living on a boat

[Sheryl]

Follow the link.  There's Bellingham, again!

Wow - right in my backyard, and I never knew! How interesting.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Damn, you guys can be strict!

You think thats bad? Now I have this mental picture of a self-baling female bartender with a stern the same shape as her bow.

Not a good thing at all.

 

[Brat]

If you are ready to move now I found this posting on CraigsList (in Seattle a listing is up for only 7 days)

Date: 2006-03-20, 12:51AM PST

Catalina 27’
$8,200 o.b.o.

This is a great boat. In the four and a half years I have owned it has served as a great voyaging and live-a-board vessel. The owners before the ones I bought it from sailed it from Seattle to Mexico and back. Some of the outfitting they did to it included: re-enforced bow, thicker stays and hinged windows. I purchased it in 2001, lived aboard on Bainbridge Island for eight months and then went out sailing with my fiancée. We spent a month aboard, going as far north as Desolation Sound in Canada and then left the boat to live in Alaska. Once we moved back to Seattle we took up residence again on the boat and have been living aboard for the last two years.
With all the storage and space it has in the cabin this has not been as hard a feat as you might imagine. We even had a cat here with us up until recently. The boat comes with a small refrigerator that fits it perfectly. There is a stove (and heater) that’s kerosene powered. The main heat is electric, much like the kind you’d find in a house that does a great job heating the place and regulating the temperature. That heater, along with four power outlets were installed by my fiancé’s father who has his only electrical contracting firm and has been working as an electrician for thirty years. When not on the dock the cabin and running lights and other amenities are powered by a marine grade battery.
The power for the boat is a 7.5 hp Honda long-shaft. During our long days of windless sailing this outboard kept us going at around 5 to 8 knots. After sitting so long with out being used the carburetor got corroded and I had it taken in to be rebuilt. With a few pulls it works great now.
Some of the other features of the boat are:

-VHF radio
-Auto helm
-Five jibs (one is a storm jib and one is a Genoa), all in good condition
-A Spinnaker, in great condition with a spinnaker pole attached to the mast
-A 22lb Danforth and a 25lb claw anchor
-A marine head with Y valve (currently uninstalled)
-8 foot fiberglass dinghy

This boat is ready for you to do just about anything you might want to do in a sailboat. It is currently moored in Ballard at Ballard Mill Marina. The slip, which is okayed for livaboarding is a great one on a small dock with nearby bathrooms, showers and a laundry room. The marina is cozy and secure with more of a neighborhood feel than Shilshole has. Come down and see it, it’s gotta go in the next few weeks!

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I was on this board for several months before I realized that "Dory" wasn't referring to the fish.

Man! The underwater Navy really IS different from the surface Navy!

Brat,

At $8,200, I bet it is gone already.

Cheers,

Gypsy

 

[REWahoo]

Man! The underwater Navy really IS different from the surface Navy!

Ed, you wouldn't by any chance be suggesting they are "sub-humans" would you? Didn't think so...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Ow! OW OW OW OW OW!

Really submarined this thread.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

No, but I have heard tales that they are hygene-challenged. :

 

[Nords]

Man! The underwater Navy really IS different from the surface Navy!

It's like eternal enemies from different universes.

Congress wants us all to be joint but we submariners & blackshoes can't even get along with each other on the same Navy deployment, let alone with different services. About the only thing that would cause those two Navy communities to work together would be an even stronger antipathy toward the Air Force. Your tax dollars at work...

No, but I have heard tales that they are hygene-challenged. :

Shipboard cleanliness (the equipment, not the people!) & sanitation (both equipment & people) are extremely important when the alternatives are firefighting, damage control, & food poisoning. No one skimps on those and lives to talk about it.

However hygiene is considered less important than having an adequate supply of water for the reactor/steam plant and being able to do proper maintenance on the evaporator. The submarine washer/dryer were only placed in service if we were under way for more than two weeks. It's all about priorities!

The submarine force goal was (maybe still is?) to use less than 22 gallons per day per person of potable water. This includes cooking and laundry as well as drinking or even showering/shaving. (Steam-supplied evaporators are gradually being replaced by reverse-osmosis systems, so this goal may be outdated.) Toilets are flushed by salt water so were not part of the total. If you regularly stayed below 20 gpd/person you were either a cheating liar or a hard-charging goal-oriented taskmaster with early signs of flag-officer potential. (And your crew had a 2% re-enlistment rate.)

