"Brien Alkire" wrote in message
...

some snips

My wife and I took up sailing just last June
We're now considering a dramatic step.
We're considering selling our townhome, buying a boat and living on it.
Would anyone like to share opinions or their experiences
in living aboard a sailboat?

For seven years I've lived aboard for 7 months of the year on RAPA, an
Oyster 406. She's just over 40ft and we wandered around N Europe before
ending up in the Mediterranean. We sail a lot - certainly every other day,
travelling from port to port, so our style of living aboard is probably
different from your needs. We give up lots of things which take up space in
order to have lots of mobility.

We love being able to live in the centre of the small villages and towns we
visit. This makes up for the acrobatics of heaving shopping baskets aboard
(dropping things in the water the meanwhile) and the inconvenience of having
a home which rises and falls alongside the quay as the tide comes and goes
(tho not in the Med!). We also have to occasionally 'up sticks' or add
another anchor at 0200 in the morning when a nasty bit of weather threatens
damage!

Compared to a house, she's expensive to run, needs a lot more maintenance to
keep her value, and even then her value diminishes slowly over time. Mooring
fees are about $3,000 a year, keeping her in good order (fuel, rig, sails,
paint etc) costs around $8,000 a year and a fair bit of my time, and she's
lost about $6,000 a year in value over the 7 years (and she keeps her cost
very well compared to many vessels). Brokers say she'll currently fetch
about $170,000.

Compared to a house there's very little space aboard, so all non-essential
items are discarded, the wardrobe is slimmed right down, and ingenious use
of stowage space means that it takes a little while to dig out less used
items.

What did you miss about living on shore?

Washing machine, TV and air conditioning, though in a boat of 45ft and more
you'll find room to add some of these. Instead we've discovered laundrettes,
good books and open air living under a sun awning.

What did you wish you had considered before you made the move?

The difficulty of keeping in touch with family and friends. Mobile phones
are a great bonus, and internet cafes help, but when we're moving around so
much it's difficult for people to come and stay without lots of
pre-organising when and where. May not apply to you. We always keep the fore
cabin and its loo available for visitors, but we just don't have the space
for the grandchildren. So now we return to UK in the winters, and as the
grandchildren are multiplying (rabbit genes in the family) we're buying a
house in the sun which can accommodate them and selling the boat.

Some basics: we sail in So Cal. We enjoy coastal cruising at the local
islands. We're not interested in any bluewater stuff in the near term,
though we both earn lots of vacation and that could be interesting later.
I
enjoy racing but the boat would be strictly for a home and for local
cruising. I don't know what kind of boat yet, but my preliminary thoughts
are on a 10-20 year old boat in the 38' to 45' range, and something that
holds value (as boats go).

Have a look at RAPAZ on my website (below). She's a comfortable ocean going
boat. I think she'd be too small for a home unless you were well geared to
living in a small space, or you gave up the idea of having visitors stay
aboard. She's got a very light and bright saloon (deck saloon) which is a
big plus, 'cos you can see what's going on in the world around you. Many
live-aboards who sail a bit less than us sacrifice the sailing performance
and go for a deck house, rather than a deck saloon, giving them even more
living space within their 40ft. But you need a bigger engine to push a deck
house to windward - more a motor-sailer than a sailboat!

--
Jim B, Yacht RAPAZ,
Sadly, for sale:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jim.bae...cification.htm
jim[dot]baerselman[at]ntlworld[dot]com