Pros and cons of living on a boat

Ravensdale - our liveaboard home at Maryport Marina in Cumbria, UK

The move from a house to a boat has made some dramatic changes to our lives.

And, yes, I admit that they haven’t all been for the better.

That said, the positives definitely far outweigh the negatives and our only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner.

We’ve spent the past week staying with a friend in the north of Scotland, who lives next-door to one of the last houses we owned in our shore-based life.

An old photo of one of our previous homes in Scotland - we spent last week staying next-door

The time away from our 43ft Neptunus 133 cruiser Ravensdale has also helped to focus our minds on the things we do and don’t miss about living in a house.

Before we decided to make the move, we drew up a list of what we believed to be the pros and cons of selling our house in Fort William, Scotland, and moving onto our boat.

And, after a year of living aboard, based at Maryport Marina in Cumbria, UK, I thought it would be interesting to repeat the process to see if it had turned out as we expected.

The answer is that the “pros” were everything we’d hoped for and more, but the real “cons” were not the things we’d anticipated at all.

I’m well aware that many of the positives on my list are retirement-related and being able to retire early has been an important part of the experience for me.

But the following lists also include a number of things that would be equally true, whether working or not.

Pros

1.    Every day’s a holiday!

Chilling out and enjoying the sunshine on Ravensdale's fore deck

The move enabled me to retire early as we no longer have a mortgage and I was able to get rid of my car, which I really only used for work.

2.    Healthier lifestyle

Phil setting up a fishing rod on Ravensdale's fore deck

We’re now living a more active, outdoor life with considerably less stress (also greatly helped by me no longer having to go to work J)

3.    Freedom to live where we want

Ravensdale on her current mooring at Maryport Marina

We can now move our home wherever we want to be so the next time we decide to move our base we won’t have to go through the expensive and traumatic process of selling a house.

4.    Sociable lifestyle

Phil helping a friend with his sails

Living on a boat in a marina is a very sociable existence. There always seems to be someone wanting to stop for a chat on the pontoons, come aboard for a coffee and to help each other with any boating jobs.

5.    We can take our home on holiday with us if we want – or not, if we fancy a change

We didn't take our boat on this holiday - but we hired a little one to go fishing

6.    Slower pace of life

No watches are needed most of the time

Both Phil and I have stopped wearing watches since we moved onboard. Obviously there are times when we need to be in a certain place at a certain time, but most of the time we do things at our own pace.

7.    New challenges

My first attempts at a sailmaker's whipping knot

Moving onto a boat has given us the opportunity to learn new skills, both by following boating-related courses and the things we’ve learnt as we’ve gone along to enable us to look after our new home.

8.    Wildlife watching

A cygnet hitching a ride on Mum's back at Maryport Marina

I’m really enjoying watching and photographing the birds, animals, fish and other marine life that visit the marina and in the surrounding area.

9.    Rocking and rolling

Our comfy bed in which we are frequently rocked to sleep

I thought the rocking motion of the boat may become a pain, but it’s actually a positive in that it rocks us to sleep at night J

Cons

1.    Toilet facilities

The walk from Ravensdale to the marina facilities at the top of the ramp

It’s a bit of a nuisance having to minimise use of the onboard heads to prevent the holding tank filling up and needing to be emptied too often. This means making use of the marina facilities whenever possible.

2.    Damp

Clothes in one of the lockers in our bedroom

Living on a boat seems to be a constant battle against damp, which we’re now winning, but we still find our clothes end up smelling musty when they’ve been in lockers for any length of time. And I really miss warm towels straight off a heated towel rail.

3.    Storage wars

Most of our storage space is under the seats in the dinette and saloon

The lack of storage space meant serious downsizing of our possessions before moving onboard, but we still have too much stuff. And the type of storage (mainly under the seats in the saloon and dinette) make it difficult to store items in an accessible way.

4.    Maintenance costs

An engineer servicing Ravensdale's two 300 hp engines

There's a very good reason why boating folk say BOAT stands for Bring Out Another Thousand. And the bigger the boat, the bigger the bills L

5.    Uncomfortable seating

The seating in Ravensdale's saloon

The built-in seating on Ravensdale and most other boats I’ve been on never seems to be as comfortable as the furniture in a shore-based home. We’re hoping to find a solution to this one soon.