Cooks and flag officers were allowed to shower anytime they wanted. Of course some other submarine sociopaths embraced the relaxed hygiene standards a little more enthusiastically than others, but a salt-water washdown and a couple babywipes go a long way.

My personal favorite was being on station and spending six-hour watches close-dancing with leaky periscopes (1-minute breaks every hour whether you needed it or not, unless a contact was within 10,000 yards). Between the salt-water trickles and the hydraulic-fluid drips it was either wear a rain hat (to the crew's perpetual amusement) or just shave your head.

 

[Brat]

At $8,200, I bet it is gone already.   

IMHO, unless this boat is a sinker, the new owner could invest $20,000+ in hull and engine work and still have a great deal.

I hope the purchaser checks with the marina on the live-aboard slip.  Marinas really want to vet their tennants, rent is market rate

 

[Jane_Doe]

Hi guys!

Question for Dory-

My husband and I looked into buying property in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island as a winter getaway/second home. We were told that island people frequently went over to the mainland (Ft. Lauderdale area, I think) to get groceries, supplies, etc. I (thought I) understood that it was a relatively quick trip - less than an hour or so by boat each way.

SO, the question is - where are you going from/going to in the Bahamas that will take (can't find original post but believe you said) 15 - 20 hours trip over??
Just curious - we still may end up buying a small condo in Freeport someday.

Also, just think you all need to note that (if I got this correctly) the OP, Claire is living in Great Brittain and will be traveling in the Mediterranian - kinda far to do anything stateside for her.

Question for Claire - what about all those riverboats/barges throughout Europe - that would seem easier and a really cool way to go - have you thought about this? I've always wanted to take a cruise on one of those things!

Have a great day!!

Jane

 

[sailor]

My husband and I looked into buying property in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island as a winter getaway/second home. We were told that island people frequently went over to the mainland (Ft. Lauderdale area, I think) to get groceries, supplies, etc. I (thought I) understood that it was a relatively quick trip - less than an hour or so by boat each way.

SO, the question is - where are you going from/going to in the Bahamas that will take (can't find original post but believe you said) 15 - 20 hours trip over??

I'm not Dory, but the sea distance between Freeport and Ft.Lauderdale is about 80 nautical miles.
It would be a heck of a fast boat to make it in an hour. Are you sure that they are not talking about a plane ride?

It takes 15-20hrs, because you travel at 5 or 7 knots if you have a trawler or a sailboat ("slow boats" also frequently go to Bimini, which is roughly half distance of Freeport)
If you have a planning boat than to go maybe 25 knots (but burning huge amounts of fuel)

 

[dory36]

The Exumas are popular for cruisers. A hundred or more will usually spend the winter there. It's about 80 miles past Nassau.

 

[Brat]

Recent sinking of a ferry in BC waters is a testiment to the fact that even professionals screw up!  It is a little early to blame it on the bridge, they could have had an engine issue.  Looks like everyone paid attention to the lifeboat drill, no injuries known.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Recent sinking of a ferry in BC waters...

I didn't hear about that!!! Gotta ask me bruddah, what happened.

 

[Brat]

In the middle of the night (~0100 I heard), out of the shipping lane, hit a rock in heavy seas between Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands.

Normally there are two on the bridge, an officer and a helmsman. If the course had been set using modern nav technology all kinds of alarms should have been going off.

Initially I heard that all were rescued but then that two persons are not accounted for. Given that many were helped by local fisherman they may have left the scene.

 

[Sheryl]

B'ham Herald reports (for what it's worth): Indian villagers of the small village of Hartley Bay, B. C. mobilized in speed boats and fishing boats to help in the rescue process. The paper reports that the ferry strayed off course and hit a rock. According to them no one was seriously hurt.

http://tinyurl.com/knhkk

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

If you have a planning boat than to go maybe 25 knots (but burning huge amounts of fuel)

i caught rides with my parents, neighbors & friends for long weekends--lauderdale to bimini--back in high school days. most were on planing hulls cruising closer to displacement speeds. if i remember right it was 3-5 hours to bimini.

even 25 knots is pretty fast. you can do bimini in an hour in a go-fast boat (40-50 knots) i suppose, if the gulf stream is flat, but ya might hit something on way and it's gonna be a long way down for such a short trip across.