Advice for a young potential Liveaboard

[Sblaton113]

Hi there,

I've posted in this forum before about buying a much larger yacht but the cost of marina's and maintenance and all the stuff has meant i'm now looking at much much smaller yachts to get started on.

So this is where I am right now, there is a 23ft yacht that has a functioning toilet and a cooker for a very small amount of money that I have been looking at, of course I will have it surveyed and what not before I make any kind of commitment but the plan would be for me and my girlfriend (who loves sailing and travel and who i'm sure could bear to be on a small yacht like this) to take the yacht through the french canals to the med.

However, I was hoping to find some answers about the capabilities of such a small yacht once in the med, in my mind I figured you could happily sail along the coast without many problems at all all the way around Italy, would I be wrong to think that?

there is also the fact that after the summer I have to go back to university and would probably like to offload the yacht, would this be possible or even feesable as it is very much a buyers market right now,

the yacht has a brand new beta 20hp engine and looks like it would be a pretty sturdy tidler, the reason I want to choose a small little yacht like this is so that we can spend our money on marina's and nice food rather than a much bigger yacht that I suppose we could take to more places. This little 23ft would not do well in open sea I assume but its draught is only 1 meter so it can pretty much go almost anywhere,

i'd love to hear your opinions, obviously its a very small yacht and would not be the most comfortable as it doesn't have a shower but what we save on not buying a bigger yacht we can then spend on showers and the like

many thanks

sblaton113

 

[sarabande]

23ft is possible as a Med liveaboard, and will get you into lots of small, snuggly, safe, places. But, but, it's going to be difficult in the heat.

A new Beta 20hp is a big engine for a small boat, and that makes me ask how a cheap boat gets and expensive big engine. Is the engine ,matched to the prop ? What size fuel tank do you have ? Filtration system ? The value of the engine when you come to resell may be a plus point.

Yes, it's possible, and lots of young people have done th eMed and further, but there will be times when it ain't going to be comfortable.

 

[Sblaton113]

Hi there, yes the heat will be hard would a fan not do the job? I personally get very hot very fast so a dip in the ocean and a fan are a must,

I have no idea if the engine is matched to the prop, I have a friend who is a very experienced sailor and knows his stuff so I was going to ask him to go with me to check out the yacht before I hand over any money. The fuel tank is 33litres, by filtration system do you mean the filtration for the engine?

"but there will be times when it ain't going to be comfortable" how can I best prepare for these? I mean the yacht is £5000 so I will have plenty of money for upgrades, I was going to get a solar panel and a fridge "as the boat doesn't have a fridge" and even an emergency suitcase generator.

I'm buying it because my girlfriend and I want to sail the med but obviously we are only 22 so we can't afford to buy a massive yacht and still afford to sail it afterwards

many thanks

 

[Sblaton113]

23ft is possible as a Med liveaboard, and will get you into lots of small, snuggly, safe, places. But, but, it's going to be difficult in the heat.

A new Beta 20hp is a big engine for a small boat, and that makes me ask how a cheap boat gets and expensive big engine. Is the engine ,matched to the prop ? What size fuel tank do you have ? Filtration system ? The value of the engine when you come to resell may be a plus point.

Yes, it's possible, and lots of young people have done th eMed and further, but there will be times when it ain't going to be comfortable.

Also I would add that I don't know much about the costs of actually being there in a 23ft yacht, I assumed around 2000 euro/month would do the job but to be honest i'm not 100% if that is even close to an accurate figure

any advice is really appreciated

many thanks (also I sent a reply to your response but i'm not sure if you were notified)

 

[sailaboutvic]

We been liveaboard for more years then I can remember at times.
a 23 foot boat in the right condition will take you most places.
If it suitable to live on it full time is another thing.
The Med can get very hot in the summer, this years we had it up to 40c and even on a 13 mts boat and we are use to the hot weather, it wasn't easy.
I think you might find sooner then later the heat will get to you, being so young you may cope better then some, but even so there will be problem.
2000 euros Pm is a good sum but if you plain to use Marina that not going to last long,
Marinas in the Med aren't as cheep as some may think, and living on the hook in a small boat isn't going to be that comfortable unless the weather very claim.
Now after saying all that , what you have going for you is your age,
Thinking back to when I was 22 there a lot of things I did and places I when to on next to nothing.
It sound to me what you plainning to do is have a gap year,
so forget every thing you read here and go and enjoy life while your still young enough to do so .

 

[Tranona]

Suggest you and your girlfriend partition off a section of a room to represent the shape/area and volume of your boat. Fit it out with beds, cooker, toilet etc plus the gear you take with you. Cover it over - perhaps a tent will do - and then run a fan heater in it. This will simulate what you will experience, although appreciate you will also have some outside space.

