Cruising Gear: GPS

GPS stand for Global Positioning System, and it is amazing. At a moments glance, your position can be triangulated to a few feet of your actual position on the surface of the Earth. Even better is when GPS is tied in with an electronic chart plotter, showing you where you are in relation to other navigational hazards. 

You can sail into unknown waters and keep your boat in a safe waters while expertly avoiding wrecks and shoals! Marvelous! 

While it is important to still plot your position on paper charts and know how to find your position on the water, GPS makes it so convenient and easy! You are the little boat on the map and you know where you are in relation to hazards, channels, and markers in real time as you maneuver through the waters. 

Less fancy GPS systems will simply provide you with your coordinates which you can then use to plot your position on a chart. These GPS systems are available in hand held units, built in units, and even as part of modern radios. These readouts are not as fancy as the chart plotter that locate you and displays it on an interactive chart, but they work great as a backup or as an aid to make sure your sextant sighting is accurate. 

As with all electronic accessories, they can die from a life in the harsh marine environment. This is why back-up systems are crucial, allowing you to plot your position on a map and keep your vessel navigating in safe waters.

On Wisdom, we have a chart plotter mounted to the binnacle, a GPS readout on our radio in the nav station, a GPS readout on our sat phone, paper charts, and a sextant. I take sights with the sextant to keep practiced, but I verify my calculations with the GPS readout on the radio. This is all well and good when out in open waters, where I can take the time to figure out where I am and plot my position; but when I'm entering a new creek with a narrow inlet, I'm watching our position on the chart plotter and verifying the depths with the depth sounder.

While there are other methods of finding your position, such as triangulation based on compass bearings to shore side structures and sextant sightings, GPS is just so easy and convenient that I highly recommend it for any cruising vessel.

Cruising Gear: Life Raft

If your yacht sinks, you can try to await rescue in your dinghy; but if the conditions are so bad that your yacht sank, how long do you think your dinghy will last? This is where a good life raft comes into play. They are purpose built to keep you afloat while you await your rescue. I do feel they are misused though, where people abandon ship and climb into the life raft which is being towed behind their still-floating yacht. 

This makes me think of kids camping in the back yard of their house. The yacht hasn't sunken, yet everyone is piled into the small life raft! What's worse is rescue crews typically find the abandoned boat still floating! The real tragedy is when people abandon ship and die in the life raft while their sailboat washes up onto an island, still floating.

Never abandon ship until it has actually sunk. If your boat is taking on water, stay in it and work to stop the ingress of water and also work on removing the water that has come inside. Your yacht has all your provisions and water available and ready for you, the life raft has a very limited "survival" supply. People fear that if they are in a sinking boat, that they will be drawn down to the bottom with their boat. The truth is, most boats sink very slowly, and if you stay aboard and work to keep it afloat, this slow process can be prolonged even further; hopefully long enough for the rescue crews to reach you and recover you.

Cruising Gear: What do you need?

When you set off cruising, you may be tempted to purchase every accessory that you think will make your life easier. The truth is, all these accessories will become a monstrous headache!

The gear that you do need to go cruising is a good rudder, steering, sails, and good rigging. This will make your boat move forward toward your destination. All other accessories are just that, accessories and not necessities. As long as you remember that these are accessories and not necessities, you will be much happier as you sail along and these accessories fail and break down along the way.

A sturdy rudder and steering system is crucial as it will give your yacht directional control. If you lose your rudder, you lose the ability to steer the vessel and reaching your destination will become a lot more complicated!

Be sure to inspect the rudder blade and the attachment of the rudder to the rudder post. Should the connection to the rudder post fail, the rudder will simply flow in the water behind the keel and not steer you along.

The next point of failure is the steering system. The simplest method to steer would be to use a tiller connected directly to the rudder. A tiller provides a direct and secure method to steer the boat that is as non-complex as possible. The other option for steering is to use a wheel which is connected to the rudder post via a system of linkages or cables. Wheels are considered more comfortable by some, but they do provide a place where failure could occur.

Sails are what give a sailboat its name. If you didn't have sails, your yacht would be called a powerboat! Sails will power you through the water indefinitely. There are no fuel levels or concerns with sails as they are powered by the wind, and wind exists everywhere on the water. Carrying the right sails and flying the appropriate sails will allow your yacht to sail through the seas to anywhere your hear desires. 

The final ingredient in the required gear to carry is the most important in my opinion: Good rigging. Rigging will hold the sails up so that they can power your vessel and move you along. If your rigging is bad, it will not be able to safely fly your sails, meaning that you won't be able to move along towards your destination.

This may sound overly simplistic when it is broken down to these four essential items, but the truth is that it is this simple! A sailboat only needs a rudder, steering, sails, and good rigging to sail. Everything else on the boat is an accessory and should never take priority over these four on the repair list. If you arrive somewhere with a torn sail and a dirty fuel filter, the sail repair should be addressed before the fuel filter. 

Keeping your priorities straight will allow you to keep sailing for longer and happier. If your refrigerator dies while sailing or your water heater stops working, you will still be able to sail as long as you have a sound rudder, steering, sails, and rigging.

