Advice for first time boater and live aboard?
Cliff
savings so I don't know what my options are, but I have a very consistent
income that is generated by my Internet web site. How big of a boat would I
need to feel 'comfortable' living aboard. How big is too big for one person
to operate. I'm leaning towards powered over sail, and 43' seems to be a
nice :-) size... I would be particularly interested in Atlantic coastal
cruising and Caribbean island jumping...
Cliff.
Larry W4CSC
Whatever is big enough to live on is way too big for one person to
operate, safely.....AND DOCK.
Try it for yourself......THE LIVEABOARD SIMULATOR!
Just for fun, park your cars in the lot of the convenience store
at least 2 blocks from your house. (Make believe the sidewalk is a
floating dock between your car and the house.
Move yourself and your family (If applicable) into 2 bedrooms and 1
bathroom. Measure the DECK space INSIDE your boat. Make sure the
occupied house has no more space, or closet space, or drawer space.
Bring a coleman stove into the bathroom and set it next to the
bathroom sink. Your boat's sink is smaller, but we'll let you use the
bathroom sink, anyways. Do all your cooking in the bathroom, WITHOUT
using the bathroom power vent. If you have a boat vent, it'll be a
useless 12v one that doesn't draw near the air your bathroom power
vent draws to take away cooking odors. Leave the hall door open to
simulate the open hatch. Take all the screens off your 2 bedroom's
windows. Leave the windows open to let in the bugs that will invade
your boat at dusk, and the flies attracted to the cooking.
Borrow a couple of 55 gallon drums mounted on a trailer. Flush your
toilets into the drums. Trailer the drums to the convenience store to
dump them when they get full. Turn off your sewer, you won't have
one.
Unless your boat is large enough to have a big "head" with full bath,
make believe your showers/bathtubs don't work. Make a deal with
someone next door to the convenience store to use THEIR bathroom for
bathing at the OTHER end of the DOCK. (Marina rest room) If you use
this rest room to potty, while you're there, make believe it has no
paper towels or toilet paper. Bring your own. Bring your own soap
and anything else you'd like to use there, too.
Run you whole house through a 20 amp breaker to simulate available
dock power at the marina. If you're thinking of anchoring out, turn
off the main breaker and "make do" with a boat battery and
flashlights. Don't forget you have to heat your house on this 20A
supply and try to keep the water from freezing.
Turn off the water main valve in front of your house. Run a hose from
your neighbor's lawn spigot over to your lawn spigot and get all your
water from there. Try to keep the hose from freezing all winter.
As your boat won't have a laundry, disconnect yours. Go to a boat
supply place, like West Marine, and buy you a dock cart. Haul ALL
your supplies, laundry, garbage, etc. between the car at the
convenience store and house in this cart. Once a week, haul your
outboard motor to the car, leave it a day then haul it back to the
house, in the cart, to simulate "boat problems" that require "boat
parts" to be removed/replaced on your "dock". If ANYTHING ever comes
out of that cart between the convenience store and the house, put it
in your garage and forget about it. (Simulates losing it over the
side of the dock, where it sank in 23' of water and was dragged off by
the current.)
Each morning, about 5AM, have someone you don't know run a weedeater
back and forth under your bedroom windows to simulate the fishermen
leaving the marina to go fishing. Have him slam trunk lids, doors,
blow car horns and bang some heavy pans together from 4AM to 5AM
before lighting off the weedeater. (Simulates loading aluminum boats
with booze and fishing gear and gas cans.) Once a week, have him bang
the running weedeater into your bedroom wall to simulate the idiot who
drove his boat into the one you're sleeping in because he was half
asleep leaving the dock. Put a rope over a big hook in the ceiling
over your bed. Hook one end of the rope to the bed siderail and the
other end out where he can pull on it. As soon as he shuts off the
weedeater, have him pull hard 9 times on the rope to tilt your bed at
least 30 degrees. (Simulates the wakes of the fishermen blasting off
trying to beat each other to the fishing.) Anytime there is a storm
in your area, have someone constantly pull on the rope. It's rough
riding storms in the marina! If your boat is a sailboat, install a
big wire from the top of the tallest tree to your electrical ground in
the house to simulate mast lightning strikes in the marina.
Anyone got any more "liveaboard simulator" ideas he can use??
Larry...Gotta go dump the holding tanks, back in a bit.
Trainfan1
Rob
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"Larry W4CSC" <spami...@knology.net> wrote in message
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eminence10
I can deal with it!
Don Bailey
That's all he wanted.
db
"Cliff" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
news:HrFC8.7267$Db5.2...@typhoon.nyc.rr.com...
Larry B
are several sizes available and the cost of chartering will be less
than outright ownership. I believe for single hand operating a 34 or
36 will be more than you will want to handle quite frequently.
Larry B