Dear Capt Ron, I don't mind admitting that you are the type of "know it all" that really bugs me and its with great reluctance that I ask you a favor. I read over your page on liveaboard boats and want to know what sort of boat I should buy- should it be power or sail. What sort of things should I consider. Thanks for your help Capt Ron and hope you are enjoying your retirement. I am sorry to pick on you but you can be really annoying ( I'm sure you know that!")
Janice B. -Calgary Alberta
Since writing the page on Liveaboard boats I have received many requests for information and opinions on the best type of boat to use as a liveaboard. I have organized the ideas to subject areas and its all based on what I have learned by living on boats myself by owning several of them and by talking with fellow boaters. Its a topic one should think about before acting. Here goes:
Compromise Boating is an area of human endeavor where there are an almost infinite number of designs for vessels. Even within the same basic designs owners and builders will make significant changes to end up with unique vessels. Each design feature carries with it advantages and disadvantages. For example -hull construction. Wood is reasonably easy to work with but tends to rot, steel is extremely tough but rusts, fiberglass is messy to work with but produces low maintenance hulls. So if you ask a good sailor what is the best hull material to use you would be asking a tough question indeed. In fact there are all good and that is one of the reasons that they have all been used. The main idea here is that this choice like many others in boating is one of compromise. I have owned vessels of wood, fiberglass, ferrocement and aluminum and have gone to sea on ships with steel hulls and all were good vessels each with its own advantages. So the message here is to keep the concept of compromise in your minds as you look at a potential liveaboard.
Cavernous interior of a European barge liveaboard-but do you really need all that space?
Power or Sail or Both As a general rule there is a good distinction between power boats and sail boats with one exception -the motorsailor which is a combination to varying degrees of both! The big advantage of a power boat is that its beam is carried from the stern to the bow where it comes to a point and so there is nearly always much more living space on a power boat compared to a sailboat of the same length which usually have a tapered bow and stern area with maximum width at the beam only. Usually the power boat is higher off the water with more window space. This is an advantage at the dock or in calm waters in coastal cruising but a disadvantage in blue water passages. In Europe another type of liveaboard is available the canal barge style vessel which offers extremely comfortable living and the ability to move along some of Europe's most beautiful countryside. You will see the very odd one in North American but they are a rarity to see.
Living in a sailboat is sometimes likened, unfairly I think, to living in a large sewer pipe. The sail boat will have a small auxiliary motor and the main form of propulsion will be by sails. The power boat will have no sails and will depend entirely on its main engine and sometimes a small auxiliary. The motorsailor is as I said a combination. We had what would be called a 60:40 motorsailor that is it had a good sized main engine and a good set of sails. Under power she would cruise along at a very happy 8 knots. We could only do that under sail with a wind of about 35 knots blowing in the right direction. The huge advantage of sail is that once the sails are paid for you can actually go from point a to point b under sail alone and there is no need to use any expensive fossil fuels. The huge advantage of a power boat is that you can get from a to b without worrying about the wind direction and in good time. Never think of the wind as "free" because that set of sails for you boat could pay for many full tanks of fuel and there is a lot of expensive equipment to maintain too.
Sailboaters are called "rag baggers" by power boaters who are called "stink potters" in return. A motorsailer is just confused in a way they have the best of both. I loved sailing but on the west coast in the summer the wind was invariably blowing the wrong way or not at all and that iron sail (the diesel) sure came in handy.
Intended USE When considering power or sail you need to consider your intended use. We are approaching this from a liveaboard perspective. Are you intending to spend a long time on the vessel? Do you wish to take the vessel off the dock and if so are you interested in coastal cruising or blue water cruising? How many people will be living onboard. As an example if you are a family of four buying a 27 foot blue water sailboat and expecting to live on it for two years prior to making passages would be an extremely stupid idea. But if you are single and want an easier to maintain vessel with blue water potential it might be a great idea!