Whether you will cope will depend on a lot of factors such as how big you are. I am 1.95m and weigh 100kg and lived on a 26' for a year in my younger days but could not imagine sharing with another person. When I eventually got a boat in the Med it was a 37' and very comfortable for the 2 of us. Two on a 23' is permanent rough camping with the benefit of having a hard roof!

Suggest you set a minimum of 26' which you can easily get with a £5k+ budget. Something like a Centaur is OK for 2 with separate cabins, standing headroom, big cockpit - indeed all the features that made them so successful as family cruisers. There are many other similar designs such as Sabres, Cobras, Snapdragons, Mirages etc but the key thing when buying is overall condition, gear and a good motor. None are really ideal for the Med but with good ventilation and an awning you can cope.

You don't say what your time scales are, but you need at least a year to buy and fit out a boat and get through the canals to the med. turning either left or right takes you into the most expensive parts until you get to portugal in the west or greece in the east. Coastal hopping is very time consuming and it is a long way either way, so many people Island hop to get to the best bits. A 23' would be really hard work and a 33l tank totally inadequate as it gives only around 20 hours or less than 100 miles range - that is a real problem both in the canals and in the sea where you will be motoring more than sailing if you want to get anywhere.

So with a small boat you have to scale back your expectations significantly. A trip through the canals and abit of fun in the med then back again would be ambitious in a whole season (April-October) and going further is another year. Coming back to UK is sensible if you want to sell the boat as you won't even be able to give it away easily in the med - for all the reasons given above!

 

[steve yates]

There was a pbo article I'm sure by a young lad who did very similar, in, I think, a 19ft boat. Though the canals, sailed the med, then sold it and went back to uni to finish his course. Had a great time.

23ft could do it easily, especially for young folk. 40 years ago that size was the norm for a family cruiser!

Buy this, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lugworm-Chronicles-Classic-Open-Cruising/dp/1907206280 , they were an older couple and they trailed their little drascombe to the med and basically dinghy cruised, with a boom tent or sleeping out ashore.

Your going on an adventure, not a holiday, get on with it (and post back here how you got on)

 

[stranded]

There was a pbo article I'm sure by a young lad who did very similar, in, I think, a 19ft boat. Though the canals, sailed the med, then sold it and went back to uni to finish his course. Had a great time.

23ft could do it easily, especially for young folk. 40 years ago that size was the norm for a family cruiser!

Buy this, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lugworm-Chronicles-Classic-Open-Cruising/dp/1907206280 , they were an older couple and they trailed their little drascombe to the med and basically dinghy cruised, with a boom tent or sleeping out ashore.

Your going on an adventure, not a holiday, get on with it (and post back here how you got on)

On same lines, when I were a lad... I, friends, and plenty of others we knew or knew of, travelled for months on end largely rough camping - sleeping bag liner under a hedge , under upturned boats on beaches, very occasional super cheap room. First such trip for me was a pound a day (literally) hitch round Eastern Europe (when the curtain was still iron). That was just how you did it. Admittedly, we didn’t see many ‘sights’ - cities tend to be expensive, and often a bugger to hitch out of - but we had some fantastic times. A 23ft yacht would have been sheer luxury! Point being, of course you can do it, and have a ball. You can always go back later to see the sights/sites you might have to miss this time round.

 

[Sblaton113]

Suggest you and your girlfriend partition off a section of a room to represent the shape/area and volume of your boat. Fit it out with beds, cooker, toilet etc plus the gear you take with you. Cover it over - perhaps a tent will do - and then run a fan heater in it. This will simulate what you will experience, although appreciate you will also have some outside space.

Whether you will cope will depend on a lot of factors such as how big you are. I am 1.95m and weigh 100kg and lived on a 26' for a year in my younger days but could not imagine sharing with another person. When I eventually got a boat in the Med it was a 37' and very comfortable for the 2 of us. Two on a 23' is permanent rough camping with the benefit of having a hard roof!

Suggest you set a minimum of 26' which you can easily get with a £5k+ budget. Something like a Centaur is OK for 2 with separate cabins, standing headroom, big cockpit - indeed all the features that made them so successful as family cruisers. There are many other similar designs such as Sabres, Cobras, Snapdragons, Mirages etc but the key thing when buying is overall condition, gear and a good motor. None are really ideal for the Med but with good ventilation and an awning you can cope.

You don't say what your time scales are, but you need at least a year to buy and fit out a boat and get through the canals to the med. turning either left or right takes you into the most expensive parts until you get to portugal in the west or greece in the east. Coastal hopping is very time consuming and it is a long way either way, so many people Island hop to get to the best bits. A 23' would be really hard work and a 33l tank totally inadequate as it gives only around 20 hours or less than 100 miles range - that is a real problem both in the canals and in the sea where you will be motoring more than sailing if you want to get anywhere.

