sv Bella Rose

 reply to jan/feb 2007 issue, printed in mar/apr 2007 issue

SOUNDING OUT – Jan/Feb 2007 * Volume XXXIV #1

What advice do you have about buying a liveaboard boat?

What did you do right and what did you do wrong?

If you had it to do over, what would your dream boat look like?

You asked and here goes. I am assuming the questions are intended to help people looking at buying their first liveaboard boat. Just remember that my opinion and $1.25 will buy you a cup of coffee.

As I started writing my response I chose the advice most people give. Trawler or sailboat, size of boat, layout, displacement, cost, storage space, you’ve heard it all before. I deleted all of that and decided to take a different, I think unique, approach. Everything in life is a compromise. If there was such a thing as a “perfect” boat to live on we would all have the same boat. The truth is you can live on any boat if you really want to.

What you are really buying is a lifestyle, a lifestyle of independence and self-sufficiency. Don’t be a procrastinator. Don’t be so afraid of making a wrong decision that you make no decision. Don’t live on "Someday Isle.” Clearly there is no single "right" way to move aboard and cruise. So jump in with both feet and do it. Do it now while you have your health. Time is against you. Avoid catching the very contagious disease “Analysis Paralysis.” Too many people spend all of their time planning the purchase of the “perfect” boat and never get around to actually buying the darn thing. Don’t get too caught up in the details. Aft-cockpit or center-cockpit, sloop vs. ketch, 32’, 34’, 40’. It doesn’t matter. Stop thinking about it and just do it. The best boat to live on is the boat you own not the one you are dreaming of owning.

As you live on your boat you will learn what you need and don’t need. Will you make mistakes? Probably, but who cares! That is how we learn. So choose, make a decision, continue on, stop dreaming, start living, and most of all have fun.

Oh yea, my dream boat, hmm, well, it would definitely have a shower and an engine room like the sailboat in “Captain Ron.”

Rob