cherod
Well-known member
there is a worried man
Liveaboard Sailboat Advice
- Thread starter Rae_Else
- Start date
V1701
Well-known member
The majority of shitheaps taking up berths aren't lived on though are they, what you gonna do about them?
convey
N/A
Gratefully it's not my problem, I'm just forseeing two rapidly approaching problems that are going to screw things up badly for us all.
One is, as perhaps you are hinting, people increasingly leaving or dumping shitheaps, that is likely to end up with a national registration scheme and punitive recycling costs for all; the other is at a time when
a) the number of berths/moorings are being reduced
b) existing berths/moorings are being swallowed up by large operations and prices increased beyond reasonable affordability,
c) they are now going to be filled up to be used by with people forced out of real housing by economic factors and, hence, lost to sailing.
Or, in this case, becoming the "second homes" of second home owners from privileged backgrounds ... who can't afford the price of a beach hut any more because they've become so expensive too.
They are going to do to the wet side of the shore, what they have already done to all the "bijoux" little fishing villages, and drive them beyond the affordability of normal/local people who actually made/need/sustained them.
nortada
Well-known member
A cheerful outlook, which if it comes to pass, will effect all boat owners in the UK.
So convey, as it’s not your problem, are we right to assume you do not own a boat
To continue, like many things in life, Covid could completely change the boat owning scenario, with a dead market, far many more abandoned boats and in time, far too many many marina berths for the remaining active boats; leading to marinas closing (or going bust) to rebalance the much smaller community
In this new scenario, I think the picture above is most unlikely but who knows? SSR already provides a (voluntary) national register so just a minor change to make it compulsory, with heavy penalties for non-compliance. That could clean up this problem.
Fortunately, not one that effects Brits abroad, where liveaboards of all nationalities are still very welcome.??
Sorry if I am encouraging thread drift. Possibly this debate would be better continued in another forum.
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nortada
Well-known member
Choice of boat: not a Sadler 32 or similar (Contessa), they are too small inside for a liveaboard couple. Great seaboat in a gale, club cruiser, offshore racer, holiday for a month - that kind of thing. A liveaboard boat needs volume for living space and stowage. OK the Sadler is double skinned on the headliner but that's a drawback for a liveaboard, because you'll need to put some more insulation up there and a basic 1-skin cabin top with liner makes that a whole lot easier. I lived on a Sadler 32 for a couple of years but I'm solo.
Now I'm a UK liveaboard on a bigger boat. For that sort of duty I recommend a diesel or multifuel coal/log stove. Dickinson or Reflex are good. I don't get any diesel smell off the Dickinson. Most of these need a decent length of chimney, my Dickinson Newport needs at least 5 feet for a good draw up the flue. Always get a barometric damper for the chimney on one of these.
Never burn coal and logs at the same time in a multifuel stove, it rots the flue. You don't need or want a double-skin flue, half the heat from a Dickinson dripfeed diesel stove comes from the stainless flue. It turns blue/yellow at the bottom it's so hot. It does need a safety cover on the side you might fall on it in a seaway. Also get a stove fan, they move the warm air around. I recommend one with greater than 300cfm performance as small ones cost almost as much but don't do enough for the beer coupons invested. A 300cfm+ Peltier fan is ideal; the Stirling motor ones are no good: too expensive, too slow fan speed, too little effect. A good fan adds about half a kilowatt in effect and helps in other ways. A stove + fan like this is not enough to heat 3 large cabins unless you turn the stove up enough the saloon is unbearably hot.
You can also get a Chinese diesel blower as a fast way to heat the boat when coming aboard, or put it in another cabin - they are so cheap now they're almost free - a ridiculous price. Cheap spares and easy to fix. Just run it for 15 minutes at full power if you've run it low for a time, to burn the soot off the internals. Stupid not to have one as they are so cheap - £150 or £200 for an Eberspacher equivalent @ £1,500 - and half of those on boats I know of are broken anyway. These blowers have to be run on full power every now and then or they soot up and fail.
In the UK you'll need more insulation on the deckhead. That's all there is to it. So make sure you have good standing headroom through the saloon because the deckhead will be coming down a bit. It's why a double-skin is no use, a removable liner is better, then you can add insulation.
