Dunno?

The boat sitting?
Everyday life on the boat, how things are working out?
How you do storage?
Cooking?
Your neighbors?
Etc



I have to live through you for this experience!

Any visiting sea lions ?

ya`know anything

I'm already at the envy stage! It was my dream to live aboard any way I could. Love taking a boat out after work, tie up to a buoy and just relax. Get up early, make it back to the slip and head on to work. That was my surefire way to mellow out after a very fustrating day of work.

We have a similar dream - get the kids through university then set off on an extended cruise on a big catamaran....

Good luck with getting your boat sorted. Envy here too!

Why a sailboat?

When I began seriously thinking about survival topics the idea of self-sufficiency in an emergency became central. I worked my way through putting together a personal first-aid kit ("PFK"), a personal survival kit ("PSK"), and a bug out bag ("BOB"). I added a bit more gear and supplies for a vehicle survival kit (I don't know if there is an acronym for this one!).

Then I started looking around for someplace to get out of town in an emergency. I found a survival retreat location about 40 miles away and began planning survival caches along the route in case I had to get there on foot and a larger cache at the site.

Somewhere in the process I realized I was probably going to experience a business failure and lose my house to foreclosure and that I did not have the money to finish and equip the survival retreat. Necessity being the mother of invention, I did a major re-think.

Since I was in the single-digits I sailed small boats, paddled canoes, etcetera. Fishing is my number one passion, and I love seeing what's around the next point. I live in the San Joaquin -Sacramento Delta about 90 water miles from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Franciso Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Put that together with survival off the grid and a sailboat became the obvious choice for me.

Dweste, can anybody give me the differences in ownership and operating costs for sail and power boats?

I have a suspicion the cost of either boat tends to balance out but I don't know. So how much of the savings in fuel by sailing is lost to the cost of maintaining the sails and rigging?

I like the idea of onboard living but I am thinking I would just pick up a diesel instead of a sailer.

Sail versus power?

There are some online discussions of this but the topic is fairly complex and seems to turn on the assumptions that go into the examples. The sailboat I chose has a small diesel engine and most sailboats of liveabord size have some kind of engine.

In an emergency which is likely to be available to you: wind or fuel? If resources are being commandered, hoarded, or fought over, which is more likely to be available?

My choice is go with the combination.

If you are thinking about cruising, the cost per mile advantage shifts pretty dramatically to sail.

My two cents:

I've noticed in the years of boating/sailing/yatching/just whatever with boats that with sail, you'll forever be spending time doing something to the vessel. With power, you'll forever be spending money on it!

Anything fun, or worth using for travel cost money.

Todd_w... there's some truth to that ;-)

Shoe's aren't too bad though Hehe