Retirement Dreams

Hi sminsc and welcome to YF,

I'm a little prejudice (understatement!), but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a website with more in-depth content on yachts. There are a couple of brand-specific forums, with knowledgeable owners sharing experience, but we are privileged to have a good number of industry experts on YF.

I might suggest... before posing a question of this nature, you take advantage of some useful tools. The "search" button on YF's wooden NavBar will likely reveal some spirited topics. Short of that, a Google search using yacht-related keywords.

Hi sminsc and welcome to the forums ,

If I understand you right, you are looking for informations about living on a yacht.

Here is a thread about this: http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-yachting-discussion/4976-living-yacht.html

"15 years away from retirement and still confident that whatever you're stashing away will allow you freedom at last?!"

In my humble opinion, Europe and N. America are basically already bankrupt, except noone's yet calling in the loans. Europe will not be able to afford her "not very generous social benefits when you think about them" in just a few more years, the USA "never had any generous social benefits" to begin with. The USA will keep going for a few more years longer than the EU will thanks to all the new immigrants too.

One day, you'll wish your daughter will get married to a Chinaman, if only to safeguard some form of decent retirement (they have an important sense of family I understand). That'll solve 2 problems with 1 stone: the lack of Chinese females on the one hand because of imperfect Chinese population control in the past and that "the global manufacturing of everything" apart from the Sino-Airbus A-38X airplanes bringing the lonely Chinese males over to our (now impoverished nations), is now entirely in the hands of China.

Nope, if I were 15 years away from retirement, I'd be thinking of more delightful daughters, who study Mandarin in high school...?!

A glimpse of "what might have been though": The sailor's logs are excellent...?!

Hi,

Welcome to YF.

There are many questions to be answered long before the draft and generator selection comes into play.

Do you and your other half have any boating background?

I ask this as a very serious question. There are a number of couples who own big yachts where one does not do the sea action at all well.

Where are you planning on cruising? Is it worldwide or do you just want to stay local somewhere and live on the water.

Hi,

As you might guess from my Avtar I have more than a passing interest in Diesel Engines partly owing to having started my apprenticeship as a Diesel Mechanic 30 yrs ago and having been involved with engines and engineering ever since.

My personal choice for a longterm live aboard with non set in stone cruising plans would be a trawler type vessel. Some of these even have an auxiliary means of drive should the main lump fail. The biggest thing if you are going to cruise to remote locations and intend to maintain most systems yourself is to keep things simple as possible. Whilst an automated everything is great when you push the touch screen and the pump/valve/motor represented on the mimic actually does what it's supposed to. It can be very frustrating/annoying and cause much elevated blood pressure and family feuding when the ******** thing doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

Are you just going to do this big adventure with your husband or are there a tribe of offspring to be included in these plans.

As far as a "Liveaboard Guide for Dummies" Your best bet to get the widest range of ideas and experiences would be to keep plugging away here and to see if there are any magazines that cover this unusual hobby where you might find some links/info to contact clubs etc.

Good Luck.

research material

Welcome to the club, my girlfriend and I are in the process of purchasing a boat to go cruising in the islands for the next couple of years. We currently live in ft Lauderdale Florida and have found a great resource dedicated to cruisers called Bluewater books and charts bluewaterweb.com. These people have books on every possible aspect of cruising, including guides and charts for every area of the planet. These guys are a wealth of knowledge as most have done what we are contemplating. We have put in alot of time and effort to the planning and preparation for our own upcoming departure and if we can be of help let us know. Good luck

I'm sort of in the same "boat" though with less onboard experience but also looking for and reading tons of literature, mostly online so I speak from what I've read more than experience - which is abundant here from others.

A lot can happen in 15 years. This is a long term plan and as such, I wouldn't be worried too much about the hardware. It will change. The rate of change seems to have gradually increased as it has in most industries. Besides, there's no perfect boat given the range of geography, weather and sea conditions you are likely to encounter. It's more an art of compromises. Trawlers appear to be big these days. Tugs also have a good following. Cats also have their niche.

A lot of owners tend to move up in size so I'd start off as big as you could handle, physically and financially. Yachts in the 60-90' size will increasingly be built for owner/operator requirements.

It's possible there will also be a much larger number of boats in the water in 15 years. Some areas may not be the same as they are today. Some laws may change - eg. wastewater issues. With increasing numbers, I would expect more lobbying for the industry. Hopefully that's a good thing.

You may also find more yachts with partial ownership as baby boomers retire.

As I'm sure you can appreciate, hands-on experience can be difficult to assimilate from the written word. I would also organize a charter or three to get a better feel for the lifestyle. It could even be with onboard learning from a hired captain.

I think too many buyers get caught up on a few specific elements of the lifestyle that appeal to them which tends to cloud their judgment. Doing a charter puts you into the element, allowing you to be in better touch with any aspects you might have been overlooking or ignoring.

Some sources that I've enjoyed reading have been some of the owner's blogs listed on the Nordhavn site. Other mfg. sites have similar, such as Nordic Tugs.

Here's a good booklist.

