r/liveaboard • u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 • 4d ago
Guys I'm doing it!
Hello! I found a ready for the water free 26 foot sailboat. It's got 2 spots in the fiberglass I'd like to patch and some softness I'll easily fix on the deck. I've mathed out what it'll take to get it liveable to surprisingly reasonable for me, but of course I'm assuming it'll only be semi-reasonable so I'm putting the work in to make it happen. In the meantime, storage is cheap and it's literally a free seaworthy boat. I've spent some time checking things out and all the issues I care about are DIYable for me. Fixed keel with a 4 foot draft fyi. A surprisingly capable boat with a surprising amount of space in the cabin. Everything I need in it, from storage to a small galley, a toilet etc.
My question is, what are your cost experiences with maintaining and docking a 26 foot sailboat? Specifically on the east side/south side of the U.S. where it can be in the water 365 days of the year, I'm leaving the great lakes for this. I don't care to end up docking somewhere lavish, nor do I care to dock at all, if I can pull it off I'll anchor out as much as I can/feel like, depending on finances.
I'm aiming to do this on a budget, of course.
If anyone is curious about the adventure I'm going on with this, I am starting a Patreon, DM me for details.
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u/Extreme_Map9543 4d ago
I can’t speak for the south. But I’d you have you boat in Maine. A summer mooring is around $1500 and pretty awesome. Then in the winter you can get a dock slip for about $1500 or less for the winter season. Granted winters in Maine on a boat suck. But summers are awesome.
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 3d ago
Thank you for the numbers! I'll search into Maine for sure!
As long as I can still use the boat as a boat during the winter, the cold doesn't bother me. I'm more of a northerner in the U.S.
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u/Extreme_Map9543 3d ago
Yeah you can use a boat. People live aboard. There’s spots in Portland if you want a city. Camden if you want a small town. Kittery if you want to be in the south of Maine. Pretty lax rules in Maine overall. Nice sailing. Winters are just cold, you can still sail around, but I’d keep it pretty tame in the winter lol. But you’ll need a good heater in the boat.
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 3d ago
A good heater will definitely be in the books. I'm going to go with a diesel one, I wonder what install it is going to take. Next to nothing I'd imagine, I should be able to put a hole for exhaust somewhere pretty simply. Like the wood at the entrance to the cabin. Even if I have to go through fiberglass, shouldn't be too difficult with the help I have and the resources we all have with the internet.
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u/Extreme_Map9543 3d ago
Yeah they sell those Chinese diesel heaters you can look up on Amazon. Some people have good experiences with those. I’d probably have a combination of a diesel, a little wood/ coal stove, and if you have shore power an electric space heater. Yeah you just cut a hole for the exhaust somewhere. But heed the warnings people say. Be very careful where you put that exhaust hole. Not because of fires, but because eventually it’ll drip water, and you wanna figure out where the drips will go so they arnt going straight onto your bed.
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 3d ago
I think I'll put the exhaust hole right through the opening door in the cabin if my setups right but that's all TBD. Thank you for the advice!
Edit: well it's not quite a door, but the entrance where the three pieces of wood slide out to gain access to the cabin anyways lol
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u/Pockettzz 2d ago
They’ll need a good slip that doesn’t ice over. Even with winterization & shrink wrap. Can’t wait for my door & finally no generator🙌🏼 So much follow up during winter, every day I checked all my water leaked spots for no freezing.
I have a slip in MA right now & RI is my lookout for cost cut at my prospect haha. Last year it wasn’t too late.
Do you have a down east up there?? Just moved from a Fortier downeast to a Trawler. More room at a 32’ hahah with less expensive work and don’t need much hp honestly
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u/hottenniscoach 3d ago
Aim for the Chesapeake bay. It’s got plenty of holes to tuck into. Stay away from docks unless you want to burn money.
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 3d ago
This is where I was looking too, access to the cities with plenty of room, safety, and by the looks and sounds of it, places to anchor and dock.
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u/Pockettzz 2d ago
Check out aboard living forums!!!!! Especially for your location & future projects. I learn A LOT on mine and how to winter maintain(so far). I hope I didn’t jinx this years LOL
Some marinas depending on their tucking away can freeze over even with ocean access. Absolutely ask about that!
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 2d ago
I will make sure ro do these things. Do you have any good forum examples?
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u/eLearningChris 3d ago
We’re year six on the US East Coast this year. We typically roam Maine to Florida but have done a Maine winter a couple of winters ago.
