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Interesting comment in article about how in the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil, living on a soailboat may be the future...

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51212

Any boat lovers here know anything about what to buy, how much and other info?

hi m8

biggest site (like the right-move of the boating world):

http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/

be prepared to spend hours on here if you like boats.

Sailing and boating are very expensive. You will need a good 4x4 to get anything over 14ft out of the water and home. You could get a mooring, but the boat will take a beating and will need to be taken out of the water and antifouled once a year. If you have a mooring ( you will have to buy one or rent) you will need a tender, if you do not live close to the fishing village ( one of the most expensive places to live in the country) you will need to rent a home for your tender or again tow it to the coast.

You will need a boat skippers certificate or yachmaster if you intend to go out further than 3 miles, a constant passage plan will need to be kept.

The coastguard will board you at sea and if you cannot show them exactly where you are, and where you have come from on a chart....prosecution. Diesel is expensive when you buy it in port.

To live on a yacht you will need 100K to begin, 12k a year to support yourself and a very good knowledge of tides, winds and vectors,rules of the road(sea) buoyage .

If you are an exceptionally gifted sailor with a proven track record you can make a living by delivering yachts to customers.

Hi

I think alot of what you say may not be so relevant in the future. For me, a boat gives the option of a getting out if things get too sticky and where I currently live is well provided with places to keep boats.

In the chaos of a post peak world, i imagine that some of the paperwork/procedures will go out of the window.

I imagine that the twin challanges are 1) learn how to sail and 2) get the money to buy a boat

If it was rigged with a small renewable system, some few months of tinned food, it could be a little safe haven if the worst came on the land.

Yes, but if we get to the situation to which you describe then it will Haiti upon sea. If Haiti upon sea is writ large, then never come to shore or else you will be murdered, robbed and all manner of painful mischievous acts visited upon you. Your corned beef will not keep you happy for long.

Pray there is a slow transition.

In a word, "piracy". You are particularly vulnerable at sea when there is a breakdown of law and order.

It's odd seeing Orlov writing that EB piece; his philosophy was to be semi-nomadic, where you have multiple communities to live with. There's not much of a community at sea.....

I looked into this a few years back and apart from the obvious that I can't sail... My feeling is that a small catamaran is the way to go. They offer the most living space, and the largest deck area. Stability and speed are multi hull trademarks. Capsize a single hull vessel and it sinks, capsize a cat and it floats. Survivability!

I originally thought of a trimaran, but that was because I read Luke Rhinehart's Long Voyage Back as a teenager.



I got loads of books and stuff about the RYA training courses, but then the bubble burst and my house is worth SFA...

I am a competent dinghy sailor. Just before Christmas I got my first 'proper' boat.

It is a Junk rigged version of this;
http://www.kyoa.org.uk/k20+technical.htm

Boats like this have been sailed as far as Australia.

It cost me £500 for the boat and £500 for the trailer. I expect to spend another £1000 on it to make it shipshape.

It is safety certificate exempt. Insurance is about £100 a year
It will cost be £120 a year for launching and navigation rights down to the estuary. Storage is costing me £240 a year.

Not a cheap hobby, but I really like sailing. Better than spending it on beer.

I like the idea of being able to go out and catch my own fish.

Sam

Junk rigged twin keel, outstanding, please post some pics once it's done... I don't have a boat of my own, but I can dream.

I was persuaded in my teens to crew a huge ketch in an ocean race.

Half the crew failed to turn up, we hit a HUGE storm, the cabin filled to chest height with water, the auxiliary diesel fuel tank ruptured soaking everything below decks in fuel ... so I spent two weeks either working or strapped to a mast to sleep. Fours hours off, eight hours on. Being hit by waves the whole effing two weeks.

I have never been so scared in all my life - never again.

The ocean is NOT your friend.

Neither are supertankers approaching you at night.

sam_uk wrote:
I like the idea of being able to go out and catch my own fish.

If you want to catch fish cheaply, then learn tidal diamonds on charts. It is free power source out to sea and back again. Also potting is a good source of free food.

I have a 14ft version of this http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... 8%26um%3D1

It is a good stable fishing platform for catching fish, crab and lobster. The little boat has been a great source of food.

stumuzz wrote:Sailing and boating are very expensive. You will need a good 4x4 to get anything over 14ft out of the water and home. You could get a mooring, but the boat will take a beating and will need to be taken out of the water and antifouled once a year. If you have a mooring ( you will have to buy one or rent) you will need a tender, if you do not live close to the fishing village ( one of the most expensive places to live in the country) you will need to rent a home for your tender or again tow it to the coast.

You will need a boat skippers certificate or yachmaster if you intend to go out further than 3 miles, a constant passage plan will need to be kept.

The coastguard will board you at sea and if you cannot show them exactly where you are, and where you have come from on a chart....prosecution. Diesel is expensive when you buy it in port.

To live on a yacht you will need 100K to begin, 12k a year to support yourself and a very good knowledge of tides, winds and vectors,rules of the road(sea) buoyage .

If you are an exceptionally gifted sailor with a proven track record you can make a living by delivering yachts to customers.

Well it can be done cheaply. We have a 27 foot Catalac Catamaran which cost £15k. There are plenty of second hand boats big enough to live on for this price or cheaper. Our mud berth on an East Coast river (75 minutes drive from London, bit longer by train) costs £2.16 a day, it has fresh water via a permanent hose and I can connect to mains power via an extension cable to a coin meter if I need to, but generally we can survive off grid in the summer using solar PV and being frugal. The old chap we bought the boat from had been living aboard for a couple of years.

The boat only floats for a couple of hours each day and is up river a mile or so, so it's pretty well protected from the elements. Anti-fouling - I dont use it - nasty poisonous stuff. At the start of the sailing season I let the boat dry out on a beach between tides, and scrub the bottom, problem solved.

I'm not sure where you get the 3 mile rule from?? I'm pretty certain most of the old sea-dogs who are my neighbours have never done any RYA sailing certs and they all go further than 3 miles from shore! I do have a Day Skipper certificate - it involves a 5 day course costing about £400, but I did this for my own peace of mind, in the UK certification is entirely voluntary.

We sailed to France and Holland last summer, and the only officialdom we encountered was Dutch customs wanting to know if we had any spirits or cigarettes on board, they were very friendly and they certainly weren't interested in seeing my Day Skiper cert

An article on the 9m Catalac (ours is an 8m)

http://www.catamaransite.com/catalac9m_article.htm

If I was new to sailing and had £5000 to spare I'd probably buy a Hirondelle Catamaran like this one:

http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/image.phtml ... 00&image=1

At 23 foot, it's a smaller than the Catalac, but still manages to sleep 5 adults!

For more cheap boating inspiration check out the Anarchist Yacht Club: these guys who bought a boat for $1000, fixed it up and sailed from Florida to the Bahamas, great little film called 'Hold Fast' well worth downloading:

http://www.blueanarchy.org/holdfast/


And the man whose story got me into boating, and has probably done more than most to save sailing from the suits and the accountants:

http://wharram.com/index.php

Tidal Diamonds (for the curious).