Yacht or motor boat to live on..advice for newbie?

[Bajansailor]

For H88, I think that djbreeze who posts on this Forum occasionally (incl post # 92 above) lives on his 28' yacht in Brighton - might be worth getting in touch with him for the lowdown from his aspect.
And from Jimmybobby too, after his epic voyage from the Solent with Lenseman!

For NiteLife, here are some scanned copies from the Albin catalogue re the Albin 25.

I dont think that one of these boats would be my first choice for the type of voyage that you have in mind though.

It might also be worthwhile looking at catamarans? Although you might have beam restrictions in the canals. But if the beam is acceptable, maybe a Catalac or Heavenly Twins might be a better boat for the purpose than an Albin 25.

 

[NiteLife]

Thanks for that Bajansailor, I like the looks of the de luxe model even better than the ones Ive seen, cant wait to show Jen the pics, about a cat I have four friends who took a 40 footer (I think, but it was massive!) from Hebburn marina on the Tyne over to Spain and Moroco a good few years ago to live on, they wanted me to join the crew but I was unable to because of work commitments at the time, they ended up being airlifted after loosing controll in bad weather, the cat survived the storm with a little bit hull damage but eventualy reached the Med and was a very comfortable home to them for a good while untill the got bored and returned to the UK by plane. Most the hotels we would be working at provide food and accom. for the entertainers on the night so the boat would only be lived aboard whilst exploring and not working say 50/50 and even when not working we like to get up early jump on a motor bike or scooter and explore inland (or go fishing) so I think she would do us fine if they sail well?
Thanks again
Phil

 

[jimmy_bobby]

H88 - PM me and let me know when you are available over the next couple of weeks. You can pop down and I’ll show you my boat and give you some advice and share my experiences so far. Get yourself a boat though buddy, you wont regret it.

NiteLife - never heard, or seen one of those before, but it looks like it ticks all the boxes. Not many around though.

Tarik - thanks for that. Not many of those around, either. Could only find one for sale in the UK on BoatShed. Definitely big enough. Thanks.

I’ve been a “liveaboard” for a good few weeks now and absolutely love it. It’s located in a really nice part of Brighton - close to shops (24hr-ASDA, restaurants, cheap petrol station, clothes shops etc. Less than two miles from where I work. The boat itself has the typical issues of a boat of its size and age. She has a few rusty bolts that need replacing. The carpets and cushions needed reupholstering. I managed to re-carpet it then spilt boot polish over the nice new cream carpet. Fortunately it costs less than £25 to completely re-carpet the place I still have the reupholstering to do, but some decent quality throws suffice in the short term.

It’s not a great place to cook, wash up, iron, put duvet covers on duvets etc. But you get by. It is, however, a fantastic place to just hang out, get away from metropolis and just relax and have some YOU time. I describe it as my den. It’s just like the most amazing den that you can sleep and cook in and easily transport to other parts of the country. It’s a den that your friends are all intrigued about and want to come and see and consume beer on/in. As a kid I always wanted a den and never managed managed to obtain one. Entertainment is the only real issue. That and the distance to the toilet block. I was used to a 42” plasma telly in my old house, sky tv, wireless super fast internet and a sound system to die for, now i’ve got my windscreen laptop with a slow internet dongle (no streaming without a bit of a wait to buffer), a much smaller sound system hooked up to my iPhone/pod, a marine radio and a digital DAB radio. To be honest though, I seem to only use the boat for a place to sleep during the week, then when I’ve got a couple of days off, I hang out on it with my daughter and just sort stuff out, tidy, do washing, wash-up, charge the battery/s etc.

The shower block and toilet block are always clean and never full, which is good, but again a bit of a distance from the boat. The other option is you are a bit closer and you give up a bit of privacy and peace and quiet. For me id rather walk the extra 20 seconds and have the privacy. Not great when you’re desperate and its raining. Also, my daughter occasionally has the bladder of a small rodent. So when she’s over and has had too much Ribena, I’m having to escort her to the toilets 15 times a day! If I had my own toilet, she could just go herself and I wouldn’t have to move a muscle Yes I’m a bit lazy on my days off lol.