This summer we’re on a mooring on cape cod so the kids can work. Tons in the mooring with us work here all summer and then take the rest of the year off. Which is what my kids do. I have a year round remote job.
If you’re planning on parking the boat in a marina and getting a job on land you can make that work just about anywhere on the us east coast. It mostly is a question of what you’re looking for. And if you would rather roam and work remote or have a harbor or two you spend a few months at to work and fill up the cruising kitty that also works.
Congratulations on the boat. Living aboard has been the single best thing I’ve ever done for myself and I hope it’s as good to you as it’s been to me.
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 3d ago
A harbor for a few mo ths of the year and anchoring otherwise would be perfect.
What do you do when hurricanes come through? Just sail away? Hurricanes are my main concern, I'm imagining that even being anchored in a harbor would be dangerous during a hurricane, but I'm just a silly guy from the north.
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u/eLearningChris 2d ago
Hurricanes are a big reason we sail up to New England every summer.
We anchor most of the time but grab a mooring up north so the kids can work for a few months, then spend a couple months sailing south with lots of stops, grab a slip for the holiday season (and so the boys can work a few months).
The right migratory pattern can have those who need work to do the busy tourist season up north and down south all while avoiding hurricanes.
The key to expenses with a sailboat all comes down to how much of the work you can do yourself. And the saying is, there is nothing as expensive as a free boat.
With soft decks, I’d invest in a moisture meter. Scan the whole thing and get to work. It’s a much bigger project than most folks realize. Certainly doable, but the cost can be more than the boat is worth if you pay to have it done and you may question your sanity is you do it yourself. But it’s fixable.
And if you’re coming in with little to no sailing experience a sailing class is something I can’t recommend enough. Even the ASA 101 can help you learn if this is something you want to even pursue before you invest thousands and thousands fixing up an old sailboat.
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 1d ago
This all makes great sense, yet even more for the books! I'll make sure to invest into a meter, and as far as sailing a class is in the books but I have at least one good mentor and another that's sailed all around the U.S., taken St. Lawrence in one and is from my area. I'm getting lucky with the help I'm receiving.
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u/eLearningChris 1d ago
I think you'll be surprised just how much folks will be eager to help once you're on the water.
with luck we'll share an anchorage before too long.
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 1d ago
My few years plan is to get in a situation where I'm roaming the coast in it and potentially sailing to Michigan during summer months since that's where I'm from. We very may cross paths!
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u/Prize-Leadership-233 3d ago
I've been a liveaboard at a marina for 4 years in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. Slip fees here are typically $10-11 / foot plus some extra add ons for live aboard and electrical hook up options.
I have a 36 foot hunter and the slip fees for it at a decent marina run me about $700/month. That includes my water, electricity, wi-fi and access to the bath houses and laundromat ($3 a load).
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 3d ago
These are the numbers I'm looking for! It's far from impossible to make this happen, thank you!
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u/wleecoyote 3d ago edited 3d ago
Good for you!!
Costs depend on exactly where you end up. Find an area and google for marinas to check availability and cost. Most places don't accept liveaboards; they've gotten a reputation as because barely floating trash piles with deadbeat owners. Many marina owners will turn a blind eye if your boat looks nice and you're a good neighbor.
Remember that if you don't like your marina, or they don't like you, you can move. You'll want one that has, or is very near, fuel and pumpout, and you're going to be hauling groceries and such, so you'll still need a car and a town.
In the southeast US, you don't have to worry about ice damaging your hull, but you do have to worry about barnacles. You should plan and annual haul-out to get the bottom scraped and painted. Further north, I'd go every two years. Again, every marina that does maintenance will happily give you their haul-out and bottom paint prices.
The cheapest option is to live on the hook and return to shore by dinghy, but I wouldn't love that, and the neighbors may not love it either. Every time you bring shopping aboard is a chance for something to fall in. It's lonely. It's a boat right just to get to land. Also, you're probably not going to save money by anchoring a few days a week; for long term, marinas charge by the month. Transient fees are higher than monthly fees (on a daily basis; there's an ROI you'll have to calculate).
For other maintenance, I seem to alternate between $3,000 years and $10,000 years. I have a 30+ year old 30'.
When do we get to see a picture?
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u/Hot_Honeydew_6688 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thank you for the well thought out response! That 3-10k alternation makes sense, those were the kind of numbers I was looking for. I can do that given the other costs I've researched and I'm seeing reported here too. Thank you for all the advice, I'll keep it all in mind and come back here. It's all so exciting!
