Sorry we've not been much in evidence of late. The truth is between winter and the Covid-19 lockdown, there frankly hasn't been a great deal on this end of things of which to report.
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Ah, winter..... |
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Winters make the galley all the more important. |
The blog of the design, construction, and launching of the vessels "The Floating Empire" and "Tesla's Revenge", both floating tinyhomes made from recycled or repurposed materials.
Sorry we've not been much in evidence of late. The truth is between winter and the Covid-19 lockdown, there frankly hasn't been a great deal on this end of things of which to report.
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Ah, winter..... |
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Winters make the galley all the more important. |
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Even in winter, a boat can be a snug little home |
We get asked—after living now for some seven years
aboard--”how do I pick a live aboard boat?”
Okay, here's our advice: before you take that jump, there are a couple of practical questions you need to ask yourself . The first and most important one is: What do you want to do on the boat? Yeah, yeah, I know “live on it,” but that's not the issue. Here's the thing: a live-aboard boat is something that floats in which you live, but what you're doing while you're floating is a key issue. So after a bit of discussion, here's our take on how you should go about deciding.
First and foremost: do
you want to travel? If the answer is:
“not really,” and you're just looking for a cheap spot to live on the water,
then you're in luck. Just about every
marina I've ever seen accumulates a number of “dock queens,” boats with
generally one or two dysfunctional engines or transmissions that are otherwise
in decent shape that can be had for a song. . .no, I mean that literally, as
long as it isn't “Baby Shark,” the marinas are often that happy to rid
themselves of them. The boats have long
since ceased paying storage or slip fees, are old enough that nobody
particularly wants them without running engines, and having them crushed up and
hauled away costs money. If you turn
that liability into a paying asset, most marinas will be happy to
accommodate. If you can't live aboard
where you find the vessel, it's easy enough to get it towed to where you can.
For some, the dock is home. For others, travel is where you belong
If the answer about travel is a “yes,” then you need to ask
yourself what kind of travel we're talking about. Are you happy to be a casual boater who also
lives aboard, content to go out for a few hours or a weekend before returning
to your home dock? A boat that can do
that may have few amenities that will function away from shore (think electric
ranges and refrigerators), but will suit you just fine for a day or so, and can
be pretty affordable. Do you want to do
extended cruising or cruise full time?
Then you'll need a vessel that can supply most of it's own power,
refrigeration, and water. This entails
(functional) things like solar panels, alternators, generators, desalinization
units, large water tanks, water filters, batteries, and enough fuel capacity to
make sure all that can run for more than a few hours.
Speaking of that: The
second part of that is: how fast do you need to go? Power boats are a dime a dozen, but require a
lot more maintenance than a lot of folks are willing to put into them (hence
the proliferation of dock queens), and they absolutely suck fuel. Seriously, if you're not a boater, finding a
power boat in a live aboard size with a fuel consumption of more than two miles
to a gallon is a gift. Usually an
expensive one. The more motors, the more
speed, the more money it takes to run.
Now there are power vessels that sip fuel. Trawler yachts, often with small diesel
engines, sip fuel, but they are among the absolutely most expensive vessels to
buy, new or used (a new small trawler in the 25' range can run you
$175-200K) That said, the trawlers are
often spectacularly well built, will take some rough water, and are built for
comfort. They also are quite a bit
slower than your average twin engine gas gofast, with top speeds around 14 knots
instead of 40, but they'll take you just about anywhere, and their large fuel
tanks can take you hundreds of miles at a stretch.
Sail boats, of course can go anywhere with little or no fuel,
can take (generally) much heavier seas than most power vessels, and don't eat
fuel. They do, however, require their
own special set of skills (as in, sailing) and their deep draft and tall masts
may limit where you can travel (think bridges and shallows).
I should probably mention houseboats here as well. Houseboats are, of course, the flat out most
comfortable of the movable live-aboards.
