Boat Size - space vs practicality

tcm said:
jeez, what a moany thread. My advice is to work a bit harder and get the money together to buy something really quite massive. Have two engines (loads of space) and decent generator and nice big RIB. You can be a teensy bit stingy on the outboard else you have to go find fuel all the time, so mebbe 30hp is getting large. And so on. Oh and all those big boats - they have someone helming them and it's *easier* with a big boat - not harder - iyour windage (bad) increases with the square of boat length but its inertia (good) goes up with the cube of length - big boats go where they're pointed, and stay comfy at anchor way up in the higher winds too.

Fact is, if your house is much nicer than your boat, it just isn't attractive to live in, long term. I mean - for years, not just a year or two.
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What a really unhelpful post.

Some of us are investigating the practicalities of changing from a bricks&mortar life to one afloat. Many of the questions and preconceptions that we have may appear uninformed and inane; but all we're trying to do is learn a bit more about the lifestyle we're contemplating.

Some of us have a couple of £000 and some of us may have considerably more. We may be thinking about ditching the family, lovers and house mortgage, or just wanting freedom from the 9 to 5, but these questions are our way of finding out more about a possible new life. Many of us contemplating this change won't progress further than reading the monthly mags and 'for sale' adverts, but some of us will make the move and, hopefully, become part of the liveaboard community. I certainly can't comment, and won't speculate, about why any of us might wish this change in lifestyle, but I would hope that you, as experienced liveaboards, would help us from making many of the mistakes that you may have made when choosing your lifestyle.

Please be patient with us and forgive our lack of knowledge, as I'm sure others did for you (and I hope that we will also do for newcomers in the future).
 
Blimey, I've been looking at some of the other theads on this forum on costs for a berth and marina charges across Europe. For 12-15m it looks like an average of £600 pcm but could be substantially more. This makes a huge difference when thinking of disposable income available for a 10 year marine mortgage to buy a liveaboard.

Can anyone give actual prices for a 40' berthed somewhere like Brighton marina (yes, I have looked at the published marina charges. I was sort of hoping that there was some negotiating room here).
 
Nealo said:
I know this subject will have been debated many times but I would like to approach it from a slightly different angle. I came across a site in the USA dedicated to advising potential liveaboards and some of the comments quite surprised me. Those who were interviewed seemed to imply that the biggest mistake potential liveabords make is to buy a boat that is too big, because it undermines the fundamental appeal of a life afloat. For instance, one guy was adamant that anyone contemplating the liveaboard lifestyle should buy the smallest boat they think they can get away with and if necessary acquire some form of storage on dry land.
I know there is no right and wrong on this issue, but I'd be interested to hear whether members agree with this point of view and whether anyone admits to making such a mistake?
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This is an apology. I've suddenly realised, after reviewing the various posts, that I've probably hijacked your thread.
 
Phideaux said:
Blimey, I've been looking at some of the other theads on this forum on costs for a berth and marina charges across Europe. For 12-15m it looks like an average of £600 pcm but could be substantially more. This makes a huge difference when thinking of disposable income available for a 10 year marine mortgage to buy a liveaboard.

Can anyone give actual prices for a 40' berthed somewhere like Brighton marina (yes, I have looked at the published marina charges. I was sort of hoping that there was some negotiating room here).
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I think there's a bit of room for negotiation, I paid £3120 for 01/02/10 to 31/3/11 for 9 metre (29.5 feet) boat, that's an extra £114 on top of the pay in advance price for 01/04/10 to 31/3/11. If you work that out over 14 months £223/month. Water free, leccy on meter, diesel at cost, 42 days in other Prem marinas...
 
djbreeze said:
I think there's a bit of room for negotiation, I paid £3120 for 01/02/10 to 31/3/11 for 9 metre (29.5 feet) boat, that's an extra £114 on top of the pay in advance price for 01/04/10 to 31/3/11. If you work that out over 14 months £223/month. Water free, leccy on meter, diesel at cost, 42 days in other Prem marinas...
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Cheers. Thanks for replying. £250 pcm sounds more reasonable, but I suspect there's a massive difference between 30' and 40'

50' anyone?
 
mr unhelpful again

It varies, but... the bigger the catamaran the more likely you are to be able to stay out when others thinks it's a "bit much" to stay at anchor, perhaps. I would be slightly leery of living in a catamaran in the uk with fewer anchorages and marinas built for an RYA-standard (27foot westerly) boat. I know that some marinas charge extra, ome marinas dot and some charge length x breadth which ooer is about double.