So with a small boat you have to scale back your expectations significantly. A trip through the canals and abit of fun in the med then back again would be ambitious in a whole season (April-October) and going further is another year. Coming back to UK is sensible if you want to sell the boat as you won't even be able to give it away easily in the med - for all the reasons given above!

Hi there,

we both live in a single room in london so are very used to extremely small spaces, our room is absolutely miniscule, as far as the heat goes I imagine a dip in the ocean would help but if that doesn't do the trick then a fan would surely work instead? as for the tank I was thinking I could just stock a load of diesel on the yacht? four tanks worth would surely make a dent in the fuel consumption it would achieve?

we would be going from may to October and yeah the idea would be to just go through the canals into the med, then use anchorages that are a bit more snug as the draught of the yacht is only 1m and it has a bilge keel, that would make the cost pretty small in terms of marinas as we would barely use one, we would have to coastal hop as yes we can't take that small a yacht into the open ocean and not sweat from the stress,

i'll scale back my expectations a bit but i was planning to just leave it in a boat yard when we got there in the med, its a tiny yacht so taking it out the water isn't exspensive and its barely worth anything

 

[Kelpie]

£5k for a 23ft yacht with a massively oversized engine does not sound like a bargain.
IMHO for that budget you can go a bit bigger and/or get a package that is better put together.
If you have a knowledgeable friend then consider asking them to help you look over any prospective boat- at this sort of budget you might not think a survey (at c.£400) is good value. Surveyors have a lot of caveats and may not check things like the engine. You may even find someone on this forum is close enough to help.

 

[Sblaton113]

£5k for a 23ft yacht with a massively oversized engine does not sound like a bargain.
IMHO for that budget you can go a bit bigger and/or get a package that is better put together.
If you have a knowledgeable friend then consider asking them to help you look over any prospective boat- at this sort of budget you might not think a survey (at c.£400) is good value. Surveyors have a lot of caveats and may not check things like the engine. You may even find someone on this forum is close enough to help.

Thanks for the tips,

is the engine massively oversized? can i ask why it is not a bargain in your opinion? I'll keep looking around and see what is available,

 

[Bajansailor]

To see what else is out there, have a search on (eg) Apolloduck - http://www.apolloduck.co.uk , or on Yachtworld www.yachtworld.com
With Yachtworld you can do an 'advanced' search re size, age, type, engine, cost location - type in as many constraints as you think are important, and see what 'comes up'.
GBP 5,000 sounds like a lot for a 23' yacht, even if she has an oversized and relatively new engine (a 10 hp engine would generally be plenty for a 23' boat, assuming that the propeller is matched correctly).
A pal of mine bought a Snapdragon 747 (23') 10 years ago with a relatively new Beta engine for GBP 5,000, and if the boat was offered for sale now I doubt that she would fetch more than GBP 3,000, never mind that she is in better condition now.

Take heed also of what you are going to do with the boat in the Med once the summer is over - as Tranona says, the boat might become a liability and you might be hard pressed to even give her away. And if you bring her back home, you will pretty much have to turn around and head back as soon as you arrive in the Med.

 

[sailaboutvic]

I have to wonder what's happen to our sprint of adventure,
One of the things about liveaboard is they still have it.

Here a young couple looking at doing some traveling on a small budget,
Good for them I say, this is what I love about the young Ozzie,
They get off their ass ( spelling ass in that way should keep me in the black) and get on with there lives,
I remember buying an Thames van, we spend some weeks going back and fro to the scrap yard to fit it out , then off with a few mates to tour England , just a back pack and a old guitar and a month wages , ok we only got as far as Leeds before our trip came to an end when the engine died but boy didn't we have some laughs.

Don't worry about what you do with the boat come the end of your trip, you can alway find another young couple and sell it to them for the price of a flight home.
Turn the clock back 40 year and I be asking to joining you guys.
Live is so short, you blink your eyes and 20 years have gone by,
Enjoy it while you can.

 

[Kelpie]

Thanks for the tips,

is the engine massively oversized? can i ask why it is not a bargain in your opinion? I'll keep looking around and see what is available,

Bigger is not always better when it comes to engines. The 20hp will be heavier and thirstier, and more difficult to work on because of lack of space. The boat's speed is limited by two factors: waterline length, and prop size. You can fit the biggest engine in the world but get barely any increase in speed because of these two factors.

Also, IMHO, the fact that someone has fitted a 20hp engine to a 23ft boat rings a little alarm bell. I would like to know what led them to do that- did they get a great deal on it, perhaps? It raises suspicion that they didn't really know what they were doing.

