Wife and I want a life on a boat - how can we do this fairly efficient

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by wrwakefield

A bit of an over generalization based upon either narrow experience or bias I believe...

Here I am pining below decks in my dark and dreary sailboat @ 56°N in mid November...



There are many options out there...

Cheers! Bill

OK, that is one example.
Can you come up with a dozen more easily accessible breeds that offer the same to support this "many options" claim

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

OK, that is one example.
Can you come up with a dozen more easily accessible breeds that offer the same to support this "many options" claim

Xmas Day 2015

[daletournier]

Very few modern cruising yachts are dark and dreary downstairs, that belief is a hangover from decades passed.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Xmas Day 2015

Looks like you have to stand on tippy toes to peer out a window.
If I can't sit back in the lounge and see the world go by through a window to me that is dark and dreary.

[bstronger]

I strongly advise living together on land in a shipping container first - providing proper perspective for you on board experience.

[Amapola]

Welcome from SW Florida. IMHO, you should physically see the boat and get a survey before you buy.

[dleathem]

Lots of replies here but I’ll give my two bits worth anyways. I live in BC on my sailboat, and have done so for the last 3 years. If living on a boat interests you, give it a shot now, because once the kids come, it becomes fundamentally more difficult.
As for deciding what type of boat, it’s not a simple decision, so study the ads of what’s available, and get out here for a week and stomp around boats. Once back home, think about what suits you, and what you can afford. Then you can return, at least somewhat educated and start serious shopping. Like others have stated, actual buying takes time, and not something that you want to, or even can be rushed, given the amount of $$ involved.
Then there’s the usual sailboat vs powerboat arguments. Yes powerboats generally have more space, and more light than many sailboats, but I live on a 42ft. Pilothouse sailboat, I have plenty of space, and large windows, so that’s not always the case. I can motor at 6kt., put the sails up when I want and travel quietly, and when the Strait of Georgia is rough and blowing, and the trawlers are all tied up, I’m very happy to have 7500 lbs of keel underneath, and an inside steering station.
Anyways, good luck and happy boat shopping. If you’re out and about in BC and want a liveaboard tour, feel free to message me.

[LargeMarge]

[This happened a couple hundred miles south of B.C.]

re:
acquiring a boat based on photographs

After seeing a for-sale-by-owner advertisement, we drove several hours down the Columbia River from Portland Oregon.
The boat seemed smaller than the seller's claim of 55', so we taped it... 38'.
We chatted with the neighbors on both sides, and they told us the last time it moved... Clinton was president.
After careful deliberations, we passed.

By-the-by, anytime you visit Cathlemet Washington, take the bridge across to Puget Island.
Of the six-hundred homesteads on the island, approximately 100% have boats the owners intend to fix-up someday.
The other 100% inherited the boats with the property purchase, then advertise them for-sale-by-owner.
I am not making this up.

Afrika has the elephant graveyard, the western United States has Puget Island.

[nofacey]

Get an idea of BC boat availability & cost at:
https://www.boatdealers.ca/boats-for...sh-columbia-bc

- hard to buy a boat sight unseen, usually people visit a bunch of boats to get a feel for what they like/don’t like......pictures just don’t cut it.

If you can really work it down to a single make/model, then having a buddy inspect a few for you can at least weed out the s(t)inkers. Alternatively, you can hire a marine surveyor to take a look....but that’ll get expensive pretty quick.

Best option would be to really narrow down what you’re looking for (and can afford), then await a seat sale to fly out west, camp out on a buddies couch, and look yourselves for a week.

IMO, you want a popular model in decent shape, if you expect to a) walk aboard and start using it immediately and b) sell it promptly 2 years from now.

A power boat makes total sense in the high currents and low winds of the inside waters of Vancouver island. You can spend waayyy more than two years just visiting the best spots there.

Personally I’d go for 32-36ft, diesel, with the ability to get up on plane....otherwise you’ll spend a bunch of time waiting for favourable tides. Needs a good heater too!

[alansmith]

Let me tell you an experience I had several years ago with a survey near Chicago. I live San Francisco. I got a bee in my bonnet about the Freedom boats with unstayed rigs. Found me one for 5 K. Seemed a little too good to be true. Pics didn’t look too bad. Called the broker. He said she needed some work but doable.

Hired a marine surveyor. Made sure the surveyor wasn’t beholden to the brokerage. She gave me pics and reports about a week later. I walked away immediately. That’s the skinny.

But let me tell you about the financial side of it. It cost me about 600 dollars for the survey itself. But I had to pay for the boat to be launched. I had to pay for them to make sure batteries were good to go, oil checked, lines prepared for launch, and such. Then for retrieval and storage. Total... around 900 dollars.

I was furious that the pictures on the Internet were so carefully taken as to avoid the true condition of the boat. The surveyor’s pictures showed wide areas of severe water intrusion into the foam core. The rudder was a complete mess, the inside of the boat had intrusion from water everywhere. The wiring was sh!t. The rigging was junk. I can’t think of one good thing to say.

Look at this way... yes it cost me 900 dollars to eliminate that boat as potential. But if I had flown out there for three days with flight, hotels, car, and food... it would have been way more expensive than that. I learned a big lesson from that experience.

It ain’t no joke. Be very sure of what you want and how you go about doing it. Wish you luck.