The other issue which I haven’t thought much about with this good weather, is condensation and the damp. I’m guessing it’s a real issue over the winter and it’s something I’m looking to give a lot of my time - and probably money - to master and overcome.

So to anyone who stumbles across this thread and is interested in taking the plunge and living aboard a small boat, my only advice is go for it. Expect it to have flaws and cost more than you expect and bigger IS better, but you can survive in smaller. You’ll want bigger straight away, though.

 

[Sojourner47]

Good to hear you're living the life, JB - an inspiration to us all who envy you like mad!! (and just think, it's less than a year since you first posted, asking for advice...)
Who says dreams never come true?

 

[pteron]

Fantastic thread - inspirational and full of great advice.

I'm jealous!

 

[Andyloc]

Great thread. My wife and i are taking the plunge in the spring having finally got fed up of the rat race.We are Both around forty and as life is not a rehersal have decided to sell the house buy a small flat to rent out and then buy a much larger boat in the 31-40' size range. We live in south devon so are looking ar berthing in the dart estuary or plymouth for a year or two and then heading off on an extended cruise to who knows where. We are just in the process now of preparing the house for sale and thining down our years of collected junk. We will keep posting as things develop but all being well by next spring we should be permenantly afloat.

cheers All

Andy

 

[Ian45]

Hello Jimmy,

I have only just come across your thread. It made fantastic reading, more so after doing a 12 hour day yesterday and dreaming of other things such as boats.

Although not a sailing boat we just purchased our motorboat two weeks ago (Sealine 218) and have already filled her to capacity with family for a couple of weekends cruising the upper part of the Thames.

I'm sure you will enjoy you time aboard, waking up and looking out onto the water lapping against your hull...bliss!

Oh well enough dreaming, still have a few days in the studio before I get to take the boat out again

 

[rufusandricky]

Hi all! Spent ages looking through the forum and found some really interesting stuff.

A quick bit about me and my situation and would love to hear your advice. I’m 26 and a policeman from the south coast. I have about 20k coming to me after a divorce with my wife/ex wife. I have a young daughter (3 years old). I work a lot and seem to either spend my time at work, or down the gym/swimming pool and not an awful lot of time at home (probably explains the divorce).

I have always had a fascination with boats since I was a child and a few years ago I hired a motor boat with a cabin down below to float around the Norfolk broads on for our honeymoon. So years later I’m looking at moving out of our family home (which the wife is keeping) and I’ll have about 20k to play with. I was driving past a local marina the other day when the idea came to me that living on a boat for a few years wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I’m thinking… buy a boat outright; pay maybe 3k per year mooring (at a marina right near my work), then its minimal costs for services etc. On my wages and overtime I’ll be able to do now no longer married, I should be able to save a decent amount over the next couple of years for a house, or a bigger boat! That’s my thinking anyway.

So I immediately started checking out boats online and have set myself a checklist required for it to really work:
1) It would need to be big enough to live on – at least 25 foot (30+ would be nice)
2) It would need to have a shower and toilet facility (hot water would be nice)
3) It would need to look nice - not like a floating caravan
4) It would be nice if it had a separate cabin (i.e. has a door) for the bedroom, rather than the sofa turns in to the bed, type thing.
5) It would need to have some kind of decent heating (don’t like waking up with condensation everywhere) – I’m a sensitive thing!
6) It would need to be under £20,000 and in the UK.

I would love to hear your advice as you guys have boats and have a damn sight more knowledge than me, who has zero. Do you think it is do-able? Would a yacht be better, or a motor boat/cruiser? Any suggestions on boats? Am I absolutely mad and living in a dream world?! You only live once, right?

Thanks in anticipation!