On one end of the scale there are those who simply want to live on the water but don't want to take their vessel off the dock. This opens up a lot of possibilities to live on vessels that are not well enough equipped to leave the dock and that are on the lower end of the price scale. Some are non traditional vessels or cabins or trailers on floats. While not true vessels in the opinion of many sailors they are still capable of supporting a liveaboard lifestyle. Hull integrity is one concern I have with this type of vessel and I will cover that later.
COST This is a key factor in many of our considerations when we look for a suitable liveaboard vessel. Its strange but people will go to a boat show with $2 in their bank accounts and pretend they are in the market for vessels priced over $500,000 and will actually take sales brochures and use up the time of salespeople. I have seen this so many times where a person pretends to be in the market but in fact has absolutely no money to make the purchase and is something we in the industry would call a "lookey loo" In the car industry they are called "tire kickers" and often the technical term for them is "assholes". This tendency to waste owner's time goes right down to vessels of modest cost. It is annoying and time wasting and my advice to you is to first think out what your budget is before you decide to go out and start looking at boats. You are just wasting your time and the sellers time if you don't know your budget.
This one is nice! 1986 42'LOA fiberglass -twin diesels $115k (my guess is that its a 38' LWL-they don't say- nice interior)
When considering cost think of the total cost to bring the vessel to a point where you can use her for your intended purpose. In fact there are free boats out there that are usually horrible projects that people have given up on. In order to get them to useable state you usually need to invest many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of your time and many never get completed so they become "holes in the water into which you pour money". My experience has been that free or very low priced boats have all been financial disasters. They also soak up your precious time too and offer nothing back for it. Stay away from them unless you are in a special situation where you have the time and funds and inclination, skills tools and place to do the work. (Experience talking)
The cost of boat ownership is higher than you might expect and its absolutely necessary that you sit down with a piece of paper and pencil and add up what you are getting into. If you are financing look at the interest, and then the cost of insurance, surveys, monthly moorage, repairs, maintenance, new equipment required and its likely that mild shock will set in. There are ways of reducing most of these costs but the point here is that a lot of boats sell as broken dreams due to the fact they have caused a financial crisis for the owner. Boats often cause couples to break up.
WORKING ON A BOAT You will learn two things. The work MUST be done to a proper standard and the work will take between four and five times as long as you think it should. I shall always remember the day I planned to install 5 cleats in my 36' ferrocement sloop. All I had to do was drill 10 holes in the deck and install ten bolts. Seemed like a simple enough job, I had the proper power tools and I allotted two hours for it. It took ten. The job was done right with backing plates and marine sealer and heavy galvanized bolts but by the end I was totally frustrated with the time it had taken. But after talking to several fellow boaters we all agreed that most jobs you could do in two hours in a house would take at least eight on a boat. One of the several reasons is that on a house most components are cut on a 90 degree angle and are straight whereas on a boat a lot of corners are curved and lines are actually compound curves. If you have good carpentry skills and start to attack boat projects you quickly find you you need to learn new skills such as how to use a spiling block to pick up those strange compound curves. (the first time you use one you will be amazed) And as far as doing the job right one of your tasks will be re-doing the jobs that the previous owner did wrong. You will hate the person by the time you have finished. In a salt water environment water is called the "universal solvent" in chemical terms in that it dissolves just about anything over time. For example if you joining two copper wires with a crimp fitting come back in six months and it will have corroded on you. I have found that all splices need to be soldered and covered with liquid electrical tape and wire needs to be the tinned marine variety. If you don't do it right and your circuit is critical say the bilge pump circuit then it will come back to bite you one day. So the message here is twofold. Scan the vessel for signs of poor workmanship by the builder or previous owner and when you do work on a vessel like Mike Holmes says "Do it right!"
How Big Should the Liveaboard Be? What appears to be a simple question is actually an area in boating that is filled with trickery and deceit. You see the human brain likes to simplify things in order to make sense of a most confusing universe. In the case of boat size we are taught "bigger is better" so the market has responded by simply lying to us and claiming that a boat is a certain size when in fact it is most certainly not. Think about this for a moment.