Some are more like an apartment or a hotel room than a boat, and that
makes for some easy living. They are,
however, also often pricey, and are not designed for heavy seas (some are
suitable only for highly protected waters like lakes, and many are more “boat
house” than “house boat” and are never intended to move), and, being a big box
on floats, they are also a major wind magnet.
Of all vessels, though, they are the most comfortable.
Most marinas have a number of virtually abandoned boats you can have for a song.
So while we're on that subject, let's talk about
amenities. I've often said: I don't take
up any more room in a phone booth than I take up in a baseball stadium, and
that's true. We've become convinced in
this country that we need massive amounts of room we never use, which we
quickly fill with things we don't need, but after a few years of living aboard,
we've learned a few things about ourselves and space usage and the boats in
which we use the space. First of all,
sailboats: Sailboats, of all vessels,
are dedicated to the process of sailing.
Hull shape, hatch placement, porthole placement, all are subservient (by
necessity) to the fact that the sailboat is a machine to extract energy from
the wind to move it across the water.
Some are fairly comfortable, but be aware that that necessity can lead
to some bizarrely shaped storage spaces, weird bunks, iffy headroom, and an
internal space utterly, totally, completely lacking in straight lines, right
angles, or level spaces. We live on a sailboat
at the moment, and we love the thing, but caveat.
Power boats tend to have more open room in them, but the boat
manufacturers seem to have some odd idea that your 28 foot power cruiser will
often be sleeping a party of 26 who will never need to bathe or cook anything,
but will need a great deal of cup holders.
While I think I was AT that party, it doesn't make for comfortable
living spaces.
Going into this, ask yourself what you really need, and by that I mean the minimums. Do you need a head-shower combination to be comfortable or are you fine with the head and using the marina's shower facilities? How much do you cook and how much of the interior of the boat do you need devoted to that activity? Can you be comfortable in a V-berth? Do you need 120 v AC power onboard away from the dock? How you live or are willing to live will determine the answers to these questions (and, trust me, you need less than you think to be comfortable.), and the fewer your requirements, the more latitude you have in selecting a vessel (and the more likely you are to find one easily). When looking for a vessel, make those requirements the baseline. Yes, the boat you saw this afternoon is in great shape and a bargain for the money, but can you really live with a 3' galley with no fridge and a toilet under the bunk? Be honest with yourself. A lack of things like usable stowage, lights in the cabin, and decent headroom can make for a sour experience down the road that probably isn't the fault of living aboard but of your choices of boat
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All in all, it's a beautiful way to live. |
Living aboard has been a wonderful experience for us, so much
so that neither of us can really imagine having done anything else. Finding a boat takes a bit, but you will be
able to find one that suits you. We built our first boat—a barrel shanty--,
bought our second as a $500 stripped out sailboat hull and refit the thing, and
lucked into our current sailboat for—literally--a buck before the thing was
crushed to make room for condos. Be
patient, pay attention, and be prepared to jump when just the right boat
wanders into your life.
You won't be sorry.
Don and Gail Elwell
And First Cat Magellan
Aboard the SV Constellation
www.thefloatingempire.com
So we always manage to make great food, even with one burner (or in this case one burner and a slow cooker), and this holiday was no exception. We did, however, have a bit of a challenge: For most of my life, my family has had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for the holidays, and I kinda wanted it again. . .
. . .but we don't really have an oven, not that can manage the 400 plus degrees that really nice fluffy Yorkshire seems to require. So after casting around a bit we managed to put together a stack of cast iron dutch ovens to make a gonzo heat diffuser, pumped waaaaaay too much propane underneath it to heat the thing up, and hoped for the best.
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I'm not sure OSHA would approve. The little pot on top is just warming the gravy |
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Oh, yes |
Happily, it worked out astonishingly well, lovely bottom, fluffy top, and absolutely delicious, as was the slow cooked roast and roasted vegetables. I think we were both taken aback how well it worked. Just shows you can manage if you're willing to. . .well. . .experiment.
Winter has finally come to the Chesapeake, with our new gonzo enclosure keeping us a bit warmer from the cold winds and snow.