Condensation isn't a problem, we have mains-powered dessicant dehumidifiers now, not those old clunkers, the compressor models. Those weigh a ton, the new ones are lightweight and easy to stow in the summer. I have a Meaco J8, it pulls litres of water out of the air daily when it's wet / cold / rainy or with wet laundry. They work right down to cold-cold so there are no worries there. The Meaco wins all the boat dehumidifier tests for good reason. It dries the boat so much I do my laundry then hang it on a rack in the boat while wet, then put the Meaco in that cabin, the clothes are soon dry. You can dial up any cabin humidity you want from about 70% (average UK springtime normal is about 60%) to 30% or less - so dry it begins to dry out your throat too much. Damp lockers are no more, the boat is bone dry. It draws about 300W to 600W so you can run it off an inverter easily.
I use a slimline washing machine on the boat, a 6kg load one, the regular kind not a washer/dryer. Those pull 2.5kW for an hour and a half in order to dry a wash, so you'd need a generator or big battery and inverter system to use one of those. My W/M + a White Knight spin dryer + the Meaco do a couple of washes at one time easily, and the boat is dry even in winter.
If space is tight you need a freezer more than a fridge - with a freezer you always get a fridge for free, one way or another: either by internal spillover or with freezer packs transferred across. There are expensive or cheap solutions.
Get a hot plate of some kind so you can cook electric when you're hooked up to shorepower. Or if you have a genny or big battery system. Most single hotplates of the camping kind are too weak and slow, however - I got an NJ double infra-red one off Amazon, it is super powerful and didn't cost too many fun tickets. It can be installed in a worktop or also used standalone on top of a worktop, it's self-contained and has rubber feet fitted. I've had too many problems with single camping -style hotplates.
I also use a halogen oven as it's so fast compared to any other kind, gas or mains. You can do a roast chicken & veg in it so it's big enough unless you want to do a turkey. Draws 1.2kW.
Never use butane (blue containers), always propane (orange) - it's too cold in the UK out of season for butane, which loses its heating power as the temperature drops.
Get vacuum seal bags for your clothes, off Amazon, I recommend the Viridescent brand, a 5-pack, they're big enough to take a duvet and work fine (some of these bags have problems); and a small 700W vacuum cleaner - an el cheapo out of Tesco is just fine. That way your clothes stay bone dry winter/summer and you have a proper way to hoover up. You will probably need to install a calorifier - a hot water heater that runs off mains power and/or the engine coolant.
If you fancy living at anchor then make sure to get the biggest anchor you can afford, not what the clever marketing says. One of the new style types such as Spade / Rocna / Manson, 50% oversize. You won't appreciate why until a windy night when your anchor drags, which will be about the biggest scare of their life for most people. All anchor sellers under-specify on the size to make their anchors appear to be more effective, so don't believe their fairy tales. You want lots of chain on the bottom and a big, new-pattern anchor.
For connectivity you can get an unlimited data deal on a 4G phone for very little now, and tether it with a USB cable to your laptop. I've used a dongle @ £15/m- too expensive for the low speed, too little data; a 100GB data deal on a cheap phone @ £19/m tethered; and currently unlimited data/calls/texts on a new Galaxy phone for £27/m from 3co. That's good enough for full-time work on the web, Skype calls etc. Don't use Skype for meetings, use Google Meet, the quality is better (they host it instead of you on your device). Some use Zoom but it needs the latest of everything to work.
Much of this stuff transfers boat to boat so it's not a loss when you trade up. You want a boat that has good headroom or you'll go nuts; warm and dry in the winter; electric cooking for when you can use it; and ground tackle that club sailors laugh at and ask if it's for the Titanic. That way you'll be happy as a bug in a rug, even in an English January.
Boat insulation is a whole topic in and of itself, you'll no doubt get into that later
Excellent post?
Have you thought of writing a book on Living Onboard? Perhaps you already have.?
On connectivity, all I would suggest would be look to at 3, in the UK unlimited everything for £20 per month is hard to beat. Additionally , you get up to 20GBt per month overseas. Been a God sent during the exile caused by Covid.
Oh yes, you will need a recognised mailing address.
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differentroads
Active member
2 years ago almost to the day. Lived 20 years in or near Ipswich. Many happy times. Even happier times in the Med though!
differentroads
Active member
In the UK you'll need more insulation on the deckhead. That's all there is to it. So make sure you have good standing headroom through the saloon because the deckhead will be coming down a bit. It's why a double-skin is no use, a removable liner is better, then you can add insulation.
