Please critique my plan: want to buy a boat to live on; I'm clueless about boats

[Freeeeedom]

Another update.


We have completed our Day Skipper theory (through navathome), passed the RYA VHF exam and completed the Day Skipper practical course.


We did the practical course in England on a catamaran. It was challenging and exhausting but we've learned a lot. Other than docking, I think we can pretty comfortably do a week of a bareboat charter. I'm planning to hire a skipper for the first day or two of our charter so that we can practise docking a lot more.


We will probably charter something in September or October in the Med. Not Croatia though, since RYA apparently is very backlogged issuing the VHF licenses and I'm not sure we will get ours by then. We will probably rent one of the big three brands: Fountaine Pajot, Lagoon, Leopard, in the 40-44 range.



My idea of which boat we want to try out keeps changing. At first I wanted a pre-2012 Leopard like the Wynns have. Then I realized that big windows are important for me - both in the saloon and in the cabin. It seems that all the newer designs of the big three offer that, but none of the older ones. Also, it's hard to find a pre-2012 boat in a charter fleet. We previously did a quick tour of Lagoon 380, didn't like the layout and discarded the entire brand. Now I see that the newer Lagoons look very formidable, especially the 42 seems to have a very roomy saloon with a lot of working surface in the galley. I underwent similar change of heart regarding the new Leopards: earlier I read on this forum that they compare unfavourably with the older Leopards and other boats but now I skimmed through the Leopards subforum and people seem happy with them. This abundance of choice is quite overwhelming. I'm still excluding Bali since people seem to consider them much less seaworthy.



All three brands have a single elevated helmstation right behind the saloon. It's now apparent to me that there is a big tradeoff between different helm positions: Helms far aft allow easy docking singlehanded but very limited visibility when going forward. Elevated helmstation should offer much better visibility but docking would probably be much harder for a single person. Ability to handle the boat singlehanded is crucial to me - my girlfriend might want to spend considerable time on land or things might stop working out between us at some point in the future.



I'm a bit concerned that because of the elevated helmstation the boom has to be higher and so the sailing performance is probably worse. But to be honest I shouldn't concern myself with sailing performance much - I expect I will spend vast majority of the time at an anchor.


We got to evaluate one catamaran already - our Day Skipper course was on a Nautitech 40 Open. I must say, I was very pleasantly surprised. I think I could live on this boat very comfortably. At first I was concerned about the small saloon but with a full enclosure the saloon and cockpit turn into a very spacious room - akin to a real living room in a small apartment. Apparently one of the boat's main selling points is its low weight. I would probably ruin that when equipping my boat for the liveaboard at anchor lifestyle, overloading it with heater, generator, watermaker, provisions, lots of batteries, etc.


My gf didn't like how little space there was. She suggested we look for boats larger than 40ft. I'm a bit wary of that - all over this forum people warn how fast the maintenance gets more costly (in terms of both money and time) as the length of the boat increases. I'm hoping that she will find 40-footers of the more comfortable brands sufficient.

[argonauta1]

With all due respect, an earlier reply suggesting a mobile home might suite your objective makes sense to me.

[Freeeeedom]

Another update.


Our plans to bareboat charter didn't pan out. It turns out that starting this year, contrary to the information we were seeing on this forum, Greece does not recognize RYA Day Skipper as sufficient certificate for charters. My girlfriend has applied for an ICC based on her Day Skipper cert but it will take a while before it's issued - RYA is terribly backlogged. Due to my citizenship I cannot obtain an ICC from any country in the world - my country is not issuing them but the UNECE's documents mistakenly state that it is, and so RYA would reject my application. I sent out some emails to the UNECE and my government about this but I don't expect this will ever get fixed.


We could have gone to another destination that's easy for beginners and does not require an ICC. Croatia would be an obvious choice but that would require a radio license. We have passed our exams over 2 months ago but are still waiting to receive the licenses - again, the RYA is terribly backlogged.


BVI also seems easy but apparently it's a hurricane season now and we don't want to wait till December.


All this lead us to charter a boat with a skipper. This will be our rehearsal for possible future bareboat charters. When making a booking, I very explicitly requested a skipper that's fluent in English and would be comfortable letting us do the actual skippering. This all might be for the better - after completing the Day Skipper course, I often had nightmares about docking a boat. This experience will hopefully give us enough confidence to sail alone in the future.