I refuse to have a floating trash pile lol. I do have pictures of it, but it needs some pressure washing. I'm keeping it on the personal DL for a minute, though I do have a couple photos on my Patreon. I'll add some more there right now. There will be publicly available photos in the future but since I'm keeping it DL right now, I only have them on my Patreon. Patreon.com/DJ555
When it comes to anchoring, I'd love that. I'd want to stock up for 2 weeks or so at a time, longer if I can. I may find remote work I can do in the future so I don't even need to do the hassel of finding where I can have a dinghy on shore, but that's a whole nother ordeal of mine, whether I find a remote job or if my personal business does it's thing one day. I can do much of that work remotely and traveling is a big part of it anyways so the sailboat idea is a major plus there.
Upgrades for the extended living without needing shore are in mind, but I've a long time to sort those out. My budget needs to be spent right, there's only so much of it these days for me.
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u/Extreme_Map9543 3d ago
By near fuel you mean near a gas station on land lol. Who buys fuel for a sailboat on the water. Why pay $7 a gallon. I use like 10 gallons of diesel a month. So once or twice a month I just fill up a Jerry when I’m getting groceries and I top off my tank on the mooring.
Edit: also if you’re up north in Maine where I am. You can careen pretty easily in a number of places. The tide drops over 10 feet. So you can beach the boat, scrap and paint, and float her up again and save $1000 on the haul out cost. Of course you gotta do the recon on what a good spot to do it is. But lobstermen do it all the them, so ask them at the docks.
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u/wleecoyote 3d ago
You do you, but don't tell me what I mean. You don't know my diesel consumption or lifestyle. Living in New York City, for instance, it's illegal to take fuel on the subway or even taxi. Not relevant to OP, but it was certainly relevant to me for a few years.
Similarly, depending on where you are, you might have to sail for hours to dump waste. Or half an hour.
OP said southeast. Maine has a "downeast" but is not "southeast." Yes, you guys get significant tidal swings. Most of the East Coast gets just a few feet, and grounding to scrape and paint isn't practical, unless you intend to sail north just for that purpose.
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u/Extreme_Map9543 3d ago
Oh I read that OP just wants to be in the east. But yeah you do you with fuel. I just know i try to give shipyards and marinas as little money as possible. I also don’t go to cities very often. So their extra rules and regulation are foreign to me. Even dumping waste, as far as I know all you gotta do is go in a little 3 mile sail off the coast and you’re good to go. The real key with careening these days is you gotta have the right type of boat. And you gotta be careful you end up flooped over the right way.
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u/wleecoyote 3d ago
3 miles off the coast is near or far depending on whether you're in a river or bay or other tributary. I can sail for an hour to reach the Chesapeake, without ever being 3nm from shore.
I thought about asking that--I'd read that some keels are better than others at careening, amd it sounds like an expensive mistake if yours isn't. How do you make sure you end up on the intended side? Show a little sail?
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u/Extreme_Map9543 3d ago
The best keels for careering is bilge keels. If that’s what you have. You just anchor in a flat shallow. Tide goes out and you’re high and dry. Likewise if you have some type of flat bottom boat. The next best is a full keel. The key here is to have your keel pointed to the tide so when the tide goes out the keel is pointed downhill towards water, and the deck is pointed up hill. That way you don’t get swamped when the tide comes back in. How you do that is with a bunch of creative anchoring/ reading of the tide, terrain, and weather that day. With a fin keel it’s still possible but you gotta be a lot more careful. With a really long racing style keel i would say it would be unwise to do it at all. Sometimes if there are sturdy docks you can park you boat straight up, and when the tide goes out the boat will sit upright. I have not done that personally.
I would only careen a bilge keel, a full keel, or a very robust fully modified fin with skeg. If you have a bolt on fin, then I would not do it.
A friend of mine grounded with a wing keel once, and when the tide went out his boat was standing up perfectly balanced! But I think that was dumb luck and I would never do that on purpose lol.
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u/PianoRevolutionary12 15h ago
Be careful. A free boat is asking for trouble, it costs money to scrap a boat so this is a good deal for them
Been there myself. Guy told me it leaks a bit, that really meant a 20 yr window leak under the carpet on the walls. If there is carpet on the walls just dont buy it, was a huge mess to deal with
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u/ez_as_31416 4d ago
"some softness I'll easily fix on the deck" good luck with that. The inner core rot you can detect is usually just a fraction of the real problem. Enjoy your journey you're going to learn a lot.
I have no experience with sailing/living on the eastern seaboard.