my brothers ex girlfriend had a sister and her husband that lived in a sailboat moored in Norfolk VA,


otherwise,
my mom dated a guy for many years that had several sailboats, but he lived with her,
the would go out for weeks at a time,



I followed several vids on youtube for a bit that was about some couples or families that sailed the Med, gulf of America, or the pacific (cali to mex) in a sail boat and lived on it full time,

interesting stuff, and a youtube rabbit hole,


otherwise, I have very little use for a boat, my biggest is a 15'9" Gheenoe

I have not but I am having dinner with a friend this week (on his boat) who does. He lives on one boat while he is rebuilding another one to utilize in retirement. After about 3 years he just finished the work on the refurb/rebuild and is getting ready to leave Texas for Florida. So he invited me over to see the final work from the last few years.

I've lived on a 75' Hatteras MY, much like the one in the video for 2 months straight as Capt.. It still sucks compared to a house.....storm pops up in the middle of the night and you're adjusting fenders. Shorepower pops the breaker and wake up to no A/C and alarms going off. Bilge pump stops working, alarm.......and on and on......everything is much more difficult such as grocery shopping, etc. Tons of maintenance.

That being said I have been Captaining, managing, and maintaining yachts since 2003 and worked on them for the previous 5 years. Sailboats, until you get into one with a generator, you're basically one step above homeless and camping. You can stay in marinas and have water and power but they add up fast. Marina's are generally $2-10 per foot per day and include trash, water, many charge extra for power.

A trawler also isn't my cup of tea because a displacement hulled 50' trawler isn't going any faster than 7.5 knots over water, no matter what you do, get into a 3 knot current and your speed is not 4.5-maybe 5 knots.......

A diesel motoryacht can be run trawler speeds and get about the same efficiency yet still have the speed to get up and run and get somewhere.

Insurance and dockage vary greatly depending on where in the country you have. Maintenance is expensive, parts are expensive, labor is expensive. You could spend $3k every 3 years replacing the batteries on a 50' yacht. An A/C unit is $4k these days and on and on.......I'd expect to spend $25k a year on repairs when you include long term items like engine rebuilds, paint job, etc. etc.

I encourage you to step back and describe the emotions that you seek rather than exploring the way to achieve them. Make a list of the attributes you want to see in yourself, to fully understand the journey you want.

For example…
I am adventurous.
I am resilient.
I am courageous.
I am at peace when alone.

Seeking these emotions and attributes one can choose a lifestyle or vocation, such as sailing or power yachting. However there are many alternatives that may be more achievable.

Again thank you everyone, there is some great information and advice given here.

As I said earlier I am in the beginning stage of doing research.

At some point during my research I may decide that it is just either to much continued upkeep/repair for me to be able to do, or it will cost way more monthly than we can afford or are willing to spend.
I understand something like this is going to be expensive however we would be trading the cost to live on land to some or most of the cost to live on a boat, it just depend on how much more.

We would have to buy something that would need minimum work to get started and after watching Youtube, even though some of the boats I see are older most are in great shape for their age, the cost are right around what I think may be affordable.


As far as buying a boat, my thought, without taking any money out of our retirement saving, we would have to sell the house to buy the boat. The boat would be a place to live for a while. I was thinking this would be for about five years then sell the boat and build a small house on some property we already own in the mountains of Tennessee.

This is something I was thinking of doing early in retirement while we are still physically able to.

In the end it may be financially better to fly to some of the places we want to visit and stay for weeks instead of days.

Last night I watch a video of a family that did something called the great loop. Basically they circumnavigated, counter clock wise the Easterner half of the United States going up the east coast then moving inland in New York and following waterways through the Great lakes and down through the country visiting places till they came out in the Gulf Of America, then across to Florida.
I think they said they took a year to do it.

This sound like something my wife and I would like to do.

Again thank you everyone
Joe

One thing I would be cautious of is this. Lets say you buy your boat for $70k. In the first couple of months you find out it needs some stuff. Say another $20k to get it where you want it. Ok great. Use for a year or two. Time to sell. Market for it is $40k, ouch.
I know someone who did this with a residence in Mexico. Now thinking of selling at a loss of more than $100k-$150k in a couple years.

there are a bunch of pessimists on here that likely have never had a boat. Boats are not some complete mystery you can figure out the costs on some reasonable basis given you have some specifics to work with. WHat boat, where located, what engines, what amount of use, what travel plans, etc. etc. etc. The great loop is done by lots of people, you can find a zillion videos and stories about it. I'm not concerned about the money you want to have into this adventure, it will be fine and managable in terms of expectations with advance knowledge. But you simply have to budget for gathering the experience to even take the boat around the block safely. That's harder and takes way more time. FWIW>

quote:

Originally posted by Redleg06:

https://www.youtube.com/@The71Percent
Trawler liveaboards, currently cruising Australia to North America


* Beware the rabbit hole!

I love their small channel.