Electronics You Need

While I am not a fan of electronic gizmos on a boat, there are two electronic items that I feel are indispensable: Radio and EPIRB.

The EPIRB is a distress beacon that will signal your position so that rescue ships can locate you. EPRIBs will greatly reduce the time to find and rescue you, which increases your chances of survival. EPRIBS are not perfect though, as they send a signal about where they are, not where you are. If you have to abandon ship, be sure to stay with the EPRIB as the rescue crews will come looking for it.

The second crucial piece of equipment to carry is a radio. Radios allow for you to communicate with other vessels in a very quick manner. Yes, Morse Code and flag signals can be used to communicate, but for communication to function, both parties need to be able to understand. If you hail a boat on the radio and they flash a search light at you, will you understand what they just said?

Modern radios also give weather warnings when severe weather is approaching and some have built in AIS receivers. This lets you spot commercial vessels that are far away and make sure you are not on a collision course with them. Another wonderful features of these radios is the ability to see the name of that ship on the horizon. This lets you hail a vessel by name so that you know you are in contact with the correct ship.

These two electronic devices are crucial to carry on board your vessel and maintained in proper working order.

Costs of Living Aboard

A liveaboard has great flexibility in deciding where to live. If the water is deep enough for your boat, you can live there!

From a cost stand point, this makes choosing where to live more flexible. If you live in a house and your taxes increase, you need to sell the property to move away. Until your property sells, you are forced to continue to pay these fees or face the consequences. On a boat, if your slip fee goes up, you can very easily untie your yacht and sail to a new place with a more pleasing slip fee.

The best part is, the slip fee is optional! If you choose to live in a marina, you will need to pay a slip fee. If you choose to not live in a marina, you don't have to pay any slip fee! Living on the hook is by far the least expensive way to liveaboard, as there are no costs associated with mooring the yacht.

There are pros and cons associated with the price you pay! Most marinas will charge by the foot, so the larger your yacht, the higher your slip fee will be. In general a 40 foot yacht can expect to pay close to $10,000 a year to live tied up in a marina in the heart of a city. If you move to a much more rural area, the cost goes down significantly. That $10,000 buys you an electric hookup, water hookup, septic hookup, and the ease to get to and from your yacht for an entire year! 

If you live on the hook, you need to produce your own electricity, either through solar, wind, or by running the engine. Water needs to be carried out in jugs to your yacht and poured into your water tanks. Lastly, getting to and from your yacht requires the use of a dinghy. 

Every gallon of water you use is a gallon you need to bring out to your yacht. Every watt you consume is a watt that needs to be replenished by your own yachts systems. Every anything you use must make the journey from land to your yacht by dinghy.

The dinghy you use needs to be reliable and comfortable. It will be your only contact to the outside world, and it will be subjected to everything the outside world can throw at it. If you are trying to get to shore during rain and high winds, it will be a very wet and bumpy ride. If it is freezing out, you will get cold. If it is very hot, you will bake in the sun as you make your way to shore.

This can be viewed as part of the life, which is fine while cruising and exploring new waters, but when you need to commute to work everyday and have to get to your car to get to work, the joy of adventure can get lost in the mundane repetitive nature of the daily commute.

If it is raining really hard, you will get soaked before you reach your car. This means you need to carry dry clothes and change in your car. If it is very cold and windy, you will probably get splashed by the chilling waters and need to, once again, change into dry clothes in your car. If it is baking hot, you will get sweaty as you work your way to shore and will need to, once again, change into dry clothes in your car.

Lastly, moving your car around to different areas is not as easy as moving your yacht around. Finding a place that will let you park your car as you commute to and from by dinghy can be challenging. Worst yet is if you move your boat, now you need to orchestrate how to get your car close to your boat for the next days commute.

All of these factors make you wonder if living on the hook while working a daily land job is worth the $10,000 you are saving? The alternative is to pay $10,000 for a slip with a parking space and all the conveniences of being tied up in a marina. 

An easy walk down the pier, a place to keep your car, and all the power and water you could need right at your slip. While it may be costly, it is awfully convenient!

While $10,000 a year for a slip and amenities may sound steep, it is worth looking at it from a different angle. Your yacht will be tied up in the water next to towering apartment buildings. The rent for a studio apartment in these high rises can easily be $2,000 per month, or $24,000 per year. The cost to purchase these condominium apartments can be upwards of $250,000, with Condo Association Fees and taxes which can also be obscenely high. 

Where I live, the building that looks out over the marina has condominium apartments starting around $750,000. The building behind it has apartments starting around $250,000 with Condo Association Fees of $500 a month and taxes of $500 a month as well. This means that the cheap condo has $6,000 per year in taxes and fees after you fork over $250,000 to own the place. Mind you, all of these building look out at the water and are considered "Water front" or "Water view". Imagine paying that much money to live in the heart of the city and overlook someone who sits in their yacht and pays only $10,000 per year.

While living on the hook may be free, the cost to live in a city marina can be more than justified by the amenities and conveniences awarded by the slip fee.