Boat insulation is a whole topic in and of itself, you'll no doubt get into that later
Tons of great advice there and I can endorse the 'insulating your deckhead' as a key step to living on board. One of my first projects was gluing two layers of foil backed EVA foam (aka yoga mats bought directly from China) under the deckhead. One layer with the foil facing down to help keep heat in, one facing up to help keep it out. I also did the topsides in the saloon and aft cabin where we sleep. I blessed the work I put in both when I awoke with snow on the deck for days on end and when the thermometer was over 30° C but the insulation (and cream painted decks) were helping keep the interior cooler by 5° or more.
I ended up removing my Eberspacher though. Handy for the few winter weekend trips I managed but a fan heater and two oil filled radiators were fine for living and working on board in a marina. I did try working while out on the hook where the Eber was necessary but phone signals in anchorages were a major problem, even in East Anglia.
RolyGate
New member
Thanks. I reckon there are enough books out there though - plus I'd be competing with people like the Pardeys etc. OK I know a shedload about UK liveaboard but it's probably not a big market.
Probably end up as just another vanity publishing project, selling 50 copies. It's easier to do now then ever before, with print on demand; but who wants to know this stuff anyway apart from a handful of eccentric boaties.
I wouldn't live here anyway except I'm tethered to the hospital now - these days I evaluate a mooring by how good the local hospital is
V1701
Well-known member
What I'm hinting at is that having a pop at liveaboards, tarring us all with the same brush under the guise of addressing wider "issues" which may or may not exist is a red herring. Whether a boat is lived on or not is irrelevant...
cherod
Well-known member
I didnt take that from his post
Robin
Well-known member
which is why we use these folk:
UK mailboxes, virtual addresses, mail forwarding and scanning
We had to set this up to be ready for our return from USA. Still used for many accounts although some now are direct to our boat home. Expat are very good but when they say 'scans' they are photos in jpg format not pdf scans which our USA address people offer. Either way combined with 'paperless' accounts wherever possible can save a fortune on mail forwarding costs. not to mention filing space
Robin
Well-known member
We use a 220v fan heater when plugged in but Eberspacher to first get up to temp on very cold mornings that 1kw fan heater can then maintain. We also have electric kettle, George Foreman grill, toaster and superb 1500W Halogen oven,hot water from calorifier or immersion heater. We do have a6kw generator if needs be too. Oh and we run a dehumidifier 24/7. We are on a 40ft motor yacht so a little bit more space, but sailed for 50 years and countless miles prior to going mobo liveaboards in USA. Returned to UK in 2018.
UK attitude to marinas varies but Brighton flatly refused even though we were looking at buying a boat in their brokerage. Cobs Quay, Poole used to but threw out one lovely family on a sailing boat even though they had paid a year up front, we met them in Dartmouth on a mid river pontoon, kids were at school and mum was a full time nurse, dad worked from on board. We are lucky but officially have a land address even though they know we are on board 24/7/365. We are harmless wrinklies aged 75 and 73 mind, not rowdy ravers. boat is my registered voting address and Banking address now albeit originally it was via Expat service. Amex refused to accept our mail service address and DVLC only did so temporarily when I had to renew driving licence at 70, not that it matters much as we no longer own a car, just rely on taxis and bus passes plus supermarket home deliveries. Marina WIFI is mostly ok 'ish and we could always get a mifi puck if not ( still have USA cellphones on a US all included tarriff even with roaming/tethering) but fast it is not) There are challenges and workarounds in equal numbers.
ryanroberts
Well-known member
If that was recent I heard it was due to registering to vote there. Now have to sign papers and have a legit 'primary address'..
cherod
Well-known member
Good on yer ,,, i think the space / facility for a 6 kva generator is a game changer !! ?
Robin
Well-known member
cherod
Well-known member
Hope they are doing well ,,, just wondering about of which department of big brother can decide on what is a legit “ primary address “ , Funny old worls aint it , the different kind of lives people can live ,,, from schooling from a mid river pontoon in dartmouth to being shephearded to a school 1/2 a mile in a chelsea tractor ? What is the better upbringing ?