Regards
James

Hate the condensation also that was until I got down to solving the problem. Condensation is caused by warm damp air coming into contact with a cold surface, now as long as you have the hull insulated( a must if you live aboard in UK)and most boats are. Then the main culprit is the windows/port holes, here the condensation runs down and gets every where. The solution is simple,youll need to buy a synthetic material, the type of thing you’ll find in cushions, pillows even the lining of an anorak, its white and fairly dense, its not cellular more of a weave if anything and needs to be at least one inch thick. What I’ve done for the winter months is to make window covers that Velcro onto the outer edge of my windows from a material used for exterior cockpit covers,(They fit the shape of the windows on the outside of your craft not the inside), with about one inch boarder, I didn’t sew the edges back as you would if shortening your jeans, I just folded and glued them back with evostick (stitching would be better and yet mine have lasted three years) .Now you’ll need to cut out with a pair of scissors the synthetic material you’ve bought to mach the shape and glue that to the inside of your window covers making them one inch smaller all round, once there in place you’ll see a one inch boarder of the cockpit cover material all round. So now all you’ve got to do is fix them to the windows on the exterior at night time and I promise you the windows will be as dry as a bone in the morning. The thinking behind this is simple, by keeping the cold from penetrating the glass, and then the glass will stay at ambient cabin temperature and so no condensation. Total cost for four oblong windows three and a half feet long by fourteen inches and two others half that size, seventeen pounds. It took me four hours to make them and will save on electric too., Next morning just take them off and roll them up and Bingo, problem solved. Note that the entire window is to be covered with the synthetic material and that includes to metal surround.
I’ve also made inside window covers using only the white synthetic material to keep the sun out, they just fit snuggly behind the curtains and instead of having a bright glare coming through to fade the varnish work, I have a lovely white diffused light and that helps to keep the inside temperature down also.
I’ve since used that synthetic material for lining insides of lockers, (tops, sides and bottoms) and it works extremely well.

Necessity is the mother of all invention

 

[dslittle]

Hate the condensation also that was until I got down to solving the problem. Condensation is caused by warm damp air coming into contact with a cold surface, now as long as you have the hull insulated( a must if you live aboard in UK)and most boats are. Then the main culprit is the windows/port holes, here the condensation runs down and gets every where. The solution is simple,youll need to buy a synthetic material, the type of thing you’ll find in cushions, pillows even the lining of an anorak, its white and fairly dense, its not cellular more of a weave if anything and needs to be at least one inch thick. What I’ve done for the winter months is to make window covers that Velcro onto the outer edge of my windows from a material used for exterior cockpit covers,(They fit the shape of the windows on the outside of your craft not the inside), with about one inch boarder, I didn’t sew the edges back as you would if shortening your jeans, I just folded and glued them back with evostick (stitching would be better and yet mine have lasted three years) .Now you’ll need to cut out with a pair of scissors the synthetic material you’ve bought to mach the shape and glue that to the inside of your window covers making them one inch smaller all round, once there in place you’ll see a one inch boarder of the cockpit cover material all round. So now all you’ve got to do is fix them to the windows on the exterior at night time and I promise you the windows will be as dry as a bone in the morning. The thinking behind this is simple, by keeping the cold from penetrating the glass, and then the glass will stay at ambient cabin temperature and so no condensation. Total cost for four oblong windows three and a half feet long by fourteen inches and two others half that size, seventeen pounds. It took me four hours to make them and will save on electric too., Next morning just take them off and roll them up and Bingo, problem solved. Note that the entire window is to be covered with the synthetic material and that includes to metal surround.
I’ve also made inside window covers using only the white synthetic material to keep the sun out, they just fit snuggly behind the curtains and instead of having a bright glare coming through to fade the varnish work, I have a lovely white diffused light and that helps to keep the inside temperature down also.
I’ve since used that synthetic material for lining insides of lockers, (tops, sides and bottoms) and it works extremely well.

Necessity is the mother of all invention

Wow After a great thread running for months there is still good info being posted. As has been said earlier, this thread is a credit to the Forum. well done all concerned...

 

[jimmy_bobby]

Life on a small boat so far!!

So i’ve been on the boat for a good few months now. I thought I would share my thoughts and feelings so far and give a bit of advice to others thinking of doing the same thing.

