Livaboard forums

[Guest]

Re: years sabbatical

Difficult, Tony, in a year to get that live-aboard feeling, but IKWYM. If you need to get a move on then your boat will be quite different to a live-aboard. L/A boats always float 6" deeper in the water than they were designed and this means that speed is not an option.

Hell, if the wind comes in from ahead, we go somewhere else.

William Cooper

 

[Guest]

May I please try to make some suggestions? Try to stop me that's all.

This subject has cropped up from time to time. I tried to get YM to sponsor one a few years ago, but it seems that IPC preferred it to be handled by YW, and they are not a liveaboard mag (nothing against YW as a mag, but they are PERCEIVED as being a mag for the wealthy (see their ads) and liveaboards are always hard up and are not that marvellous for advertisers). I think that IPC then were mistaken because my experience is that up to the departure of geoff pack, YM was the mag of choice for L/As. That or PBO, but the latter has become very parochial and YM seems to have changed character towards being a correspondence course for newcomers to yachting, A mistake, I think.

There is one fact that militates against a L/A forum and that is the expense of chatting by internet when moving about. By mobile phone it is all one can afford to pick up e-mail. In our latest edition we reprinted a comparison of internet costs that had originally been puvblished in YM (and a good one too) Itw as Sept 2000, I think.

Given that one does cruise more than average when living aboard, contributions would come and go. I do not think anyone actually cruising could be relied on to monitor or whatever.

But we'd love to join in now and then. For instance, we are on our way now to Greece and it is 4 years since we were there and Greece has been playing silly b*****s yet again with their rules for visiting boats and we would love to know what the devil they are doing thias year. It's things like that.

Is fuel still cheapest in Tunisia?

And so on.

Go

William Cooper

 

[Xpat]

I would definitely like to see a forum dedicated to live-aboard topics. I am in a similar position to Allan who started this thread, retiring soon and curently looking for the right boat. We will be on a limited budget but I am sure we will manage to log on at least once a week from somewhere in the med, which is where we intend to stay. At my stage of life why learn from trial and error, when there is a means to tap into other peoples experience and advice who are living a similar lifestyle. Hopefully in the future I shall be able to drop in a few pearls of wisdom myself and return the favour. Meanwhile thanks to all you regulars out there who's comments I enjoy reading.

 

[ccscott49]

I think there would be enough interest, especially for the planning stage, I would include long term cruisers aswell, we all need help with what to do with mail, gas, banks, food, water, moorings internet, etc. etc. With a forum like this, we could build up a whole livaboard/long term database, where newcomers and would be newcomers could get the information from the horses mouth. All the chaps and chapesses of motor and sail could comunicate and help one another, now thats what I call cooperation! By the way Spain is now getting very good with mobile internet, Movistar in particular, with an ISP especially for mobiles, cheap too!

 

[Robin2]

Count me in also, please

By the way, I presume Kim will spell it correctly !

(Ah, so it is possible to amend a post after sending it)

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Robin2 on Tue Feb 26 16:17:28 2002 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[ccscott49]

Put your name and bio in, then we know who to look for in far flung ports!

 

[Abaker]

Yes please Kim. Having lived aboard for a dozen years and cruised about 20,000 (mostly coastal) miles during that time, I would support a liveaboard forum. Keeping in touch with the Web is a problem, but costs are coming down and options are increasing. For example, US East Coast harbours popular with cruisers (Annapolis MD, Hampton VA, Beaufort NC, etc.) are providing a free phone line for Internet use in the dockmaster's office. The cruiser can dinghy in from the anchorage or mooring (or walk along the dock if wealthy enough to tie up), plug in his laptop, and go online with an ISP which has a local access number, e.g. AOL. Of course other cruisers are waiting in line to get and send email, so you need to pick an off-peak time to log on to a forum. But that's not too hard since most longterm cruisers spend 80 per cent of their year in harbour.

 

[RobertMartin]

So is that enough interest??????? Come on, the voices have spoken..

Bobby aka Seawolf..
Freedom is the song of your soul..

 

[kimhollamby]

Re: Forums - Kim?

There have been a number of suggestions regarding the way in which forums might be re-organised, probably not then in relation to the magazines to which they are linked. Some seek to simplify (ie one great Scuttlebutt/Motor Boat Chat type club room plus one great big practical forum, others to add more forums).

Outside of that, we've got the following suggestions on the ongoing suck gums list:

a) an FAQ forum (possibly edited highlights from all other forums);
b) a dedicated trailboat forum;
c) a dedicated motorboat practical or FAQ forum;
d) a chandlery price forum (similar to fuel price forum).


Associate Publisher ybw.com websites kim_hollamby@ipcmedia.com

 

[david_e]

Re: Forums - Kim?

Thanks, can I have another log on ID so I can pretend I'm a liveabord and dream about the places I would rather be than stuck here, all on my jack jones (aahhh) in my little office?


ps I would have to be comletely unrecognisable of course!
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by david_e on Wed Feb 27 16:41:50 2002 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Re: Forums - Kim?

I am a "liveaboard" here in southwest Florida, and I think an international liveaboard forum would be a good thing to have.
Our son lives aboard his boat with his wife and two children in Ventura, California, and we both have aspirations of doing some long range cruising and spending many years on our respective boats.

There are a few sites here in the US that are helpful, like http://www.ssca.org But as a previous poster stated, many of the US sites are little
more than hangouts for "cliques" and have little value to anyone except those who are locally involved.

I will look in on this forum and contribute where I can, and if any of you are intending to come over our way, or to the Carribean, its possible that I can help you with information or links. Can't guarantee it, but I'll try. Just email me at Rob@Mainsheet.zzn.com and we'll do our best.

 

[markyb]

Me to, although ill be motor cruising. I want to get all the info I can off you 'seasoned' cruisers/liveaboards/year-outers.