Robin
Well-known member
Kids were very bright and very well behaved, they took the water taxi to and from shore to go to school. Mum, a registered nurse was working at Exeter prison IIRC. MDL cobbs quay, Poole apparently said living aboard was verboten in their rules, so reclassified them as visitors and applied visitor rates to their advance payment given fo a full12 months, then saying funds were depleted and they must leave as now deemed overstay/non-payers. Apparently PHC found them a spot above the bridges on a mid water pontoon where they stayed before moving to Dartmouth where we met them. I was interested as Poole was our home for 30 years and we would have liked to be there-they had already said no to my request even though we were interested in a Princess 45 for sale there, described as 'ideal live aboard.
ryanroberts
Well-known member
I'd better keep my head down then :/
Robin
Well-known member
As a matter of interest there were similar antis when we livedin the USA. We found sympathy in Daytona Beach at Halifax Harbour marina, owned by the city, but lots of places on the intracoastal were off limits especially to anchoring - local money men bought riverside homes and then objected to boats, daring to anchor in their view calling in local politicians, Georgia had an overall liveaboard ban for some time, challenged in the end by BOAT US, bit like the RYA. Always paid to be long terrm cruisers, not live aboards.
convey
N/A
We have very much the same thing going on in the UK. Developers buying land, what would have been called Yuppies in the old days buying appartments with the 'romantic' view over a marina, who then find boats clink in the wind and start complaining about the noise etc etc etc.
Also trends toward cleanliness and tidiness sounding the knell for 'poor boats' and old vagabond types.
Some's fair, most is unreasonable but their more motivating just by the money rather than any love for the sport or lifestyle.
Our lot are property developers who were forced by planning to have to keep a boat yard going on. Previous mooring was a traditional one, since bought out and then cleaned out of boats as they just didn't want them in their view.
Other trends to consider if people are moving towards liveaboards.
I'm not aiming my concern at the traditional element but if the coast is going to face the same post-squatting, post-AirBnB movement of people as the canals and rivers have (and it is to a degree already), they're going to spoil it for everyone, most of all the old traditional vagabond element.
You'll end up with, eg some idiot blowing their boat up, a kid drowing (as happened in Australia recently), some entitled idiot suing the marina for slipping on a jetty, and the insurance companies will just shut it all down for everyone.
The increase is trashed boats being dumped is already making things hard (because they don't maintain them as sailing boats, they're just screwing their last years out of them as a cheap crash pad).
It's sad because it'll also be the death of yet another traditional British eccentric.
I didn't get that logic at all because, to me, having people on site would sure be a benefit in that department. I thought it plainly daft as otherwise it was open from land or by water. Therefore, expect for some similar reason insurance companies to be driving the change, eg "what if a child slips and you are sued?".
End result will all lead to the same end, increasing demand for the ones that are left and a load of old timers just giving up because it's too expensive or too much hassle to manage/allow.
Also trends toward cleanliness and tidiness sounding the knell for 'poor boats' and old vagabond types.
Some's fair, most is unreasonable but their more motivating just by the money rather than any love for the sport or lifestyle.
Our lot are property developers who were forced by planning to have to keep a boat yard going on. Previous mooring was a traditional one, since bought out and then cleaned out of boats as they just didn't want them in their view.
Other trends to consider if people are moving towards liveaboards.
I'm not aiming my concern at the traditional element but if the coast is going to face the same post-squatting, post-AirBnB movement of people as the canals and rivers have (and it is to a degree already), they're going to spoil it for everyone, most of all the old traditional vagabond element.
You'll end up with, eg some idiot blowing their boat up, a kid drowing (as happened in Australia recently), some entitled idiot suing the marina for slipping on a jetty, and the insurance companies will just shut it all down for everyone.
The increase is trashed boats being dumped is already making things hard (because they don't maintain them as sailing boats, they're just screwing their last years out of them as a cheap crash pad).
It's sad because it'll also be the death of yet another traditional British eccentric.
My first choice used to allow overnighting but then they were subjected to a large theft, clearly by professional thieves (they lost £80,000 worth of motors etc) and after that their insurance company determined that they could no longer do so.
I didn't get that logic at all because, to me, having people on site would sure be a benefit in that department. I thought it plainly daft as otherwise it was open from land or by water. Therefore, expect for some similar reason insurance companies to be driving the change, eg "what if a child slips and you are sued?".
End result will all lead to the same end, increasing demand for the ones that are left and a load of old timers just giving up because it's too expensive or too much hassle to manage/allow.
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