When I first moved on to the boat, it was liberating. Getting rid of things I didn’t really want, or need. Selling stuff on ebay to get rid, or giving it to friends as a sort of present, is quite a nice way to cleanse the useless material from your life, which kind of takes a bit of weight off of your shoulders. It’s less stuff to worry about, less responsibility etc. It really is a nice feeling to just have things you need and will use in your “home” and not useless things which cost a fortune, get very little, if any use and take up space, often needing to be cleaned, charged, repaired etc.

I’m not going to go in to the obvious pros and cons of living on a boat, because some of them are going to be quite obvious (plus this would be a very long post), like cramped conditions, condensation, noise etc. But i’ll touch on a few.

I didn’t really consider the impact on my social life. I mean, living on a boat is by far cheaper than a flat or house. Marina fees range from about £150 per month for a boat of my size, up to about £250 depending on where you go. You’re not paying council tax, tv licence, grounds maintenance costs, window cleaners, plummers, electricians, washing machine repairmen etc. So, you’d think you’d have loads of extra cash and be able to be more social. Everyone wants to check out your boat, right? Well yes and no. Yes I suppose I have more money. Boats are expensive too and need new bits and stuff fixing, but are certainly cheaper than houses. Socialising was an important part of my life when I live in a house. My boat is small. It’s really a one man boat. At 22foot it’s just big enough for me to use as a place to sleep in and occasionally do the odd bit of cooking and watch a DVD on your laptop, propped up against a cosy, curved and carpeted wall! My daughter hangs out on it once or twice a week, but again, that’s only usually to sleep on, after we’ve been swimming at the local leisure centre, had food out and then come back just before its bed time and we are already exhausted. I find that in summer i am happy for my friends to come and check out the boat, becasue it is beautiful, peaceful and a lovely place to sit with a beer or glass of red and talk. But when the weather is cold, and dark, it’s not great to sit in a cramped environment and makes your friends think your nuts and feel sorry for you.

It’s also not great when people ask if they can come back to yours, or stay over and you’re embarrassed because it’s so small. (Yes I’m talking about dating (I’m single!))

Size, unfortunately, is everything, in my opinion (I’m talking about boat sizes now, moved on from dating talk!) I love my boat, don’t get me wrong, and it’s the size and price that you could easily buy on one credit card. Which, when you think you’ve just bought a home on a credit card, its not so bad. But if you’ve got a few more quid, i’d seriously suggest you make sure you have the following three things:

1) Standing head room. Having a boat you can’t stand up in fully and put a coat on, or a pair of trousers, starts to get to you after a while. Just try now to put on a pair of trousers and a jacket whilst bent over and bent at the knees! Not easy and not fun at 6am.

2) A navigation station. I would love a nav station. Not really for all my nav kit, but really just to have an area of the boat which can be used as a sort of desk/ office area. Your laptop can go there, your CD and music folder can squeeze in to the corner and all your electronics can be positioned neatly and squared away. At the moment they are all over the place, taking up a bed and stuck, Velcroed and screwed to walls.

3) A proper cooker and decent food prep space. Most boats come with a little twin hob, but you cannot underestimate the necessity and handyness of a proper oven and hob combo. A kitchen in general is important and the better and more equipped (and larger) your kitchen is, the less money you’ll spend on eating out and food in the longer run.

Here are the main issues you’ll need to think about when you live on a small boat:

Electronics - You’ll need the internet. You probably wont have your mail delivered, so you’ll have to do a lot of that sort of stuff via email. Your internet banking, mobile tv and youtube etc...basically your entertainment on cold winter nights. You have two options, internet dongle (either on contract of pay as you go (PAYG)) And I’d suggest the PAYG internet dongle, to stop you accidentally going over your limited bandwith and getting stung in your next bill. Or you could hook up to the marina wifi, which is very expensive and not really much faster than a dongle. Things like music and DVDs. Get a folder and put all the DVD disks in to that folder and throw the cases away, they take up too much unnecessary space. Your music collection should be stored on at least two storage devices and kept on your laptop and iPod/iPhone. I’d throw the cases and disks away. If its all stored electronically, on more than one device, why not... Don’t think you can live off of batteries and a solar panel too, you can’t! I’ve tried it and it’s near impossible to run a fridge, a heater, mobile phone chargers, laptop charger and so on. You WILL need shore power. What I would advise is get a remote control for your power supply and then you can switch your heater on and off as and when you need it, rather than leaving it on all night and wasting electricity.

