Potential live aboard with questions

[1Sunseeker]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

It is a common enuff fallacy subscribed to by many a landlubber that you can cut your living expenses by "moving aboard". I say "fallacy" advisedly! "Living aboard" is a lifestyle fraught with complexities no lubber can foresee without doing some SERIOUS analysis of what's involved.

Your "lifestyle" will be affected in ways you cannot be expected to foresee until you've "seen the movie". If you have "passive income" of sufficient magnitude, then by all means indulge yourself. But wishing to reduce a $1,300/mnth rent would suggest that that is not your case. If you live on "earned income", meaning "from month to month", or even "from hand to mouth", you need to consider if you can live aboard and yet protect your income source. If you are, say, an articling young lawyer, how will you keep your "uniform" - the business suit - looking crisp? How are you going to manage to exude your usual well-groomed scent when you don't have a hot shower every morning because there is no hot water in the boat. If you are a forklift driver in some "logistics" warehouse in some distant "industrial park" on the opposite side of town from where your boat lies, neither place being "adequately" served by public transit, how are you gonna get to work? How often can you be late without getting the can? Are you, as might well be the case in Vancouver, gonna incur bridge tolls in the amount of threehunnertbux or more per month?

Others have spoken in terms of dollars. I concur with them. Your TOTAL budget needs to be bigger if you move aboard than if you simply stay put. In an apartment, if the landlord doesn't repair the leaking tap, you just walk away with no repercussions. Or you have the plumber repair it, and deduct the cost from the next month's rent. Once you become a boat owner, you are permanently lashed to the mast and the financial cat-o-nine-tails begins to sing his song. In this glutted market it can take many months, even years, to dispose of a boat. Disposal costs will be yours to bear. To assassinate a frozen snot boat and dispose of the cadaver might set you back ten grand.

If you really, really want to be a sailor, then do yourself a favour and do a REALISTIC comparative budget measuring the costs of living as you currently do against the cost of being a "live-aboard"

TP

Well said, and with good manners. Thank you

[Three Sisters]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

I'll supply all the sand paper and painting supplies you can use, won't even charge you like a gym subscription... Money back guarantee.

Geeez who could complain, sounds like a deal.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

It is a common enuff fallacy subscribed to by many a landlubber that you can cut your living expenses by "moving aboard". I say "fallacy" advisedly! "Living aboard" is a lifestyle fraught with complexities no lubber can foresee without doing some SERIOUS analysis of what's involved. .....................................

I will not disagree with anything within this post as possibilities, but I would also suggest that the opposite is also a possibility.

During the years that my wife and I lived aboard we managed professional jobs with no lack in maintaining a presentable wardrobe or personal hygiene. We never had hardships with transportation or complications even while raising our two children aboard from infancy to adulthood. During our time living aboard we also made use of our boat regularly with summers cruising to the Bahamas and even day sails after work or weekends. For fifteen years of retirement we continued living aboard easily and full time cruising.

It is true that I might have endured some hardships that I would not recognize as we never lived in a house after leaving college. We never had the responsibility of owning a home ashore as adults so I can not make true comparison.

I do know this. We always had more disposable income and greater savings than our colleagues with the same employment who were living in houses!

Now, after 45 years living aboard, we are selling our boat and in an apartment ashore. This is good for my wife's mobility restrictions that many of us might face with age. Our cost is a little greater with our home ashore and I do recognize that I have little to do maintaining my home, but the self-sufficiency and maintenance of my boat was part of the joy.

Of course our retirement income is secured by the many years of savings put aside during our long inexpensive life aboard.

Once again, Trentepieds evaluation may be correct for many who attempt life aboard, but some don't follow that expectation.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Dave22q

You are still in the cold winter zone. Heating a live-a-board is a whole set of issues as is protecting your hull from the water freezing. You should do some local research as to how the locals handle things ASAP. You may have to get used to wearing lots of clothing indoors and super fast showers. Unless insulated boats are hard to keep heated.

I doubt salt water is going to freeze enough to damage a hull in that area.

He should do a lot of research locally as to slip cost. Hanging on a hook is more for those not having to go to the daily grind.

That apartment probably has no maintenance.

If he is doing it for economics it nuts, which sounds like the intent.

[TrentePieds]

And I would not disagree with Hudson :-)!

