So yeah, still haven’t bought a boat 🙂 So I did the next best thing and went sailing with a friend. Five weeks, from Amsterdam (Netherlands) down to Oostende (Belgium) and back to Wilhelmshaven (Germany). I’m not too much in the mood for writing much, so here’s just a couple of photos…
So this will be a series I guess. Giving me a better grasp of what I want and to give the uninitiated a better understanding of my struggles. Luxusprobleme is the german term for the struggle to find a decent yacht btw.
Question #1 is normally: How big a boat should be? This one is relatively easy to answer: As small as you feel comfy with. The larger the more expensive. As a rule of thumb the price doubles for every meter of length, so a 11m boat is 4 times the price of a 9m boat. The curve gets rather linear for large values, Superyachts for example are around a million per meter. Since I’ll be living on the thing I want standing headroom and some space, so it will be around the 11m of length and 3m wide. Less room than a 20m2 room for comparison (boats ain’t brick-shaped).
Question #2 is normally: Price?. This depends on Question #1 of course. For Example a new Dufour 350 (35ft -> 11m, mid range mass produced model) retails around 150.000€ and is neither equipped nor really suited for long distance travel. A new suitable and decently equipped boat for travelling probably runs around half a million but since these are not really mass produced there are no price lists available. Having a boat is also pricey, if you’re not into DIY expect to pay 10% of the buying price each year as expenses (insurance, service, harbours, …). To cut a long story short: buying new is beyond my budget, even if I could come up with the purchase price, the running costs would push me in a full time job which would take all the travel time away. So were looking more at 40+ years old boats, costing around 10% of the aforementioned sums.
Question #3 might be: Sailboat or Powerboat?. This one is related to #2 as well. Powerboats are so thirsty that I just can’t afford long distance travel with them. And there’s the impact on the environment, organisational issues (no gas station in mid atlantic), the noise of the engine, …
To sum it up: Sailboat, around 11m long, 3m wide, and 30+Â years old. Standing Headroom, suitable for long distance travel. Got a picture yet? No? Just bear with me, I’ll fill in some details…
Prepare to heave-to
There’s guests coming over for coffee.
Next to a 38.5m boat, mine looks quite small..
The weather picked up, so we had to leave fast.
The night wasn’t to comfortable either.
Single best thing about sailing: Sundown at anchor. Never gets old.
Taking pictures for selling the boat. Note the neatly stored foresail, thanks Julia.
The river Trave seems to be a hotspot for nice sunsets
This time I had guests over for coffee.
Burning field/harvester
just passing by, nothing happened
harbors can also be quite nice.
There is no tide in the baltic. But if there’s wind the water can drop by 1,3 meters (in the kieler bight)
Traditional motoring: Hoist all sails and then the largest boat starts the engine to tow all the smaller boats.
Speed record that season.
And some wind as well, gusting 8bft…
End of Season 2016
Not on a boat, Camping close to Hamburg. And boom, it’s 2017
Unhealthy habits…
Some people like to anchor uncomfortably close.
Dutch guy who ran aground.
Yeah, the longer I don’t write the harder it is to get into it again because there’s so much catching up to do. Let’s just break this cycle and not catch up. Or just a little bit. The last one and a half years was more or less a filler episode. Same old, same old. Sailing, tinkering, working, travelling, … Not too shabby at all but also not spectacular in any way. One noteworthy thing is that I sold the boat and a bunch of other stuff.
Now I’m yet again working on some weird project which is conveniently a couple of 100 km away from my flat. yay! So let’s just look at some pictures in anticipation of next year. Let’s just say there is more of that to come 🙂
Some pics from sweden:
What’s happening here? Sometimes you need the AIS to get clarity.
Ah, a Search And Rescue Helicopter is hoisting somebody up from a boat.
Sassnitz, the shittiest harbor I’ve seen so far. Literally.
The little red ball is my anchor buoy, approx 25m away.
The nice thing about sailboats: You can tinker while sailing. That’s a step up from the so called “rolling restoration” of cars…