Take the example of a ketch I owned and lived aboard. Its overall length was 56 feet and this measurement is called a vessel's LOA - length over all. That was from the end of the bowspirit to the end of the boomkin on the mizzen mast which stuck out over the stern. This is what the marina manager salivates over because he can charge you for a 56 footer. This same vessel was 40 feet on deck. This measurement is called the LOD - length on deck. But the waterline length which was used for the Transport Canada blue book registration was 36 feet. This measurement is called the LWL or the length at the water line. This is an interesting and useful measurement to know because it fits into the formula for the top speed of the hull which in the case of displacement sailboat hulls is the square root of the waterline length in feet times the constant 1.5 or in our case 8 knots.
All this information is basic and very good stuff to know and understand. Now here is how the boating industry will attempt to cheat you on your understanding of the size of the vessel they are offering to you.
1. Display a vessel in a small boat house so that it looks larger
2. Refer to the vessel's length as its LOA rather that it's more descriptive LWL ( so things like a swim grid or bowsprit are added to make it appear bigger than it is.
3. During construction add a longitudinal plug to lengthen the vessel without also increasing it's beam or depth. This allows the builder to use the same basic design for several vessel sizes but it very effectively cheats the owner out of the other two dimensions associated with the larger vessel and it will likely introduce stability issues not designed in by the original marine architect. Actually this issue is a bit complicated for a brief treatment but if you consider that say a 18 foot runabout is actually twice the size of a 14 footer because of he increased beam and depth you begin to see the issue here.
My advice here is IF you are truly in purchasing a vessel that one of the steps should be to take a friend and a 25 foot pocket measuring tape and measure off the sucker yourself. The you know what you are buying. Finding that the actual measure is smaller than as advertised could also help to reduce the price although you need to show some diplomacy here as the owner may not even realize what he has.
Most of us experienced boaters have purchased vessels where the physical description as advertised was incorrect. I recently purchased a used "12 footer" car topper for fishing that was actually 10.5 feet LOA but I realized it was smaller than advertised when I saw it and actually wanted a smaller boat anyway.
OLD POWER BOATS On the coast there are still a number of older wooden boats from the 1950's and 60's that were powered by two large gas powered V8's and were built when gas was 30 cents a gallon. Gas is now approximately 20 times the price. Filling up the fuel tanks on these beasts is something that will cost you around $1000 and you could burn off that fuel in two days of cruising. Not surprisingly these boats don't leave the dock much and a lot of them no longer work. This results in some very low prices on places like eBay and private sales where a 25- 40' older wooden power vessel needing work will sell for just a few hundred dollars. As a dock liveaboard there is some potential here but the important thing is hull integrity. You want a vessel that floats!
Life Span of Boats Everything has a natural lifespan and so do boats. In the Navy the lifespan of a warship in the marine environment was about 35 years or over 50 years for a Carrier after which even with careful maintenance and mid life refits it was basically worn out. In the pleasure boat area the situation is a bit different in that we occasionally see some very well maintained older vessels of over 50 years of age still going strong. You can also see vessels of only ten years of age in very poor condition. It depends a lot on the owner and the use the vessel has had and the maintenance it has obtained. It also depends on the original construction of the vessel and hull material used. For example we can refer to a "fiberglass boat" when in fact there are many types of construction in fiberglass and one type say a balsa cored boat is completely different from say a solid hand layup boat which is different from a cheaply constructed thin walled fiberglass boat made with a chopper gun. Some fiberglass hulls suffered from water osmosis problems known as the dreaded POX and some are just fine. Some spent their lives in tropical sunshine and the UV rays have damaged the outermost layers. Professional marine surveyors can help you determine the actual condition of a vessel and wherever you are spending anything over $5000 their fees are most certainly worth it.