This list barely scratches the surface of the pros and cons of living on a boat.

I intend to continue adding to it as we go along and revisit it each year to see how our perception of our liveaboard lifestyle changes over time.

Meanwhile, I hope our experiences so far will prove helpful to anyone else considering the move from a house to a boat.

A mysterious noise and a nasty surprise

Preparing for the new trim tab system to arrive

A mysterious noise coming from the galley area of Ravensdale has been puzzling us for the past couple of weeks.

We have both spent time trying to identify its source.

And we had worked out that we only heard it when it was windy outside.

But we could not find anything that could be causing it.

The mystery was solved when Phil spotted that the new log he had fitted was registering a speed despite the fact the boat is currently on stilts on dry land and therefore very definitely not moving.

The new log registers 3 knots while the boat is standing still

The highest speed he saw it register was 4 knots (nautical miles per hour). The highest it reached once I had my phone at the ready to take a photo was 3 knots.

The penny then dropped. The noise we were hearing was the new paddle wheel he had fitted on the underside of the hull in the galley area being blown around by the wind.

The new paddle wheel underneath the hull

Meanwhile, a friend recently said my blog seemed to prove that boating was “equivalent to standing in a cold shower ripping up tenners” and the past week seems to have proved him right.

Well, not so much the bit about standing in a cold shower as the boat is warm and dry and the marina showers are lovely and hot, but definitely the bit about ripping up tenners - or maybe notes of a higher denomination would be more appropriate :-)

This week we had a nasty surprise regarding the trim tabs that have been holding up our return to the water for the past few weeks.

The dead trim tab motor

We had hoped they were getting fixed but it now turns out that the motor is not repairable as the parts are no longer available so we have had to scrap it and buy a whole new system.

Two guys from Forth Engineering at Maryport turned up at the door of our boat with the bad news on Thursday.

And, despite the fact they were unable to help on this occasion, we would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone. They have spent hours desperately trying to track down the parts for us, without success, and made a total of four visits to our boat while trying to come up with a solution, but would not take a penny for their efforts.

We ordered the new trim tab system, including four new rams, the motor, two console switches (one for the saloon console and one for the fly bridge) and all the relevant cables, late on Thursday and it arrived this afternoon.

So our re-launch date is now in Phil’s hands - no pressure there then J

While waiting for the new kit to arrive, he stripped out the old system.

Phil removes the old trim tab rams

Phil removed the old rams that were supposed to make the trim tabs move up and down and made good the holes they had left in the hull by filling them with fibreglass, fibreglassing over the areas where they had been then putting a new coat of gelcoat over the top.

Applying gelcoat on top of the fibreglass covering the holes where the old rams had been

He is planning to start work on the refit tomorrow and is anticipating the biggest problem being the wiring. The cables need to go from the motor, which will be fitted on the transom under our bed in the stern cabin, through to the switches on the console at the forward end of the saloon and up on the fly bridge when there is no obvious or easy route for them to follow.

Our newly whipped fender ropes

Close-up of my whipping

I have been busy finishing off cleaning and polishing all the stainless steel on the boat with chrome cleaner and whipping the new ropes we have bought for our fenders.

Sadly my lesson in whipping from our friend did not help as he showed me how to whip braid ropes and we bought three strand rope for the job.

So I followed a really simple video for sailmaker’s whipping that I found on YouTube.

There were seven ropes to do, which meant I had 14 ends to whip.

My plan was to do half of them at one sitting and the other half another time as I thought pulling the whipping twine tight would make my fingers sore. And I was right, it did, but once I was half way through the task I just wanted to get it finished.

The next new skill I am planning to learn is splicing and Reg, who is the marina foreman, has offered to give us a lesson on Wednesday so I’m looking forward to that.

In the meantime, I've been out and about with my camera again, trying to get some different photos of Maryport. 

The blue bridge across the River Ellon to Mote Hill, Maryport

A wide view of Maryport from Mote Hill

River Ellon from Mote Hill