My constant caution to lubbers is this: See to your asset base before you indulge your dreams. Real Estate (held in freehold) will NEVER let you down financially. You can sell it or rent it out. A boat is a "wasting asset", and expensive to keep day-to-day besides. In consequence, if you buy a boat prematurely, you may NEVER become a freeholder. And the way the world is rapidly going, that will have unpleasant repercussions.

MyBeloved and I "hung in there" for a long-ish time with the result that we are freeholders - in a modest way, but freeholders nevertheless, and the boat was bought cash on the barrelhead. So was a new engine. Youngish people who ask us the question the OP asked usually cannot write cheques of that magnitude with any degree of equanimity.

In our case, the net rents we can "harvest" from renting out our condo in a distant suburb of Vancouver will more than pay the mortgage on a freehold property in a remote coastal (and economically depressed) part of "Supernatural British Columbia". In fifteen years, therefore, if we play the game right, a succession of benighted souls (aka tenants) will have purchased the remote property for us, and we will have a glorious ceilidh to celebrate the "burning o' the mortgage" :-) And better still, the little granddaughter will come of age concurrently with that and, I dare say, with my shipping out for Fiddler's Green. So she can have a free boat as well as a freehold property :-)!

Sequencing and timing is everything. A wise man told me long ago "Put all your eggs in one basket - then watch the basket VERY, VERY, VERY carefully!" Premature boat ownership does NOT constitute watching the basket carefully :-)!

TP

[Hudson Force]

I think there's another factor that relates to the potential success with living aboard and possible hardships. During all the years that we were living aboard and employed we we up the St. Johns River in North Florida with protected inland day sailing in mostly fresh (or low salinity) water, with very mild winters and within an area with a low cost of living relative to the national average.

I don't think we could have done as well with a big city expenses and commute, harsh winters and without easy spontaneous afternoon sailing. Also an active boating community.

"Location, location, location...."

[AKA-None]

Having lived and worked the waterfront in the Norfolk area I can attest to the fact that winters there are cold damp and miserable. I worked the shipyards and down on the water is not that fun.

[foufou]

My calculations came out with lower totals than some posted. Slip rental is about $350/ mo for a 45' slip. A other $100/mo for electricity, locker . Insurance is $400/ year. Maintenance could be $100/monthly. But I defer much of that.so it adds up to $600/month. Some months I dl upgrades if I have extra income. I reckon I am saving $600/month. But dock rental varies greatly. Caveat emptor

[zengirl]

Salt Ponds Marina
11 Ivory Gull Cresent
Hampton, Va 23664 right next to Norfolk
757-850-4300

Beautiful place. I'll be moving there if they don't start to fix the place I'm at.
$250 a month, no liveaboard fee. I priced it for my 32' Freedom. Elec of course is extra, free water. Bath houses, restaurants. Nicely kept up. Good luck.
I live on $1,500 a month. That's only 200 more than the rent you say you are paying!
Also not as cold in the winter. I use 2 small $15 heaters from Walmart and an electric blanket.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by zengirl

Salt Ponds Marina
11 Ivory Gull Cresent
Hampton, Va 23664 right next to Norfolk
757-850-4300

Beautiful place. I'll be moving there if they don't start to fix the place I'm at.
$250 a month, no liveaboard fee. I priced it for my 32' Freedom. Elec of course is extra, free water. Bath houses, restaurants. Nicely kept up. Good luck.
I live on $1,500 a month. That's only 200 more than the rent you say you are paying!
Also not as cold in the winter. I use 2 small $15 heaters from Walmart and an electric blanket.

$7.81 a foot is unbelievable today with no liveaboard fee. Sounds like you should move. You could drop down to one heater.

[zengirl]

Originally Posted by Cadence

$7.81 a foot is unbelievable today with no liveaboard fee. Sounds like you should move. You could drop down to one heater.

There are a lot of cheap, nice marinas up and down the coast. Just have to take the time to look. Also I never say liveaboard, I always say I'll be spending some nights on it, but with this one, for some reason I out and out asked... they fluffed me off and said "we don't pay to much attention to that"!

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by zengirl

There are a lot of cheap, nice marinas up and down the coast. Just have to take the time to look. Also I never say liveaboard, I always say I'll be spending some nights on it, but with this one, for some reason I out and out asked... they fluffed me off and said "we don't pay to much attention to that"!

You said it was costing you $1500. What's the reason not to move? Even if money is not a problem. Attachment to the area, friends and/or kids?

