71% of the surface of the world is composed of water, and 60% of the human body is composed of water.
Coincidence? I think not, humans are water creatures!
Before bashing real docks, go have fun with The Boat Docker.
A simple and fun similator with emphasis on learning docking skills. You can run from the website, or download a simple EXE to try on Windows. Oh the fun, its really missing the crunch noises tho!
I love small sailboats, specially ones where you can camp cruise.
Crow 16
One guy that has been designing and building his own boats, Roy Schreyer of RoyDesignedThat.com has designed and build several boats.
Roy does live fairly close by here (Alliston, I believe), I hope to one day cross wake and meet him and his boats.
No, that I have anytime to build a boat, but his Crow 16 catched my eye. Beach cruiser, with quite a bit of internal space (including a queen bunk - I kid you not), stable, can be sailed from the cabin Nice. And it is a Scow, I really like these type of designs. These designs are making a comeback in smaller boats now.
Also check out his YouTube channel, many interesting videos, mostly of his tiny innovative houseboat design called Rose.
Cheers!
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Advice for sailing YOLO
For the not aware, YOLO stands for You Only Live Once. This is generally associated with people accomplishing their bucket lists, quitting a bad job or marriage for accomplishing something they've always wanted to do.
First of all, I am the first one that envies the life of people living an Alternative lifestyle. Either giving up everything to go Sailing, Vanning, Biking, etc. God knows my YouTube subscriptions and blogs that I follow are full of people living it up, such as Sailing La Vagabonde, RAN Sailing, Hasta Alaska (aka Kombi Life), etc.
I almost did that myself, but....responsibilities and making sure I will retire with decent means, held those plans in check. I did, however, compromise by moving out of the city to live by the water with access to boating and fishing year round (not boating, but yes fishing). I have definitely improved my quality of life, not beating traffic and living in nature and on the water, plus having a great community all around.
So, a pet peeve of mine is definitely when someone seems to throw everything to the wind (literally and figuratively). The following two recent cases show what the dark side of YOLO can be:
Nikki Walsh and Tanner Broadwell bought at $5,000 1969 Columbia 28-foot sailboat to sail around the world. Their trip lasted 2 days. In the end the boat sunk to the bottom of the ocean. They departed Tarpon Springs, Florida. By 9PM on Wednesday, February 7, 2018, their boat was at the bottom of the sea. They were able to save their dog, a dinghy, and their IDs before abandoning ship to a SeaTow.
Case 2
This one pains me, as I know the couple. Mike and Rebecca Sweeney of ZeroToCruising, perhaps they should rename their blog CruisingToZero (bad joke, I know).
They left Canada about 8 years ago sold everything and bought a catamaran PDQ 32, sailed down to the Caribbean. They then went into business and chartered a boat for about 2 years from what I remember, then left that (due to unfortunate circumstances), bought an Amel 46 sailboat with the intention to sailing it to Patagonia. Unfortunately, issues were found after buying the boat. They have a pending lawsuit regarding the boat issues. They then decided to bike down from California to Patagonia instead. Suddenly, in Costa Rica, they are completely out of funds.
How does that happen? Lack of planning? Lack of acknowledging reality? Hoping for a miracle? Biking through central America is as cheap as it gets.
Thank god I know these guys will bounce back as they have a great network and many friends, but it is very unfortunate and sad to see.
General Advice for YOLOing (for sailing specifically):
Learn to sail first
Never enter a strange harbour at night
Have an overall backup plan (totally missing in both cases)
Better planning, especially financially, I know life can throw curveballs, so being conservative is better/safer.
Example: On buying a boat, I would say a good rule of thumb would be to buy a boat that is less than 10% of your net worth. Probably higher when younger as time give you a chance to recover, but at most 30%. The reason for this is to make sure you are not sunk (pardon the pun) financially should disaster strike.
Have a revenue stream to keep you afloat.
House being rented out (or passive investments)
Books or articles revenues
Work and travel. Replenish the cruising kitty frequently.
Less attractive, but do-able: make money while travelling (here, here, here, and here)
Others?
I am not trying to condescending in anyways, but frankly, I don't see too many of these pieces of advice on the internet. Hopefully, some people see this and think about consequences and more importantly PLAN better.
I'm always fascinated by small boats. Here is one tiny/small motor boat that looks like fun. The RapidWhale Mini-Boat.
Mini-Boat
Designed by Josh
Tulberg, the Rapid Whale Mini Boat is a DIY kit that lets you build a
tiny one-person watercraft. That’s right, you’ll actually have to put
this thing together on your own, which should be fun if you enjoy
building stuff in your spare time. We don’t know how long building one
of these things will actually take, but we imagine it can take up an
entire weekend (maybe more). If building a boat sounds daunting, well,
it kind of is. For this project, though, Tulberg simplified the process
as much as possible, relying on the popular “stitch and glue” method of
boat building. Except, he simplified it further by replacing the
stitching part with binding the part using zip-ties instead, which
should help speed up the build in a considerable manner.
The kit includes laser-cut marine plywood parts, various 3D-printed
plastic components, a thick Plexiglas steering wheel, steering shaft
bearings, and various sizes of gaskets. If that doesn’t sound enough to
build a boat, you’re right. The kit is designed to pair with a list of
items you can get off the shelf, all of which are available from an
Excel sheet on the product page. It’s quite a long list, so it could be
overwhelming, although they did include a direct link to a specific
recommended product from either Amazon or Chesapeake Light Craft, so you
can just click on the links to order everything in one sitting
There's a funny video here, it looks like its going real fast, but only 4MPH, also can only carry 200lbs occupant, which is probably less desirable for a US market. Good for most anywhere else!
Kit available for $950, seems a little steep to me, but still lots of fun.
