underway soooooooon ;-) Them dang choices!

Had a great time in the Bahamas for the precious month tho. Got to take some relief supplies over, swim with some spotted dolphins and reef sharks, spear some fish collect some conch, learn some history, meet some really kool people and dive some caves. What more cold you ask for?

PEACE LUV & HAPPINESS

[Nikki S]

My husband just turns on the motor & ups anchor. And I'm like, "quick kids, shut all the hatches! Make sure nothing's going to fall!" while I buzz around like a bee stowing dishes, computers, bottles of rum. I love him for that, but I do argue that I want to help put the sails up, and require 5 mins warning and some help from him stowing everything, in order for me to be up on deck. I guess we do get caught in marinas sometimes but eventually the cost, or desire to be elsewhere, overrides the necessity of the jobs to be done and we screw whatever part back together, pack up the tools, and head off to spend most of our time at anchor where you have to be ready, because if the weather changes, or a squall hits & your anchor drags... and we like to have friends to stay, and take them to places, so keep the boat relatively ship shape at all times.

[Terry107]

Being an ex navy medic it is easy.In the service you used something and then put it away in its stowage point. The pipe secure for sea was to ensure all items of personal equipment were stowed and then look at your work place to ensure that when the ship moved nothing would come adrift.Secure for heavy weather required to ensure heavy equipment was secure.Adopt this attitude and leaving the dock could be done quite quickly but heh sailing is about relaxing not working to a strict time table. Well it is in my books.

[TheThunderbird]

The longer i live in a stationary state, the more it takes to convert to a navigating set up.

Obviously so

[Juho]

My boat is so small that it doesn't make any sense to keep it ever more cluttered than when spending a night at anchorage. Leaving the home port might add filling the water tanks, disconnecting the electric cable, visiting the nearby shop, and maybe some extra time to connect the dinghy. It doesn't take much more than a minute to clear the galley and saloon tables.

[Meanderthal]

A recurring but pertinent question. I lived on a sailboat for 9 months, sailed it three times🙄. But, to be fair, at the time my husband was finishing out his work season in another city, and between the house we hadn't put on the market, our two separate residences, and paying for his monthly conjugal visits (lol in between were sad times for me...) we didn't have the money to buy the safety gear and electronics for sailing in SE Alaska. Then we took off roadtripping for two years instead.

This time, we both lived on the next boat (sweet Meander) through winter, the house was sold, and we squeezed our budget and ingenuity to retrofit her to at least our bare mins. We are leaving to cross the gulf of Alaska tomorrow.

YMMV on funds, time, and inclination. Personally, I sail or motorsail to get places and to do things (hike, camp, fish, etc) and we liveaboard so I can be on the ocean every day, and sustain a migratory and more adventurous lifestyle--including accessing larger communities and cities from a unique vantage. If we were sailing purely to sail, I think we'd be crewing instead.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

The longer i live in a stationary state, the more it takes to convert to a navigating set up.

Obviously so

It seems like a natural law.

It's a very good reason to always sail away somewhere, every weekend.

Even if it's just to motor out the river and drop the anchor.

Keeps the moss from growing, and allows you to continue seeing yourself as a sailor, rather than a bum on a boat (even if that's what we all really are! ).