[zengirl]

Originally Posted by Cadence

You said it was costing you $1500. What's the reason not to move? Even if money is not a problem. Attachment to the area, friends and/or kids?

Where I am cost $500. I live on $1,500 a month. I haven't moved because next to me is Mr Google of boats and I learn SO much from him. He fixes things on my boat and I feed him! haha I know I'll move soon though, but hate to.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by zengirl

Where I am cost $500. I live on $1,500 a month. I haven't moved because next to me is Mr Google of boats and I learn SO much from him. He fixes things on my boat and I feed him! haha I know I'll move soon though, but hate to.

Sorry, I must have read the $1500 wrong. It sounds like SS?
















s

[roverhi]

Pick a marina with the amenities that you need like shower, laundry, etc. Costs will vary greatly depending on location. A sub 29' slip in SoCal will run $500 a monthl, $300 in the Bay Area. Check in your area for slip rates, live aboard add on charges, and amenities.

Lived aboard in Norfolk for one winter. Froze my butt off. Had all the electric heaters the dockside power would allow without tripping the breakers. Wasn't so much the temperature as the condensation inside the boat. It was like living in a steam bath only with icy cold steam. You really need some form of dry heat like a diesel or solid fuel heater. Wall heaters work with some adjustments to your life style to live with them. Hot air heaters can keep the boat just like a house but take up space for the heater and ducting that may not be available on a small boat. Figure a minimum of $1,000 for a wall heater by the time you add the additional tank, pumps, etc. Hot air heaters will cost more both for the heater and installation. The summer time, awnings will go a long way to make the boat livable. A few fans will also help. For those short periods of 100 degree heat/100% humidity, nothing beats an air conditioned hotel room. Still there were few days that I had to resort to that with awnings and fans on the boat.

Figure at least $2,000 a year for maintenance unless you intend to just live on the boat and let the bottom become a marine sanctuary. You can get two years and even three between haulouts but there is bottom scrubbing, zinc replacement and inevitable big expenses like engine repair, batteries, sails, etc. that can set you back big time exceeding the reserves from that $2,000 a year.

Maintaining a wardrobe will be another hurdle as clothes friendly storage is limited on a boat. Figure out what you'll need for 7 days and lay it all out. That will give you an idea of the storage you'll need. Solved the issue of where to keep extra clothes and boat stuff by renting a space within biking distance of the boat. Current location has a storage place right across the street. You may be surprised how much you can cut down your wardrobe by not having to have a totally new outfit for everyday of the week. For a month long live aboard stint, managed to fit all my clothes in a medium sized bag that I could have used a carry on for temps ranging from 40 to 80 degrees. Granted, this was for a cruise type live aboard but an e THere are a a lot of clothes designed for the camper/traveller/sailor that are quick drying that can be hand washed and hung to dry overnight and layered for comfort in a wide temperature range.

Not sure what the transit situation is in the Hampton Roads area these days but it's ideal country for bike commuting. When the highest point of ground is a trash mountain, it's easy pedalling long distances. Getting rid of the car with occasional rentals when needed can cut your outflow of money drastically. Cars are very expensive to maintain with the purchase cost, loan, insurance, parking and maintenance. Between my Bike Friday and BART, could easily cover the entire SF Bay Area.

You won't save a ton of money over an apartment but it will get you out of the dungeon while building equity in a boat. I really like hanging out on the dock talking with all the other boat owners. It's a great community with everyone having a shared interest. When I was young and single, it enabled me to live very cheaply, provided all my entertainment mainly because all my income was going into the boat, living quarters while I built up today's equivalent of $60,000 equity in the boat in two years. Buy wisely and you'll have an asset that isn't depreciating. Depreciation is for new boats. Older boats will maintain their value if properly cared for.

Good luck in your venture. Go into it with your eyes open, a realistic idea of the costs, limits, and a willingness to live with it and it's a great idea. Not for everybody but it can be done. The guy next to me at the marina has lived aboard a 25' boat for 30 years. He moved up from a 24' boat that he was living on with another guy and his son. Says the bigger boat is a palace compared to the old boat with room mates.

Personally can't live with a boat that is not set up the way I want so have big expenses inititally. Hardware, canvas, sails, etc add up quickly unless you can resist the temptations to buy jewelry for the boat. For me, it's always been at least a 1/3rd of the purchase price of the boat in the first year even on a boat that initially was well equipped. After that first year expenses taper way off.