Dare I say it's possibly not great idea to e-slap people hereabouts, as you did? You could be wittier/kinder? My post "unhelpful" - it just flew in the face of others stuff. Ok, the "work a bit harder" a bit hard-right, sorry. But the thread had strangely "settled" that smallerish 30ft is better - precisely the opposite of what manufacturers have all been doing, and they should know, a bit. Anyway, not to worry. But some people here might even sail a boat of the type you plan to buy, or perhaps have a boat you would just would like to sail in a bit and be looking for crew, maybe even say just for a week, and if not in the uk then abroad, maybe? Lots of people have hooked up hereabouts, in person. yot club, innit?
 
tcm said:
Dare I say it's possibly not great idea to e-slap people hereabouts, as you did? You could be wittier/kinder? My post "unhelpful" - it just flew in the face of others stuff. Ok, the "work a bit harder" a bit hard-right, sorry. But the thread had strangely "settled" that smallerish 30ft is better - precisely the opposite of what manufacturers have all been doing, and they should know, a bit. Anyway, not to worry. But some people here might even sail a boat of the type you plan to buy, or perhaps have a boat you would just would like to sail in a bit and be looking for crew, maybe even say just for a week, and if not in the uk then abroad, maybe? Lots of people have hooked up hereabouts, in person. yot club, innit?
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Sorry if you feel e-slapped but when I read your opening remarks about working harder and buying something more massive I saw red - having just taken my team at work through the redundancy process and loosing half of them as a consequence (with no security for my own position).

I've had several offers from kind folk here and will be out to look at an Arpege this coming weekend and then two single days out with someone else on the Solent. What I now have to spend some time researching is the feasibility of moving away from a 30' weekends and holidays boat to something that I would feel comfortable on as a long term liveaboard and still be able to sail solo or shorthanded.
 
Well some of you are probably thinking what an ignorant git - poses a q. and then doesn't have the courtesy to thank people for their contributions. The thing is, I started the thread when there was still six inches of ice on the road outside - I'm self employed and couldn't work properly for about three weeks - so I had plenty of time to browse utube etc. Anyway the thaw started and I've been working like you know what to catch up, hence my ignorance. That's the excuse out of the way. I'm very grateful for, and intrigued by, all the posts so far. As I said, there are no right and wrong answers but I thought a general pattern might emerge from the comments - I'm not sure that it has!
Bearing in mind that the site I was looking at featured Americans who as everyone knows have far too much money, it could well be the case that the temptation to buy a too big boat is hard to resist when finance isn't a constraint. However, just about all the people I have met who have adopted this lifestyle have remarked that finance (lack of it) was a major factor in choosing to liveaboard, and I haven't come across anyone yet who thought their boat was too big. That's why the case studies from the states surprised me, but with hindsight maybe they shouldn't have.
Many years ago I had to visit, in a professional capacity, a young couple who were living aboard a tiny catamaran which the guy has built himself as the only way they could afford to set up home together. It was on a drying out mooring, I remember having to check the tide times before I went. Ok, it was a fine day in the middle of summer so not exactly a typical representation of life afloat in the UK, but it's a memory that's stayed with me for well over 30 years. I remember being given a guided tour and that they had obviously given the concept of living on a small vessel considerable thought but the over-riding factor was that this was a boat for going places -where they were moored at the time very few boats could have got to (depth of water). I thought at the time wouldn't it be great if you could have a boat that was small enough to explore all the waterways around the uk but just big enough to live on. The problem is that like me, that young fella is by now well and truly into middle age and, like me, no doubt very fond of his "personal space"... To most people, boats represent maybe the only sense of freedom we still have in the modern world, and even that is under threat, but to what extent do you have to compromise in order to make life comfortable? Is it an illusion? As I have been typing this it occurs to me that I spend most of my life "living" in a medium sized van ie when I am working. That's at least 5/6 days of the week during daylight hours. The rest of the time I mostly "live" in a room 2 metres square, my "office". How much space do we really need?