Life Span of User A friend of mine a blue water cruiser made this point to me and its a good one! How many years do YOU need the boat for? If you are youngster in your twenties you may want to use it as a liveaboard for many years possibly for half a century or more. If you are in your mid 60's possibly a decade is all you need the vessel for and possibly less if some darn heart or other problem gets you to slows you down or makes you swallow the anchor and retire to a shore berth. Sad but true. Oddly, its not something that people think about when considering what sort of boat they want to live on.
Bigger is Better Although true in some things like bank accounts and salaries bigger is not necessarily better with boats. Associated with this is the famous boater malady "Twofootitis" where a significantly better vessel is possible if only she were two feet bigger!
I recall a good example for you so here goes. I had sailed my ketch with a small charter onboard from Victoria BC to Friday Harbour Washington State. After finding an empty slip (not easy on a busy August day) and clearing with customs I took a walk around the docks to look at the other boats something I really enjoy doing. For me its hard to have a better day than looking at boats. Anyway I was just fixating on a very nice Chris Craft Constellation which as I recall was about 53 feet or so and looked like mid 1950's vintage. She was in bristol condition and a work of art and I just stopped and stared and well basically lusted after the vessel. Oh she was nice! Then after a few minutes of simply staring at her I turned my head to step away and there towering over me was a huge 75-85 footer in gleaming white fiberglass parked on the opposite side of the dock. Suddenly the Chris Craft was a "smaller vessel" and "not quite as nice" as the new one. It really is amazing when something like this happens but the theory of boating goes something like this that no matter how nice or big your boat is there will be a bigger nicer one that will park beside you! Another theory is that any boat is better than no boat and quite often you find a small vessel sailor being perfectly at ease with his big boat fellow boater. There is a fellowship there down on the dock and the price of admission is you boat.
Now as far as bigger being better. Not so. Bigger invariably means more expensive. In a sail boat rigging sales and winches all become more expensive as you go from about 32 feet or so to over 40 feet and then they jump again every twenty feet or so. There are huge differences in cost. The bigger boats are often limited to deeper waters too which makes some coast cruising impossible for them. Its more difficult to find mooring and dock space and you suddenly become a type of beacon to people wishing to do you harm or steal your stuff or collect fees from you. Bigger also means you need a bigger crew. While you may be able to single hand a 30 or 40 footer a 50 footer is very difficult unless most things are automated.
If you were going off shore on a forty footer you would likely need a crew of four with the captain to have a reasonable watch rotation. If you take a group out even coastal cruising and some are drinking good luck to you if you are the skipper because you then need to look after the boat and the watch out for the passengers too. Been there done it don't like it. While its possible for one person to take a good sized vessel out to sea the combination of time and sun and motion tend to wear you down and after say an 8 hour watch you tend to be very tired and ready for a break. A four or even two hour watch as used in the Navy is best to keep you absolutely alert. So even going out for a day with a skeleton crew is not easy. Taking your vessel offshore with a single crew (you) is the most demanding of all sailing and few can do it successfully.
However there is a relationship between size and living aboard and number of people on board. Everyone needs their space and if they don't have it they can get quite agitated. Here is my best stab at it with a vessel of normal proportions for its length. I will refer to LWL length at the waterline because personally I think that's the best indicator of a vessels actual size. You may need to convert these numbers to vessels you look at because they will be measured usually as LOA length overall.
Sail Boats (measured in feet, with a reasonable interior configuration these are my suggested sizes for considering liveaboard and offshore use-they are merely suggestions to get you pointed to a suitable size range, there will always be exceptions with boats as design and beam also are very important). These numbers are based on the average type of vessel with the average type of layout. They are simply to get you pointed in the right direction.