There are heaps of good small boats out there. I recently saw a perfectly good Co26 go for £2k. You need to be able to move fast to get that sort of bargain. And for two of you, for a summer, it will be plenty of space. Best of luck finding something

 

[Tranona]

Hi there,

we both live in a single room in london so are very used to extremely small spaces, our room is absolutely miniscule, as far as the heat goes I imagine a dip in the ocean would help but if that doesn't do the trick then a fan would surely work instead? as for the tank I was thinking I could just stock a load of diesel on the yacht? four tanks worth would surely make a dent in the fuel consumption it would achieve?

we would be going from may to October and yeah the idea would be to just go through the canals into the med, then use anchorages that are a bit more snug as the draught of the yacht is only 1m and it has a bilge keel, that would make the cost pretty small in terms of marinas as we would barely use one, we would have to coastal hop as yes we can't take that small a yacht into the open ocean and not sweat from the stress,

i'll scale back my expectations a bit but i was planning to just leave it in a boat yard when we got there in the med, its a tiny yacht so taking it out the water isn't exspensive and its barely worth anything

You are going to be hot a soon as you get down the canals - and you won't want to jump in there!. Heat is a real problem at night, especially two people in a cramped space. Fans help and you can always sleep outside.

As others have said it is quite possible to do this trip in a small boat but you have to recognise that living is really at a very basic level. Think about where you are going to put everything - for example 50l of fuel takes up a lot of space. Then there is your water , beer, wine, food (how are you going to keep it cool?) clothes bedding etc etc. That is why I suggested with your budget you could get a bigger boat that will improve your quality of life significantly.

It will take you all of 8 weeks to get across the channel, drop your mast and motor down to the south. Starting in May gets you there in July - in the hottest part of the year in probably the most expensive part of France. A few weeks sailing in the Med then finding a cheap place to leave the boat over winter and go back the next year to bring it back is a viable plan - remembering that the first part of going north is against the current in the Rhone and Saone.

So, lots to think about and research before you set off.

 

[Madeo]

Do it! Have fun...

 

[ASW11]

Dunno if Squeaky of this parish has picked up your thread yet but do know that 40+ years ago he and a girlfriend left this fair isle in a 23' cruiser, spent a couple of years cruising europe's inland waterways to emerge in the med - and he's been there ever since having eventually progressed to a 28' cruiser which is still his home. It's worth talking to knowledgeable folk about the mechanical stuff and maybe pm to Squeaky re the "practicalities"? Whatever, enjoy!

 

[truscott]

Why don't you just head to Greece and buy something already there? We saw a LOT of older boats up for sale as we cruised along the coast this past summer. There are semi-abandoned boats in all manner of places such as the yards in Preveza, moored to the quay in Vonitsa, along the wall in Vliho, taking up space in Trizonia, and so on... We have been keeping an eye out for a mate. As for size, we met an Italian former sea captain tootling around the Ionion in his little 19 footer which he sails across from Italy each summer. We met another chap in Oinoussous who sails his 22 footer every where in the Med, including sailing from Greece to Tunisia. His haulout costs were minuscule in comparison to our own.

PT

 

[sailaboutvic]

Why don't you just head to Greece and buy something already there? We saw a LOT of older boats up for sale as we cruised along the coast this past summer. There are semi-abandoned boats in all manner of places such as the yards in Preveza, moored to the quay in Vonitsa, along the wall in Vliho, taking up space in Trizonia, and so on... We have been keeping an eye out for a mate. As for size, we met an Italian former sea captain tootling around the Ionion in his little 19 footer which he sails across from Italy each summer. We met another chap in Oinoussous who sails his 22 footer every where in the Med, including sailing from Greece to Tunisia. His haulout costs were minuscule in comparison to our own.

PT

It seen the young guy looking at going tho the French canals first , but yes Greece can be a good place to find a cheep boat.
Of cause abandoned boats are just that, trying to find an owner is like trying to find a needle in an haystack.
And although the yards that have them would be quite happy to get rid of them, by law they can't as explain to me Many times, and it cost so much money and time to get a court to allow the removal , it's not worth the trouble for most yards.
Of cause then there the problem of what to do with a lump of GRP.
But we drifting now , sorry .

 

[OldBawley]

As to heat : It is the same on a small boat or a big boat. Forget fans. Sew a wind scoop. Make it big and at the anchorage your boat will be the coolest.
If you want to do the canals, the engine will have to be reliable.
A 23 feet boat is a small boat now. Some years ago it was medium sized boat.
Big difference in yachts. Some big boats are small in living quality.
Summer trip canals / Med : you live 95% outside, a comfortable cockpit is important.

Just go for it.

The hint to buy in Greece is good, but, we have done the canals also and found that part of our trip the best. Especially for young people.
Last year I spoke to two young crews. Both said the sailing was a bit boring, all people they met where old and had lived their lives,ware now just idling a bit.