A little about what we hope to offer….

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First…if you’re using a tablet…. check out this post for how to navigate the site…then come back and read this page…enjoy !!…

Accessing the whole blog….and prior posts…using most tablets

We decided that a blog in conjunction with a sailboat selection consulting service, cruise consulting and a variety of other marine services would be the best way to incorporate our love of boats and sailing into our everyday life. Keep in mind, most of our information and advice will be TOTALLY FREE !! I enjoy helping people and answering questions is a great method of refreshing my own knowledge base. So, be sure to subscribe and post any comments or questions you might have, if we don’t know the answer we will certainly find a resource for the answer.

If you’re using a mobile device the three horizontal lines at the top right of this page will take you to the navigation page.

Any month we have more than ten subscribers or comments we will be sponsoring a raffle/giveaway for a small sailing related “door prize”.  Granted, the value will be around or under $20 including shipping (sorry international subscribers but that will cut into the value of the actual gift) but we will try to always make it something cool and unique. One entry per comment and subscription…so keep ’em coming!!!

Check out our posts for details of our adventures, budgets, travels, experiences and other sailing or boating related info…

We hope to assist others interested in the cruising lifestyle in these areas:

If you already own a boat, assistance with vessel maintenance, repair or upgrades.  Perhaps you are fully capable of performing the repairs but just need another set of hands to assist and paying $80/hour for help is infeasible for you.  We can also provide a degree of “boat sitting” (or just making sure all is as it should be) if you’re away from your boat and some heavy weather is about to, or has occurred, and you can’t get back to your boat in a timely manner.

If you are researching the cruising lifestyle and/or trying to find a suitable boat…

Constructing a framework of expenses and budgetary considerations for your new life on a boat

A journal of our experiences, failures, successes and issues during our search and transition to life afloat

A candid discussion of the boats you are currently considering; design, construction quality, seaworthiness, safety, speed and comfort along with resources for research

Answers regarding suitability of various designs

Analysis of your total overall cost of ownership: purchase, refit, outfitting, maintenance and resale value

Additional boats for you to review based on your cruising plans, itemized lists of criteria for your new floating home based on your desires

Evaluation and forwarding of listing and selling prices of comparable vessels utilizing information from various sources and personal experiences

Referral to a qualified local marine surveyor

An in depth review of your individual survey with detailed recommendations for post-survey price negotiations

Evaluation of equipment needed for offshore passage making

Advice for choosing USCG documentation or state registration, offshore flagging and/or tax implications

Recommendations for insurance coverage

Gear tests and real world performance evaluations

While we were shopping for our future home, we found a few people online offering consulting services in the area of sailboat screening and purchasing.  We found most to be too expensive and not tailored to what we wanted or needed.  I don’t think that everyone who finds our blog will need or want the same level of services as the next person, couple or family.  We are willing to assist people without a set fee schedule.  In fact, most of our advice and experiences will be totally FREE.  I don’t think that you can take something as unique and personal as choosing a liveaboard boat and have “a one price fits all” fee to cover all needs.  Ultimately, the decision might be “do I/we really want to liveaboard?”.  After all, it is difficult to make a serious, long term, life altering decision based on a few weeks of vacation time on a charter boat that may or may not be representative of the boat you will eventually acquire.

Who has the money to drop everything, quit their job and “try out” living on a boat for months while maintaining their on shore lifestyle? No one I know…that’s for sure.  I’m certain some of our new friends will find that living on a boat full time isn’t really for them and hopefully we can help avoid an expensive “leap that results in a hasty retreat”.  We have already seen quite a few couples move on board, spend a ton of money in a short time, meet with a few obstacles they weren’t prepared to encounter, become discouraged and sell their dream boat.  It is a sad piece of news when that happens.

Short of a bottomless bank account, if you are like us and most of the folks we’ve met, you will be (in no particular order) the cook, engineer, diesel mechanic, outboard mechanic, captain, meteorologist, plumber, navigator, AC and DC electrician, bottom painter, fiberglass repairer, carpenter, hull cleaner, deck swab, bilge monkey and a few other jobs that come along.  That’s a long, long list but if you do it right you can become competent at all, or almost all, of them and learn to enjoy it even when things don’t work exactly the way they appear to in glossy magazine ads.

Eventually, we hope to offer an “on board” experience, where visitors will get to be treated more like a co-owner than a guest or charterer and get some experience with both the joys and trials of living aboard.

If you already own a boat, sail or otherwise, I am available to offer hull cleaning, maintenance, repairs or upgrades, assuming we are close to your area when you need the services…..

Thanks for visiting and if we can be of assistance please contact us for help or advice!!  I screen all comments for approval prior to posting them and I can email you if you’d like to leave your email address in a separate comment or I will remove your email address before I approve the comment for posting.  The system should automatically hide or remove email addresses from view but I prefer to remove them manually and prevent any chance of that information being compromised.

We would like to extend our thanks to our first sponsor….. Mantus Anchors!!!….and Gregory Kutsen, the founder of Mantus Anchors, for their generous support!!!

(These graphics, unfortunately, are not part of the clickable ads program. This is solely in appreciation of the Sponsorship of Mantus Anchors all ads are in the individual posts)

Thanks again for stopping by to check us out and please don’t hesitate to post any comments or questions you might have…..

Capt. Brett and Admiral Kim…..

Photos, videos and posts, unless otherwise noted and credited, are the property of learntoliveaboard.com please don’t repost or publish without permission.

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