- One person -live aboard- frugal standard minimum size while also going to a job 24'-30LWL
- One person same as above except reasonably comfortable living 30-36'LWL
- One person same as above except very comfortable living 38-42'LWL
- Two people- live aboard -frugal standard minimum size while also going to a job 30-36'LWL
- Two people same as above except reasonably comfortable living 36' -40LWL
- Two people same as above except very comfortable living 44-48' LWL
- Three people -live aboard -frugal standard minimum size one child two adults 34'-38 LWL
- Three people same as above -except reasonably comfortable living 38-46'LWL
- Three people same as above -except very comfortable living 46-50'LWL
- Four people -two adults two children frugal standard while also working 36-40' LWL
- Four people same as above except reasonably comfortable 40-44' LWL
- Four people same as above except very comfortable 48'-52 LWL
- Four people -two couples extended blue water cruising frugal standard 44'-52 LWL
- Four people -two couples extended blue water cruising very comfy standard 50'-60 LWL
Power boats as liveaboards subtract 10% of the waterline length and the numbers above will be a good ballpark estimate for suggested liveaboard powerboat size ranges. Off shore use won't apply coastal cruising will.
Hull Integrity My opinion is that one of the most, if not the most, critical factors of any vessel is the condition of its hull. The hull is what keeps the water out. If the water comes in the vessel sinks sometimes with you and all your stuff in it. Unfortunately, a fresh coat of paint can hide a lot of trouble and paint is often successfully used to sell boats that need repair or sell boats for more than they are really worth. So when considering a boat the hull should be your first thing to look at. This can be a problem when the hull is in the water and/or is covered with fresh paint.
I never buy a wet berthed boat without having the boat taken out of the water where I could carefully inspect it or have my surveyor look it over. Also check out all the thru hull fittings because you can have a good hull and a bad fitting and the darn thing will sink. I saw one beautiful wood cruiser sink because of a faulty valve on the vessel's head. It was ruined. When a vessel sinks in salt water it is never the same because salt gets into everything including the wiring. Surprisingly people sometimes consider the hull integrity last if they consider it at all. They focus in on the appearance and finish of the vessel and gloss over the fact the hull needs extensive repairs or is beyond repairs. In the case of steel boats for example steel gradually is eaten away by the ocean until the plate thickness becomes unsafe. It still holds a coat of paint but could have pin holes in it or be so weakened that a storm or contact with something will hole the hull.
Frugal Living I have been watching eBay lately and note that there have been several likely prospects for frugal liveaboards for sale in the low thousands and even for a few hundred in some cases. This is a good sign for somebody that is serious about locating a suitable liveaboard vessel. Because many of these types of vessels are not capable of powering themselves to a new location transport to your location will be a factor. I have seen boats under 10K, under 5k and even under 1K that look like they would make good frugal liveaboards. The key is to look over local and distant marinas yourself and use the mk 1 eyeball as we would call them in the Navy to see what you can see. Often potential liveaboard vessels are not even advertised. Ask around or if you see what looks like a vessel with good potential just ask the owner. You might be surprised. And when you make a cash offer simply say what the offer is don't bother to apologize. he money will talk for itself and the owner may have had to put up with dozens of looky loos that never offered anything so even a low offer might be accepted. And if you don't have any money then don't bother the seller its your problem not his. Even if you get a vessel for free there will be costs. If you are a real jerk some people would rather destroy the boat than give it to you at a bargain basement price so if you are a jerk keep that in mind.
Marital Relations
It is possible to have all the normal marital relations between consenting adults on a liveaboard vessel. Included in that list with things such as cleaning and reading and watching tv and talking is fighting and many a couple has split because of unresolved issues on the vessel. Some things to look for. Be sure that your first mate really is interested in the venture. That stupid jingo happy wife happy life also applies to boats. Be sure that both of you take part in the vessel's maintenance. Don't be a slob. There is nothing more frustrating for a spouse to clean up the vessel only to have you make a mess a few hours later. Good seamanship applies to both partners as you will depend on each other. When you take your vessel to sea each person MUST know what to do in an emergency because I can tell you now the person with the emergency will be the person who normally does the work like navigation or ship handling or whatever. At sea you are the police and fire and ambulance service because they will all be too far away to help. If you are really lucky you may get some help in a few hours if you are coastal and in a few days if you are deep sea. If the big person falls over the side the smaller person needs a pre thought out method of fishing the other person out of the drink. Assume that the person in trouble is unconscious. Time on the boat can be wonderful or horrible you pick.