Food - storage of food is really important. Get yourself loads of Tupperware and get it crammed in to any available storage spaces. Loads of pasta, rice, tins - long life stuff and quick cooking options, like pesto sauce etc. As I touched on earlier, cooking is really important, not just to save money, but for your health. When you live on a small boat, it’s far too easy on your way home late at night after work to pop in to ASDA and pick up a rotisserie chicken, mini bottle of red wine and a new DVD. Do that every night and you’re going to be spending a fortune in the end. It’s far better to buy cheap, but good quality foods and just cook it yourself, but that requires good work stations to prep food and wash up etc. It’s also all too easy to just eat out at restaurants and takeaways with the thought of having to boil two loads of water just to do the washing up on your boat, in a cramped position! So you take the easy, but expensive option.

Washing - washing is a weird one. On one hand there is a very good laundry room just near to my boat. It’s for berth holders only, so never usually that busy. But its not cheap. Its £2.50p per wash and £3 per dry (roughly) and you have to have tokens. And to get tokens you have to go to the marina office and ask them for tokens. That’s one wash a week = £20 a month. Or, if you’re like me and change clothing a lot, £30 a month. You have to remember that in a boat which has climate control issues, which all boats do, then condensation and damp do effect the cloth materials in your boat. Not just clothes, but blankets, duvets, pillow and cushions and covers. So you end up washing lots of things, often. And if you don’t have a drying room, you could use a towel once and it may never dry properly and start to smell, where as in a normal home, you put it on the radiator in the bathroom and its dry and you can use it a couple more times before it needs a wash. These are all things to consider. I have ended up just taking my laundry round to my ex wife’s house and giving her a few quid to do it. She offered and I jumped at the offer!

Heating - in the summer you don’t need heating at all! Which is great, but no different from a house. In the winter, you do! I have a small oil filled electric radiator, which I bought from ASDA for about £30 and I have that on, in the colder months, as soon it gets dark (usually the only time I’m on the boat is when it’s dark) and leave it on low, all night until i wake up in the morning and it gets switched on. I also have an electric fan heater (from ASDA also, which I bought for about £20), which i have on a remote control, Velcroed to the wall beside my bed (the remote, not the fan), and switch that on for small bursts every now and then. And that usually fills the whole boat with heat in seconds and lasts about 10 minutes from a 1 minute blast.
In the winter months my electric bill from the marina office is about £20-£25. And that’s not bad considering I have a mini fridge on 24/7 and all of my chargers and heaters etc. The down side is some times the electric gets cut and stays off for a couple of days, in those days, all your food could go off in your fridge, you heater doesn’t work etc etc etc. So make sure you have a couple of decent, fully charged leisure batteries (and charger) and enough gas for the cooker that you could leave the hob on for a bit, to heat the boat, as a last resort.

That’s all for now. If you have any questions then please feel free to ask. I don’t profess to know all the answers, but can give you my opinion, based on experiences of living on a 22 footer for most of summer and now for a touch of winter.

 

[jimmcgee]

Nice to get an update from you Jimmy, have been following this post
reading through your post about the size thing , have you got a cockpit tent yet , if not , you need to get one sharp , trust me , sitting out in the cockpit under the stars with a beer in your hand (forget all that wine mambypanmby lol) , under cover is the biz.

 

[Ludd]

Nice to get an update from you Jimmy, have been following this post
reading through your post about the size thing , have you got a cockpit tent yet , if not , you need to get one sharp , trust me , sitting out in the cockpit under the stars with a beer in your hand (forget all that wine mambypanmby lol) , under cover is the biz.

Snap! Doubles your space.

 

[fergie_mac66]

electric blanket !!!

get yourself an electric under blanket the type that can be left on all the time get a double as they are quite small . They dont use much 'lecy on low and in winter you will well pleased

about 20£ from argos ..

get a roll of polystyrene and put under berth cushions to stop them getting damp underneath.

