How do you pursuade a reluctant partner to become a Liveaboard?

Seah0rse

Seah0rse

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SWMBO quite likes her fairweather sailing but the prospect of becomming a Liveaboard fills her with horror. I believe it's a common problem.

Is there anyone in a similar situation who overcame this lack of joint vision and won his/her other half over. If so, please do tell.
 
Persuading the better half to be a liveaboard

Just show her around a 40 foot + centre cockpit, with two heads, 3 showers, a fridge, galley, stereo speakers in every room (and on deck) and of course central heating (read temperamental eberspacher.. don't tell her that though) put it somewhere warm and your life will be bliss... Greece is good. The only problem you'll now have to deal with is how to explain why all that "forepeak fluff" has developed a sudden interest in you.

Good luck and happy sailing
 
I well remember taking my wife out for a day sail on a friends monhull. It was fast a fun.. For me and my buddy but nor for my wife. She point blank refused to go sailing with me ever again. However I then saqid just try once more on a Triamaran. She loved it. We then had a Catamaran built and have never looked back. Happy live aboards. As previously stated if you can afford it putin.... C/H.TV,Chart plotter, Good heads/showers etc.

Good luck

Peter
 
I well remember taking my wife out for a day sail on a friends monhull. It was fast a fun.. For me and my buddy but nor for my wife. She point blank refused to go sailing with me ever again. However I then said just try once more on a Triamaran. She loved it. We then had a Catamaran built and have never looked back. Happy live aboards. As previously stated if you can afford it putin.... C/H.TV,Chart plotter, Good heads/showers etc.

Good luck

Peter
 
Yes, I am working hard on the creature comforts and only a few more to go. Then it's a matter of findinding a place in the Sun for our 'second home' which I hope will then become our main residence.
 
Seah0rse said:
Yes, I am working hard on the creature comforts and only a few more to go. Then it's a matter of findinding a place in the Sun for our 'second home' which I hope will then become our main residence.
Click to expand...

I think you will need to place it somewhere where SWMBO will have stuff to do and People to talk to. That will help a lot. I know Gib is not pefect but it is English speaking and there is an M&S and Morrisons which makes the transition easier. Would not recomend it long term but maybe a Transition port for a year.

Also build up her confidence in the boat! I have our boat now but still live ashore while I build up SWMBO's confidence. Of course a change in employment status may hasten the change over to liveaboard....

Good luck and be firm but not pushy

Paul (trying to do the same thing!)
 
If SWMBO wants a life full of creature comforts, the things landlubbers are used to, then to be honest I cannot see a life at sea being her cup of tea. It just aint like that.
You have to get used to a few hardships compared to living on land.
But in reality they are not hardships. They become part of your daily routine. You just do things in a different way & in a different order.

SeahOrse do you already own a boat/yachit or are you in the process of buying one ??
 
Might be an idea to get SWMBO to have a chat with Ladies that do liveaboard.
PM me and I will send you my other arfs e-mail addy and they can chat away until the cows come home. Just a thought.
 
Sandyman said:
If SWMBO wants a life full of creature comforts, the things landlubbers are used to, then to be honest I cannot see a life at sea being her cup of tea. It just aint like that.
You have to get used to a few hardships compared to living on land.
But in reality they are not hardships. They become part of your daily routine. You just do things in a different way & in a different order.

SeahOrse do you already own a boat/yachit or are you in the process of buying one ??
Click to expand...

Yes I do, a 38ft ketch which we have been sailing for the last 5 years. I have heard a few remarks to her friends following a week or two holiday aboard such as not wearing make up every day 'to be quite liberating' which I thought was encouraging!

I think the problem is that I have been reading too many books! At the moment my long term plans are to do the French Cannals, Med, Canary Islands and then Carrabean and back over say 5 years. However, the reallity is that I have only been able to sail the family across the Channel once (which was a great success.)

Thanks for the offer to PM. My kids are still in full time education so my plans are some way off but I will need the time if I am to win her over.
 
What about it exactly fills her with horror? Some things can be easily overcome, some things can't. If you PM me, the female half of our team would be happy to e-chat with you and/or her.
 
I took swmbo on a long weekend trip to Alghero at the invitation of one CCScott of this ilk and we stayed onboard the fine vessel Englander. Moored next to Colin, was his brother and his wife with their 38ft 1930's converted Watson lifeboat, Swyn-y-Mor. I was quite pleasantly surprised, that after a couple of days, swmbo turned round and said, 'I could do this'. Now bearing in mind that Swyn-yMor is like a small fisherman's cottage inside and had just completed an 11year circumnavigation, I was a bit taken aback to say the least.
Upon further investigation, it turned out that swmbo had been in deep conversation with Mrs. Scott and had been picking her brains about how she had coped with living in those circumstances for that length of time.
So I would suggest that allowing your partner to engage other women who already liveaboard would perhaps serve to build her confidence in her ability to cope with the liveaboard life.
 
The last thing my Old Guvnor would want to do is to give up her friends, family, golf, bridge evenings, Waitrose, television, library, car, etc to go and spend years cooped up with me in a tiny box whilst I "live my dream".

And who can blame her? I don't have the right [or the nerve!] to impose my will on her and vice versa. I'm just glad she is willing to put up with sailing for a couple of months a year, some skippers I know can't get their wives to go out for a day sail!
 
Its a sad fact but men are more romantic than women and living on a boat is a romantic escapade,let me say I am a romantic but women are realists by nature.I have been looking for a boat and hoping to win my wifes approval have made efforts in the toilet department,It now transpires that I am more worried about size etc than her,as she so rightly says you only use it twicw a day.
 
a view from the other side

Ive lived aboard for a few years, it was me who asked him to move aboard with me, now im changing boats, he was fed up of not having land so I kicked him out and its just me now. makes the whole shopping for a new boat much easier and simpler. I can moor where I want, go where I want when I want and sod the rest of the world.

much more civilised way to live for sure than having to answer to anyone.
 
We had all sorts of questions and worries before we set off, but found that advance research or the actual experience resolved most of them. Once the aged mother realised that she was going to get phone calls just the same as she did when we were in the UK, and then came and stayed for a fortnight when we were settled somewhere nice, a certain element of guilt faded. The knowledge that wifi is available in most places and that home is a day away by plane in emergencies is also helpful.
The biggest issue is whether or not she will be comfortable with the differences between living in a house on dry land and living on a boat. Limited storage for clothes and no baths were the most serious drawbacks we found. But we do have an aft cabin motor boat!
 
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