Minimum capital needed for liveaboard?

[karlic]

I'm in the early stages of thinking about buying a yacht and living aboard permanently. I'm 40 and would have about £150,000 after the sale of my house. Ideally I'd like to meander round the med then possibly the world. Has anyone managed it on this amount? If so, do you work to supplement your income? If so, doing what? Thanks.

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[Spicemariner]

Depends if you still have to buy your boat out of your £150000. We have been living aboard for the past year. Our living budget is £1000 a month and that doesn't include insurance for the boat but it does include spares, repairs and fuel. We have been in the Caribbean and have not been in a marina since we left St Lucia last January. We also have a watermaker, as buying water can be expensive, or you have to live rationing it, which can be a real bind, showering in a pint of water a day. If you want any detailed info, send me a private mail.

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[esiotrot]

Not an easy question to answer! In fact it was one I was going to ask myself as a newcomer to this board.

We were liveaboards for 5 years but it was along time ago - 1983 to 1988 and we cruised the Caribbean, East coast of USA and Bahamas.
We ALWAYS lived on the hook even down the Intracoastal and our expenses were minimal. Unfortunately I am completely out of touch with todays costs but 15 years ago £300 per month would support us.

The answer to your query will depend on your lifestyle but the best way i found of looking at this problem is to divide the expenses into three parts:
1. Day to day living. How often do you want to eat out? Buy local food or expect home supermarket foods? How often will you be in the local bars? Do you want to fly back to base often/never?
2. Running expenses on your vessel. In marinas or on the hook? Lots of motoring? Do the antifouling yourself or pay someone else. etc. Are you going to be insured?
3. Unexpected expenses. Engine breakdowns, Fridge repairs, Sail repairs. How competent are you at these yourself?

There is a thread on the SSCA website which suggests $1000 per month but it all depends on your expectations and lifestyle.

As to working while you are out there you have two possible employers: Locals or other boats.

We worked in Fort Lauderdale (Motor Yacht Skipper) and Newport RI ( Yacht Maintenance) but both were more by luck than anything. We knew someone who got a job in the marina at Vilamoura and a singlehander who arrived in Barbados pennyless who managed to get some boat work. However unless you have a particular skill, like the signwriter we knew who found work painting signs for a resort in the Grenadines, i would not bank on getting work locally.

Other cruising folk probably will not have a lot of spare cash but skills like diesel know-how or refrigeration are useful. Are you a scuba diver? Scrubbing barnacles off might earn you a bit.

Hopefully someone else will come up with some up to date figures because we are now planning to go back to this life.

Peter


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[Spicemariner]

If you have boat related skills it is always possible to earn pin money, computer skills are very much in demand, what can be difficult is that the people whose equipment you are fixing are often your friends and you have to be business like. Prices in many places are at European levels for most things. In the poorer Caribbean islands, local foods are cheap but anything imported is very expensive, in French islands you can get just about anything but at a price. At least you can get wine just about everywhere at reasonable prices, and gin was $4 a litre in St Martin.

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[esiotrot]

That's interesting. What sort of computer skills are we talking about? Hardware,?Software? Windows problems?

BTW I trade shares online intraday and have thought about continuing this on board.

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[tony_brighton]

Sounds like you will need some bandwidth capability (v. expensive) or connect to a marina/phone line.

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[esiotrot]

Hi TB
Yes you are right. Sorry for what was a throwaway remark at the end of that post.
Currently I trade Index futures via Broadband and a multi-monitor setup which would not be feasible as a liveaboard but there are other ways to trade the markets for which a dialup connection would be sufficient.



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[tony_brighton]

Make any money at it?

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