Danger Scale of Vessel and Your Size. This is a little known fact so you are lucky to learn it here. What some designers do is attempt to give you the same number of facilities in a smaller and smaller vessel and how they do this is by scaling down seats and table and even the height of the cabin top. If you a small person of say 5'6" or less you may in fact fit nicely. If you are a good sized person (fat) like me you won't fit at all. Its almost as if they put kid sized furniture in there. And they know exactly what they are doing too. You won't be able to tell from photos or brochures you absolutely need to visit the vessel and see how you fit into the spaces. If you don't do this you will be a very unhappy boat owner and will hate the vessel. Also what often happens is that a previous owner who is small places certain items in the vessel that fit him and again its buyer beware. The pilot house in my big ketch had been built for a person of about 5'6" and I was just about 6 feet (in my youth) so was always crouching -most annoying. I had a guest on board who was about 6'5" and the poor man was constantly hitting his head on the cabin roof. He was a pilot and engineer and made the comment that "Ron there are about two million parts on this boat and I think they are all falling apart" Pilots think that way and a good thing too! The other thing about your size is that if you do have a weight problem do yourself a huge favor and loose it before you go onboard. Being overweight on board is a really bad idea and you are much more likely to get injured or not be able to make an emergency repair when it is really needed. You need to be reasonably fit to be a good and safe sailor. (A fat person who was once thin is telling you the truth here!)
Anyhow that's a bit of information that should prove helpful to you regarding liveaboard boats. I can tell you that its a great lifestyle - its not for everyone but for those that like it often stay onboard for the rest of their lives. You will start feeling happy when you see your boat off in the distance and smile as you step aboard. You are home and one with the sea. You can feel the vessel move with the water and feel the wind change. You are in touch with nature and life. Your marine charts and distant ports beckon you. The fresh smell of the ocean mixed with that coat of spar varnish you just put on the hatch cover. The marine radio gives you a fair weather report. Your vessel is in good repair and stocked with a month's ration of food and supplies. You could slip the lines and go! I think I have talked myself back into living on a boat. Rats!
Check out the vessels with "liveaboard" in the title available at auction right now!
Fair Winds and Following Seas!
Capt Ron (ret'd)
I was looking for a nice image of a sailboat and found this one and on a very interesting website called the Trouser Rollers about a couple in the USA who tried living aboard for a few years on the above vessel and then swallowed the anchor and bought a motor home and are still roaming.
LINKS
Blue Water Cruising Association Vancouver and Victoria This is a members site. Its a very interesting group that I had planned to join at one time but then other commitments prevented it. A good idea for anyone that is seriously interested in blue water cruising. Links to members who are actually out there doing it now. An excellent source of knowledge. I see that they have a $100 one time initiation fee and annual dues of $95 and that would be a good way of eliminating all the looky loos who want everything for free and who will never go blue water cruising anyway.
Trouser Rollers A couple retires and lives on a boat for a few years. Interesting story and website!
Build your own 16' GRAND BANKS DORY Here is a very seaworthy vessel that you can build out of wood in two to three weeks that will last 30 years and provide you with one of the most tested designs on the water. The Grand Banks Dory was used for over a hundred years by fishermen on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and was able to take them safely into the very challenging Atlantic Ocean waters and return with a load of fish. Rows very easily and can also be powered. This is the best set of instructions available to build a Dory and even a novice can do it and end up with a great vessel that will take them anywhere.
Build your own trailered 20 foot Houseboat that can be also used as a trailer and have the best of both worlds a houseboat that can be used on the water and on land! Save thousands over a factory houseboat and have fun with the family building it in the back yard. Much easier to build than you might think and suddenly you have a ticket to explore some of the most attractive areas on the planet. Unlike a standard boat you can also use it as a land yacht too! How cool is that!