At least it's reassuring, to me at least, that hardly anyone ever admits to making a mistake in choosing the liveaboard lifestyle, whatever the size of boat.

BTW I was using a different PC when I accessed the aforementioned site - I think I did mark it & i'll try and find the link.
 
Nealo said:
Well some of you are probably thinking what an ignorant git - poses a q. and then doesn't have the courtesy to thank people for their contributions. The thing is, I started the thread when there was still six inches of ice on the road outside - I'm self employed and couldn't work properly for about three weeks - so I had plenty of time to browse utube etc. Anyway the thaw started and I've been working like you know what to catch up, hence my ignorance. That's the excuse out of the way. I'm very grateful for, and intrigued by, all the posts so far. As I said, there are no right and wrong answers but I thought a general pattern might emerge from the comments - I'm not sure that it has!
Bearing in mind that the site I was looking at featured Americans who as everyone knows have far too much money, it could well be the case that the temptation to buy a too big boat is hard to resist when finance isn't a constraint. However, just about all the people I have met who have adopted this lifestyle have remarked that finance (lack of it) was a major factor in choosing to liveaboard, and I haven't come across anyone yet who thought their boat was too big. That's why the case studies from the states surprised me, but with hindsight maybe they shouldn't have.
Many years ago I had to visit, in a professional capacity, a young couple who were living aboard a tiny catamaran which the guy has built himself as the only way they could afford to set up home together. It was on a drying out mooring, I remember having to check the tide times before I went. Ok, it was a fine day in the middle of summer so not exactly a typical representation of life afloat in the UK, but it's a memory that's stayed with me for well over 30 years. I remember being given a guided tour and that they had obviously given the concept of living on a small vessel considerable thought but the over-riding factor was that this was a boat for going places -where they were moored at the time very few boats could have got to (depth of water). I thought at the time wouldn't it be great if you could have a boat that was small enough to explore all the waterways around the uk but just big enough to live on. The problem is that like me, that young fella is by now well and truly into middle age and, like me, no doubt very fond of his "personal space"... To most people, boats represent maybe the only sense of freedom we still have in the modern world, and even that is under threat, but to what extent do you have to compromise in order to make life comfortable? Is it an illusion? As I have been typing this it occurs to me that I spend most of my life "living" in a medium sized van ie when I am working. That's at least 5/6 days of the week during daylight hours. The rest of the time I mostly "live" in a room 2 metres square, my "office". How much space do we really need?

At least it's reassuring, to me at least, that hardly anyone ever admits to making a mistake in choosing the liveaboard lifestyle, whatever the size of boat.

BTW I was using a different PC when I accessed the aforementioned site - I think I did mark it & i'll try and find the link.
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I live on and sail a NAB/RASMUS 35, usually solo,sometimes acccompanied
Your comment about spending time at work in a small space strikes a chord with me,as I spent a great part of my working life living,sometimes for 3 weeks at a time,in a lorry cab,roughly8ftX6ft with a "pod " bedroom area on top with double bed. Moving onto a 35ft 2cabins +saloon was not hard!
 
Ludd said:
I live on and sail a NAB/RASMUS 35, usually solo,sometimes acccompanied
Your comment about spending time at work in a small space strikes a chord with me,as I spent a great part of my working life living,sometimes for 3 weeks at a time,in a lorry cab,roughly8ftX6ft with a "pod " bedroom area on top with double bed. Moving onto a 35ft 2cabins +saloon was not hard!
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Had a look at a Nab35 nice boat, for a very bad man that would try to seduce a young colourful girl on;):D:D
 
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