There is a "Sailing for Dummies". Powerboating or Live onboard for dummies can only be a matter of time? Or perhaps the Zen of living onboard! How 'bout "The SIMS, Yachting"?

While this is a great dream, be sure to also enjoy the moment.

living the dream

Seems you are getting a lot of interest in your long term quest. The right boat given the plethora of vessels out there is what it came down to for us. I have been boating my whole life ( 46 now ) and even did some time selling new construction yachts and production boats before retiring 2 years ago. I also have experience running every type of vessel imaginable from 18-80'. We just sold our 55 Baia, which is an Italian express boat with surface drives in order to purchase something more suited to long term, long range cruising. We have looked at every imaginable type of vessel and settled on motoryachts for the interior volume. we looked at newer motoryachts in the 55-75' range and found that they are mostly made to impress sitting at the dock but have very poor space utilization for long term cruising. There are just the 2 of us a dog and a cat and 4 staterooms tiny showers and very limited storage on a modern 70 production yacht will not work for us without redesigning the interior. This led us to older (1975-1989 ) hatteras, burger, chris craft etc. having had extensive experience refitting boats we decided to find the right layout, ie large salon, large galley good exterior spaces cockpit etc, and refit the boat to our requirements. The boat sales market is in the toilet right now so there are some amazing deals on well kept older motoryachts today. We looked at a 70 hatteras that needed some cosmetic work only just sold for 300k, an 82 burger that needed 200k in refit but sold for 200k and change. It made sense for us to meet our must have requirements and finish the boat exactly the way we want. Trawlers are just too slow, and rolly polly for me but sure have a strong following out there so I would not rule them out. There are bareboat charter companies , and even a trawler school in St Petersburg if you want to try that type of boat. You should look up several magazines on the net, Passagemaker and, Power Cruising both dedicated to long term cruising.

We are a little closer to retirement than you by about fourteen years, with the same dream. My wife and I both have been reading everything we can get our hands on about the cruising life, from travel logs to technical books. We jump back and forth everyday between this forum the magazine Passagemaker forum. A lot of the same people participate in both and we have learned an awful lot, from costs to tactical info. Don't be shy, it took me a couple of years before I realized my questions we not dumb and that others would jump right in with the same concerns, pretty soon you had real experts from all over the world answering your doubts. Have fun and welcome aboard.

being practical

Whilst it is good to be practical, size of main engines, fuel consumption etc at the end of the day we are talking about LIVING day in and day out in a given amount of space. Now most people I know who have the readies $$ to buy a large boat and go cruising are now living in at least a 3 bedroom house larger than 3,000 sq ft. Wait until you reduce that to less than half. Any boat short of a mega yacht is going to get small real fast. I had a couple of buddies who took off for the islands on a 45 ft sail boat and lasted all of 3 months before they were ready to kill each other. I have done some cruising and space is the most practical concern..... the older Burgers are a beautiful boat and there are several we have looked at locally. They have a tendancy to be narrow, 64 footer is 16 ft beam, were as a 63 Hatteras from the early 1980's is 17'4" - 18'2" depending on model, which translates to more space. Also resale on boats from the 1960's is not great now and only going down so we had to consider if we refit a 1968 Burger today what will we be able to recoupe of our $ in 5 years when we are done. Not much is probably the answer. Not a number I like very much. Another thought for your consideration should be insurance. we have been going through this hoop now. due to the insurance industries increasing greed they have implemented new conditions regarding motoryachts over 60 feet that are run by owner operator who is not a licensed capt. They would preffer if you have a licensed captain on board at all times in order to write the policy, failing which they are going to charge ridiculous rates. I have a huge amount of documented experience on vessels between 50 - 70 feet and got a quote of $25,000 per annum for coverage on a 1988 Hatteras 70 motoryacht. We can self insure but many yards and marinas won't let you in without a current insurance policy. Food for thought before you start dreaming about that 70 footer.

Check out the mid '70's 53' Hatteras MY or the 58' Hatteras Yachtfisher. it's A LOT of boat for the money. it can be easily handled by a couple with little problems. Currently, my wife and I are buying a Yachtfish at this time. this is our retirement boat even though we are nowhere near retirement.

Good luck and enjoy.
Mario

In the process of planning your retirement dreams you could study and become certified as ISPA (or similar) Coastal Skipper Power or Yachtsman Offshore, etc. Not sure how this works in relation to insurance. Perhaps someone could advise on whether certifications affect cost of insurance and/or ability to be insured in the larger sizes.

I think you'll have some great choices in 10-15 years when you look at some of the newer boats available now. I like Horizon's Vision 68' in the semi-displacement category. It's just under 70' but has the space of a much larger boat. I need at least 3 staterooms and 4-5 would be ideal. This is harder to acheive in a trawler without getting huge. If I could afford it, insure it and pilot it, the Nordhavn 76' is probably my first choice.

It would be nice to know what diesel will cost in 15 years! I think it is safe to assume that operating costs will increase at a faster pace than that of the boats you are considering. If the hardware increases 40% over 15 years, the operating costs could go up 2-3x's of today's costs.

Good luck and dare to dream!