Since we no longer need a beginner-friendly destination, we broadened our criteria and focused on the boat instead - we have booked an owner's version of a recent Fountaine Pajot. If I do buy a boat, it will probably be an owner's version of a production cat and so this charter will give us a good taste of how comfortably we could live on one.


After this skippered charter we will probably make the big decision and if we decide to pursue our goal, I will start looking for a boat to buy. I'm already strongly leaning towards doing that but don't want to commit before experiencing our 3rd week on the water. If we do pull the trigger, I have considerably changed my plans of what happens next:

• I was planning to keep my job or to switch to part-time work. Now I think that learning everything required for this lifestyle will be a full-time job in itself and so I'm seriously thinking about quitting my job and effectively taking a 1-2 year sabbatical. This will also vastly simplify any questions regarding my tax residence status.
• I was planning to spend the first 1-2 years in the Med. Now I think I will look for a boat anywhere in the world and simply start this adventure wherever the boat is located.
  • If I don't keep my job, I don't need the European quality of Internet connection.
  • If I stay away from Europe, I don't have to pay the EU VAT which in my case would probably cost around 100k. That's a significant saving. For this price I could buy a second citizenship which sounds increasingly more and more appealing.
  • I'm growing increasingly wary of what I perceive to be European over-regulation. A great example is that I cannot charter a boat in Greece due to my citizenship, despite having completed training that is sufficient for nationals of other European countries.

I want to thank everyone who spoke about how much maintenance the boat might require. I'm trying to prepare for that. I'm slowly making my way through Nigel Calder's Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual. I looked up some 1-week courses on sailboat maintenance. I'm not sure yet how useful they would be but I might book one and find out. Once I have a boat (if I ever do) it will probably require some immediate work and upgrades. I think I will hire professionals to do them but I would be present while they work and ask them to teach me how to do what they are doing - that way I would get an apprenticeship in maintaining at least some of the systems on the boat. I'm not much of a DIY person yet but I'm quite excited about picking up all that.

[NormanMartin]

PM me and I will give you the contact for a charter broker for whom I work. She will get you set up in the BVI/Caribbean most probably.
Norm

[Mariefred]

Personally, I love sailing - and other activities - enough to put up with the dismal accommodations. I can't imagine choosing those accommodations without planning on wringing every drop out of the sailing - or whatever else I'm doing.

Look at the YT channels who've chosen the 'live aboard lifestyle', but aren't sailors. Look deep into their eyes and you'll see the misery and suffering.

Buy a nice gaff in the middle of nowhere in a country where they don't like to live in the middle of nowhere. You'd be amazed at what you can afford for the price of a cat in, say, Italy or France or Spain. And still have a ton of cash left over to travel wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want (and still have an income).

Maybe even buy a 30-odd footer to park somewhere nice to go to and tazz about on whenever you fancy. You might get the sailing bug strong enough to just head off on that for a few months. With no problem roughing it because you're having such incredible fun. And you know that you can always press the eject and go back to your less wobbly accommodations when the fun wears off. And then. When you get the cravings. Off you tazz again.

But that's just me.

[Freeeeedom]

Another update: I don't think I want to follow through on this idea any more. I have a very neurotic personality - I tend to worry a lot about things that can go wrong. And I realize now that there would be lot more to feed my neuroticism on a boat than there is on land


We did a couple bareboat charters in the BVI recently. The plan was to gain more confidence in this idea before I finally pull the trigger and start shopping, and also to test the cats of the 3 big brands that I was interested in - FP, Lagoon and Leopard. While the relaxing aspects of this experience were wonderful, the stressful parts were stressful to the extreme.


It's been more than a week since we got off our charters and I'm still waking up every single night convinced that I'm on a boat and that my anchor might be dragging or the mooring lines might somehow let go and I might drift onto rocks. Putting aside the issue of entrusting hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of fragile fibreglass to a couple knots or a relatively small hook in the sand, there were some snags that in retrospect were quite dangerous and I'm not looking forward to making them a regular exercise: disentangling a boulder / large piece of coral from my anchor chain, putting my hands in the meat grinder that normally propels the boat in order to remove the line that got caught up in it, losing control of the windlass while anchoring, urgently taking down the mainsail after a block guiding the halyard to the helm station snapped.