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Snowy day on the docks. |
If I've been a bit absent from posting of late it's because with the pandemic and the winter coming on, there just hasn't been a lot about which to chat. Will promise to do better next week. Happy holidays, everyone.
M
I've been meaning to post this for a bit. Here are a few kind of innocuous things that we've found absolutely necessary as liveaboards. None are very pricey, but you should really avail yourself of them.
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Dockside social distancing at it's best. |
First among these, and this seems kinda silly, is a shortie garden hose. Just a female hose fitting and about three feet of hose with no fitting on the other end. The reason for this one is simple: Virtually every Marina north of Georgia turns off their dock water in winter, which means you're gonna have to hump water in containers down the docks to your boat. Often the only functional faucets in the marina will be too low or weirdly angled for filling a container. A short hose will help you fix this, letting you easily fill water containers not only at your own marina but when on cruise at a variety of fuel docks and dockside establishments. You needn't spend much for this: just find someone who is throwing away a food safe hose and cut off the first three feet of it and you're in business.
Next up is this thing:
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Got one? That's about five too few. |
This is a deck key. If you have a boat, the likelihood is that you have some version of this needed to open the deck ports for fuel, water, or waste. Here's the thing, if you DON'T have one, it's damn near impossible to get these deck plugs open. If you DO have one, you have about five too few. Let's get real: things get dropped overboard. People put stuff like this in their pockets while working and then walk away with it. Stuff gets buried in the back of a cabinet, and you can't remember WHICH cabinet. Whatever. If you're pulling into a fuel dock with a full holding tank (having failed miserably to take our advice on building a composting toilet), an empty gas tank, and no onboard water and you CAN'T find one of these, you may find the folks at the fuel dock are a little less than sanguine about you taking up their dockspace with five boats hovering out in the river while you try to open your deck plugs with a screwdriver and a crab mallet.
We keep about five of these aboard: one with the tools, one in the silverware drawer (since it's near the companionway), one if the head (since we can hand it out the porthole to whoever is putting in water, and one somewhere or other in my junk tray. Regardless, ONE of them will be available when we need it. Nuff said.
Now as to this thing:
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Yes, I know every sailor should know, but too many don't. |
The list will continue.
This has been, for everyone, a rough fall and winter, and I apologize for the lack of posts this season, but with the pandemic, the freaking endless election, the weather, and. . . well. . .life, things just get in the way. Hope to do better in the new year.
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Magellan takes comfort in difficult times by squashing our greens planter. No one knows why. |
As we approach the winter solstice and a raging plague, Gail and I are, frankly, thankful for living on a boat. If things got bad, we say, we just raise the main. Something to think about. But towards the end of December, the light will begin to return, lifting our spirits and hopefully signalling the beginning of a far better year than the last one.
Be safe.
More shortly, I promise.
M
Okay, so this is a boat, and it has a bilge, not a basement, but that's not the space to which I'm referring.
Like a lot of boats of this era, Constellation has a built in cooler in the galley, one of those things with a flush, insulated lid on the countertop and a well with a drain at the bottom for the ice to melt into. Unfortunately, since it is right next to the engine compartment, the chances of it actually ever keeping anything cool are pretty slim.
So we, like most folks I know, use it as stowage, and because of it's inconvenience ( you have to clear virtually everything off the galley counter to get into the damn thing) its the home for bulk goods, pastas, things like bags of onions and canned goods. We call it "the basement" as in: "Dammit, I have to go into the basement again."
It's okay. It's storage space, which no boat has enough of, but it comes with an additional de-convenience: Since it's a cooler, designed to hold ice, it's completely sealed and waterproof. That means any moisture that gets in, STAYS in. Vegetables sweat. Water that gets on the counter leeches under the insulated hatch. The air in the thing is like being in a swamp. Things mold. Cans rust. It's not optimal.
So looking at the problem I decided to finally do something about it, and that the easiest thing was to replace the lid with something that would allow air circulation.
