Our local personal finance guy had an article in today's (3/16) paper,
Dallas Morning News that was an interesting departure and a personal
plug for sailing if anyone wishes to read it.

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/bus/...rns.9b2e5.html

I guess it was sort a working vacation kind of story, but it was
interesting all the same.

I'm not interested in signing up. Can you post it?

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"felton" wrote in message
...
Our local personal finance guy had an article in today's (3/16) paper,
Dallas Morning News that was an interesting departure and a personal
plug for sailing if anyone wishes to read it.


http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/bus/...rns.9b2e5.html

I guess it was sort a working vacation kind of story, but it was
interesting all the same.

On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 23:18:11 -0800, "Jonathan Ganz"
wrote:

I'm not interested in signing up. Can you post it?

Sure. The link works for me, but here is the article from the Dallas
Morning News, March 16, 2004.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Want to go sailing away? Here's how

You don't have to sink a lot of money into living on a boat


10:27 PM CST on Monday, March 15, 2004


By SCOTT BURNS / The Dallas Morning News



CHARLOTTE HARBOR, Fla. – Our chartered Hunter 28.5 sloop is pushing 6
knots, sailing to windward and heeled over hard. It's a tender boat,
which makes it great for light winds, but it pulls hard at the wheel
today. Puffs have the leeward rail nearly awash. I am sailing with two
of my brothers. The last time the three of us were together was two
years ago, when all the brothers gathered to bury the ashes of my
stepfather, their father, in the Gulf of Mexico.

We're a family of Patrick O'Brian fans, and brother Doug turns up the
volume for the music from Master and Commander. But it can't be heard
over the wind. We tug at the roller furling and take in some of the
jib.

All three of us are maniacally happy.

Like many families, ours has its complexities. I am the only child
from my mother's first marriage. My three brothers were born in her
second marriage. We have always lived as brothers, bonded by blood and
water. Doug is closest to the water, a tugboat captain in Maine. Don
is a college professor in California, but he's also an avid sailor.

At one time I was so into sailing I owned a 25-foot sloop but didn't
own a car. To reach the boat, moored south of Boston in Cohasset
Harbor, I carried large duffel bags and took the bus.

Since then I've owned a sunfish, two windsurfers, a sailing dinghy and
a magnificent 32-foot Herreshoff ketch. Alas, except for charters,
I've been beached for 20 years.

Hence the occasional thought: Perhaps it's time to chuck it all and
sail away.

I'm not the only person who has such thoughts. In fact, while some
figures indicate at least a million Americans live on the road in RV
"land yachts," thousands do much the same on the water, living in
marinas and cruising. They have a magazine, Living Aboard, that tells
their stories and champions their issues. Those issues usually turn on
being allowed to live on their boats. There is also a growing body of
literature about the hows and whys of life afloat.



Living afloat

In fact, living aboard is a good candidate for Living Lite because it
can reduce your cost of living even as it increases your exposure to
one of America's fastest vanishing wonders: waterfront.

Here's an example. Our charter is based at Burnt Store Marina, the
nautical focal point of a WCI Communities development north of Fort
Myers, Fla. WCI, one of the premier developers in this state, is now
offering water-view condos here that start at $500,000. The operative
word is "start." You can pay a lot more really fast.

You can, however, buy a very nice used boat, sail or power, for
$100,000 or less and live on the water. You'll have less space to live
in, of course, but the reduction in space will also allow you to chuck
a lot of things (and related expenses) that you don't need.

You can, for instance, simplify your wardrobe big time. Depending on
location and amount of travel, you can also eliminate the standing
overhead of owning a car. Your utility bills will virtually disappear
as you go from thousands of square feet in your home to tens of square
feet on your boat. Your local tax bill will decline. Your state tax
bill may disappear. Boating is the best excuse ever invented for
living lean and simple.



Real costs

What does it really cost?

It all depends. In Boca Grande, we saw a small boat with a strange
superstructure anchored with the other yachts and captained by a man
with a well-developed Rastafarian hair-do. I'll bet his living-aboard
expenses are a lot lower than those of the owner of Lionheart, which
was docked not far away on exclusive Useppa Island. (Ross Perot owns
Lionheart.) Like everything else in life, the final cost is a matter
of the resources you have and the choices you make.

The October issue of Cruising World, a magazine dedicated to sailors
who venture from their boat slips, got down to real dollars on the
whole issue of living aboard. The magazine surveyed some full-time
cruising families and asked for an accounting of expenses.

In a way, what they learned was a bit depressing – whatever their
target budget, cruisers found that life appeared to cost 10 percent to
20 percent more than planned. (Not exactly unique, is it?)

Actual spending, however, ranged from only $14,736 a year (for a 47-
and 35-year-old couple on an older 35-foot boat) to $66,600 a year
(for a 65- and 54-year-old couple on a 40-foot boat). If that $66,000
figure intimidates you, consider that the couple spent $16,600 for
home and off-boat trips, not to mention $10,200 for provisions and
$7,200 for restaurant meals.

It can be done. Many do it and never look back.


Coming Sunday: Pricing a luxury Florida retirement

Thanks for sharing the article I didn't want to sign up either.

"felton" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 23:18:11 -0800, "Jonathan Ganz"
wrote:

I'm not interested in signing up. Can you post it?

Sure. The link works for me, but here is the article from the Dallas
Morning News, March 16, 2004.