Advice to a new liveaboard Family

[Beren]

Hey Everyone,

We have been considering moving on to a live aboard boat for a while and we are now at the point of pulling the trigger and making the move. We have finance arranged and a berth available in a local Marina that allows permanent liveaboard boats and we are off to view and test sail our first boat at the weekend.

I am confident with our budgeting on Marina costs etc but I am very aware that we don't know what we don't know...

I couldn't see any really recent threads about families moving onto boats... although I have not searched massively far back yet.

We are a family of 4, with a 5 year old and 14 Year old. We definitely want a Yacht/Catamaran not a motorboat. Currently our budget is around $120,000 to purchase a boat and still leave enough room for maintenance and other running costs etc. We live in Auckland so it doesn't really get all that cold here even in the winter months.

We have done a lot of trawling through adverts and are going to see a 52ft Ketch with a Steel hull on Sunday to take her for a test sail and look the boat over. We have a surveyor teed up to then look the boat over who specializes in Steel Hulls if we want to move forward. I am also looking at a 40ft Catamaran, although I don't think the internal layout of the one I am interested in is suitable and most are out of our price bracket.

I would really love some thoughts from the forum on:

• Is there anything you wished you had looked for in your first liveonboard boat that we should look out for?
• What was the most unexpected change to your lifestyle in moving to a liveaboard situation?
• Is there any other advice you wish someone had told you before you got your first boat?
• Anything else that I may well not know?

 

[temptress]

Hey Everyone,

We have been considering moving on to a live aboard boat for a while and we are now at the point of pulling the trigger and making the move. We have finance arranged and a berth available in a local Marina that allows permanent liveaboard boats and we are off to view and test sail our first boat at the weekend.

I am confident with our budgeting on Marina costs etc but I am very aware that we don't know what we don't know...

I couldn't see any really recent threads about families moving onto boats... although I have not searched massively far back yet.

We are a family of 4, with a 5 year old and 14 Year old. We definitely want a Yacht/Catamaran not a motorboat. Currently our budget is around $120,000 to purchase a boat and still leave enough room for maintenance and other running costs etc. We live in Auckland so it doesn't really get all that cold here even in the winter months.

We have done a lot of trawling through adverts and are going to see a 52ft Ketch with a Steel hull on Sunday to take her for a test sail and look the boat over. We have a surveyor teed up to then look the boat over who specializes in Steel Hulls if we want to move forward. I am also looking at a 40ft Catamaran, although I don't think the internal layout of the one I am interested in is suitable and most are out of our price bracket.

I would really love some thoughts from the forum on:

• Is there anything you wished you had looked for in your first liveonboard boat that we should look out for?
• What was the most unexpected change to your lifestyle in moving to a liveaboard situation?
• Is there any other advice you wish someone had told you before you got your first boat?
• Anything else that I may well not know?

We have been living on board for some years now. In Northern Europe, Med, Carribean, Pacific and SE Asia.
Suprising Things :

needing heating on board at anchor in Fiji.

Have somewhere to sit use outside when it is raining hard.... In the tropics even with fans it is often too humid to sit below... Interesting that when it's actually raining humidity and temperature drop.

Most is common sense and experiance...

 

[nortada]

Welcome to the forum.

We have been Liveaboards for 16 years but still have a bolthole onshore in the U.K.

Not knowing your annual budget, previous sailing experience, aspirations, longer term aims, likes, dislikes etc it is hard to give specific advice. Are you going to girdle the world or just stay put in the same marina? Or something in between?

All I would suggest is take the conversion to living afloat slowly and don't burn your boats. Rather leave yourselves an escape route ashore. It will probably turn out very differently to what you expect.

Do let us know how you get on.

Off to watch the British & Ireland Lion's first match!

 

[PlanB]

One of the best bits of advice we were given was to get as much room as possible. It's important to be able to have your own space if you are all together 24/7.

 

[Beren]

Thanks for the advice so far, we rent currently so we could go back to shore easily enough if we absolutely had to - all our furniture will be going into storage, especially for the first year or so!

Our plan is to live aboard in a Marina completely for the first year, with weekend trips and our holidays out on the boat but staying close to home. If that goes well we might look at a mooring for part of the year and Marina part of the year after that. Our son is nearly 15 so our plan is to stay local for the first 3 years while he finishes high school and moves on to uni. We then planned to look at an OE anyway, so we will cruise to wherever that is going to be... we may well sell our first boat then while working overseas for 2-3 years, then get a boat specifically for cruising and do a round the world cruise on our way back to Auckland.

We saw a good boat at the weekend that fit our size requirements - now we need to make a definite plan for the immediate and short term work required to make her suitable before deciding whether to move forward. We are going to have to do at least a partial remodel to the front layout to make it work for the kids and need to try and work out just how much work would be involved in making it happen.

 

[ripvan1]

There's a well known condition called marina-bound-itis commonly afflicting liveaboards who never go sailing and when they do eventually want to find themselves looking for reasons not to.

The cure for this debilitating sickness is to get out sailing at every chance you can.

 

[Beren]

Great advice. We are getting a sail boat to sail in, not a motor boat after all

 

[nortada]

There's a well known condition called marina-bound-itis commonly afflicting liveaboards who never go sailing and when they do eventually want to find themselves looking for reasons not to.

The cure for this debilitating sickness is to get out sailing at every chance you can.

An interesting comment but why is it a sickness? Each to their own.

Wouldn't be too difficult to find any excuse for sailing out of Pompey.

There again, would I want to be a liveaboard in Pompey?

 

[ripvan1]

An interesting comment but why is it a sickness? Each to their own.

Wouldn't be too difficult to find any excuse for sailing out of Pompey.

There again, would I want to be a liveaboard in Pompey?