A lot of the stress was due to my lack of experience and the many mistakes that I had made. Still, even if I improved my skills and gained a lot of confidence I don't think I could ever be fully at ease on a boat. We got to meet a liveaboard couple and the guy, although a very experienced skipper, also said that he wasn't sleeping very well.


I don't think that's the end of my adventure with boats, though. My current thinking is to find a place somewhere by the sea and maybe buy an express cruiser for 2-3 day trips. That would hopefully allow me to escape those pesky humans while also giving me all the safety and comforts of living on land whenever I want. A ~25 ft Sea Ray will probably cost me only a bit more than I have already spent on various cat charters and training so all things considered it's a pretty cheap next step.


Also, I've come to realize that I don't care much for the sails. Sure, it is fun to be propelled by the wind alone. But all those lines under tension make me a bit more apprehensive, and motoring for me is only slightly less enjoyable.

[MWhite]

It sounds like you have made a good decision for you. Sailboats can definitely make people anxious, even when they don't worry too much on land. If you haven't dialed in your level of anxiety by the time you have moved aboard, you are not going to have much fun. I've known skippers who are very persnickety due to their own internal dialogs and they are not much fun to be around so I can only imagine that they are not finding themselves to be good company, either. (Many of them sail alone, but that's another topic). Finding the balance between worrying about every little thing and being concerned just the right amount to be safe is a hard thing for many people. Good luck finding the groove that suits you.

[Drunkonwatch]

Originally Posted by Mariefred

Look at the YT channels who've chosen the 'live aboard lifestyle', but aren't sailors. Look deep into their eyes and you'll see the misery and

Maybe ev

I always thought the same thing like when they cried the transmission died “is this the end of the dream” It’s like a before video on cheap crime shows. Good on you OP fun is the most important thing and security I loved my smaller boats in the past and I can completely get where your coming from.

[mlinden]

Just watch 'The Sailor' on Netflix, I think it was Netflix, but talk about a life as a sailor! If you are ever thinking about making sailing a life long pursuit, take a look, it might change your mind.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Dave22q

It is all about space. Start by renting or buying a single wide trailer and living there for several months. limit your going out to a few hours a week. If you find this unacceptably cramped (I bet you will) forget it!!
Living aboard generally begins with a love of boating. Lacking that, keep renting ashore. You will be much happier.

You do know they make bigger boats, right?

We've been cruising full time for near 7 years. never use marinas, have an abundance of solar and power and run more refrigeration and appliances than we did at a dirt house - Genset only needed in day 2 of rain.
Boat is as comfortable as a nice, two bedroom apartment
Cost less than most plastic 42ft benevaria monohulls and a hell of a lot less than a 40ft cat.

Think outside the box.

[Cool Hand Luke]

I bought a 40-foot Jeanneau monohull and I've spent 14 days on it going from New York to the BVIs. I could totally see myself living on it, albeit a little tiny for long term living.

I just chartered a 46-foot catamaran in the BVIs and that thing is HUUUGE! Totally could live on it and VERY comfortably. It probably has more square footage than a lot of NYC apartments

[Papasail]

I would ask you to test both types of boats, catamarans & monohulls.

The (serious consequences) of catamarans that I’ve read about, are:

1. Drag anchor, hit balmies, break both ((woefully unprotected rudders)) and sink.

2. Fetch up ((on top) of coral shoals, where monohulls will layover, and still be retrievable.

3. Capsize in a big sea.

As liveaboards, they are unconditionally roomier, though the world’s marinas haven’t caught up with their great size…. that equals serious expense, or close to zero marina access… and that’s a problem.

True Bluewater boats are (slowly) going to fade from the market, as Bluewater manufacturers go away. This leaves 2 types of monohulls: versions with wood cores that will rot sooner or later, or full fiberglass builds that will become legacy boats, since the others will fade away.

My two cents, as a fellow misanthrope, is to realize that mother nature is brutal, and never pulls punches. By the safest vessel you can find, and don’t tempt fate. I’m completely with you: we’re not made to be hermits, but “less people is better people”. What has just happened to Florida is a patent example…

At all costs, do it, and you’ll never have to think about what it would’ve been like.