So the new lid is un-insulated exterior 1/2" ply, with a center handle and a 4" vent on the far end of the lid (as far as I could get it from the sink). In the next few days I'll screen the opening so no bugs decide to investigate, stain, and varnish the thing. Will post you a photo of the final product when the bandwidth cooperates.
One more job done. Hopefully it'll keep the moisture level down.
The fall days have been beautiful of late, with pleasant days, cool and sleepable nights, and life has been fairly low key (as a contrast to the election crap going on all around us). We've taken some hikes out at Marshy Point Nature Center, one of our favorite places, just to get out and move our bones a bit.
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Fall is a great time for long walks. |
In the next few days, we'll probably take to boat out and anchor up at Worton Creek or one of our other favorite havens. Winter will be here soon enough. Right now, enjoy the fall.
M
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As usual, Magellan has the right idea. |
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See this little contraption? It's a bucket heater. You want one. |
So in casting about trying to find a decent way to heat our little collapsing hottub at dock, someone suggested I look into one of these contraptions. It's called a bucket heater and it's for...well...heating stuff in buckets. I bet you figured that one out already. It's basically an electrically heated coil within a circulation tube, and draws about 1000-1500 watts, which is well within the range of most dock power supplies.
The contraption is largely used in agriculture and for heating water on construction sites. You just splash the heater in a bucket and plug it in. I had rather assumed it would rather be like one of those little beverage heaters you stick in a teacup, that is to say, slow. It isn't.
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It cranks up the heat amazingly quickly. |
Starting with 70 degree (F) water, it heated five gallons up to over 120 degrees in about 20 minutes.(Your mileage may, of course, vary, depending on ambient temperature and how cold the water was to begin with.) That means that we can have a hot soak in our new little ofuro tub in about an hour. The max temperature seems to top off at around 168F
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Little Gail, Happy again. |
This thing, of course, has it's limitations. Take it out of the water while it's on, or let the water evaporate while it's running, and the thing would likely catch fire. They don't recommend that you run it, even in appropriate conditions, for over three hours. And, of course, the wattage is sufficient that you're not going to be running it aboard while on the hook (for more than about six seconds if you're on solar). It's a dockside-only convenience unless you're running a generator.
But still, the idea of having quick hot water for dishes, for washing up, or just for warming up is a great convenience, and at less than $30, it's rather hard to pass up.
Why didn't you tell me about these things before.....? Sheesh.
Fall is suddenly here on the Chesapeake, and I do mean suddenly. We scrambled to get the electric blanket out of the car, and to dig the sweatshirts out of the forward lazarette where they've been languishing for the last several months. But still, after months of pretty brutal heat and humidity, it's a welcome break, and the fall is the best part of the sailing season.
Much more shortly. Stay safe. Stay warm.
M
So on the web we found this cool little Ofuro tub which exactly, EXACTLY, fit our cockpit sole. About fifteen gallons of warm water is enough to soak up to your shoulders, and it folds away flat.
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29.5 inches EXACTLY. And now we have a tub in the cockpit. |
Much more coming.
Stay safe.
M
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The current iteration of our design, using a snap on lid. Instructions are here. |
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The container bucket, base, and urine diverter. |
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Shelf supports attached. |
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The shelf itself is pretty simple. Cut out is the same diameter as the urine diverter, and there is a support running along what will be the front of the shelf. |
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New shelf in place with toilet seat. Plenty of room for Magellan's litter box and the urine container. |
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Some of the fall sunsets on the Chesapeake are glorious. This from last year. |
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Fall harvests can make for some really spectacular dinners aboard. |
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Nothing like a local wine festival to introduce you to some things you've never tried. |
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Finding a nice anchorage with a nice breeze can help a lot. |
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Magellan is not amused by the heat. |
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A simple white tarp can really cut the heat from the sun beating on your boat. |
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It's big, it's perpetually dirty, but at dock it sure can move air. |
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It's an option a lot of sailors use. Makes getting on and off the boat iffy, but the cabin's cool at least. |