 

[saxonpirate]

Hey Jimmy, you got there

Jimmy....

Glad I caught up with the thread again. I've been up to all sorts during the summer and not in a position to get on the internet. In short I set off in the early spring to take on a project, re-build a ruin in France. Trouble is I'd done this sort of thing three times in the past and could see myself still up to my neck in cement and granite at 70.... Gut feeling was wrong so Nah!.... called it a day.

Trouble was I'd sold my beautiful Beneteau First 35 'Michaila' that I'd owned and restored over eleven years to buy the ruin, so was pretty well homeless without a plan at 59. Still....sanity has now been restored. I've bought myself a lovely old 1972 Contest 33. She's out in the South East Aegean at the moment and I'm really excited about getting out there and getting her up together and going sailing. I've just started to build a web blog, there's a nice big photo at URL below if you want a look....

http://contest33islandrambler.blogspot.com/

The clocks have gone back, winter is rapidly closing in so I'm hoping you are well prepared for it. Be prepared for some tough moments. Think of November as Yesvember. A previously asked question : have you got that cockpit tent yet? it's an absolute must with a liveaboard 22 footer. We've all been there in one way or another, and dealt with hardships that your average house dweller couldn't even begin to comprehend. You are young and tough though so I'm sure you'll crack it. My ex-wife and I lived in an empty GRP hull through two winters and very wet summers, building/fitting out as we went along. Still remember our sandwiches tasting of styrene....! Took 5 years total, but we finished it and went South to the sun for three years.

All the best anyway Jimmy, will be watching the thread. Love the pictures of your daughter on the boat by the way. Reminds me of my two daughters who both started out their lives afloat. Lots of lovely memories.

Play Up Pompey......Dave aka saxonpirate.

 

[jimmy_bobby]

No, I still haven’t got that tent. I just haven’t a clue where to get one from and have just purchased a rally car! So kinda short of cash now! Are they useful to keep the heat in/cold out, or more as just an extension to give you more space to sit and store stuff? As i should imagine you’d want to keep anything of value out in the cockpit, or anything made of cloth, or electronic etc. And that’s I’ll i’ve got really. Plus I’m worried that if i get some kind of cockpit tent, then people are going to know I’m living on the thing and technically, I’m not really supposed to, so it doesn’t help me keep a low profile.

Fergie - thanks for the tip re the double blanket. I’ve got a single one, but i sued it once and noticed that there was damp under the cushions because, more so than normal. But thanks for the tip regarding the roll of polystyrene. Where on earth would I buy a roll of that stuff? Sound exactly what I need though.

Dave - loving your boat, it’s gorgeous. I could only dream of space like that! I think I’m missing the ability to just say to friends, lets come back to mine and have a glass of wine or a beer and a chat, and put off because there simply isn’t the space. Not even a little table and chairs combo that you get with most boats over 25 foot.

 

[jimmy_bobby]

Sorry, just realised how many spelling and punctuation mistakes in my last post. I’ll use a spell checker before I post next time!

 

[fergie_mac66]

poly crumbly !

polystyrene I got ours at b&q there are some stronger types of barrier but polys' works way better than any thing else . can be a nuisance tho as it crumbles after a while . but its only cheap.

edit you can get polys' tiles but they move about

 

[Ludd]

Cockpit enclosure

I haven't been to your neck of the woods ,but I would be amazed if there are no boats in the marina with a proper "patiocover". Contrary to advertising your presence on board,it would help to conceal it. Keeps heat in ,rain and draughts out,allows you to sit out,and even stand up. Great for soccialising. Keeps kids safe while you're below cooking . In British winter,couldn't exist without one.

Not using mine in my present location.

Sailmaker will make one---don't have too many "windows".

 

[jimmy_bobby]

Thank Ludd. I'll get one sorted ASAP. Someone has PMd me with some details for someone locally, so I'll get right on that. Cheers.

 

[Zanziba]

What an excellent thread. I am in a similar circumstance to you when you started out a year ago... amazingly similar in all respects!

I've learned a lot reading your thread and people's replies / advice.

Keep posting. I'm really interested to know how the winter effects you!