Practice Living Aboard

[Mike OReilly]

Well, if it's just sailing skills you want, with a little taste of living on board, then I fully support the plan of a liveaboard training course. This won't tell you much about cruising, but it will give a taste of things. And you'll learn some things about sailing, which as I say, is really the easiest part of cruising.

My spouse and I both took liveaboard sailing courses in our early days. We started by both signing up for the same intro course (the old Canadian Yachting Ass. Basic Cruising, which is similar to the ASA 101). This was a week long, on-board class which we took together, and was a good wat to start.

Following that Basic course we both took more advanced liveaboard courses on our own. We did this purposely to allow each of us to learn unencumbered by the other spouse. In the end we both achieved the same standard.

One thing we did was seek out smaller schools to do our courses. These seemed to allow more flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of the students. I also found it was harder to find a full-time liveaboard course at the intro level that was attached to a big school.


BTW, a school is a good choice. The other, probably better choice, is to find a friend with a boat. Sailing courses are fine, but the best way to learn is to spend time doing it.

[AA3JY]

30+ years of sailing on various boats to include 3 years of living together on a rather small 34’ vessel..its one way to find out how strong ones marriage is...

I think Dr. Phill would approve!😁

[theDangerz]

Here’s what we did (though unintentionally and without knowing it was leading us to cruising).

- become a minimalist, sell all your belongings
- move out of your big house into one half the size, then into a smaller apartment, then a studio (obviously you could just skip straight to the studio depending on timeline)
- move into a very small RV (or better yet a camperized van) and start living remotely and moving from place to place.

In the last year+ of cruising we’ve seen many, many people turn back and sell the boat- and it’s not once been the sailing that was the issue/problem/stress.

For us, the fact that we had already lived nomadically in an ever smaller space for years meant this transition was simple. In fact while most are downsizing to a boat, ours is actually several times larger than what we’re used to... which makes everything a luxury (from size to running water to electricity). That also allowed us to spend ALL our time and energy simply learning to sail, navigate, read weather, etc- and I assure you that is enough on its own!

Everything is relative... so why not make transitions to your lifestyle now that have nothing (or little) to do with a boat. At least you still have all the other things you’re already used to (land, transportation, shopping, mechanics, safety/protection from weather, etc)... and can easily abort/change course at any given time.

Or... if the timeline needs to be tighter- just buy a boat and move aboard.
Then there you are!!