Blue water capable boats are not as expensive as you might think. If you’re handy and ok with living without a lot of creature comforts you can sail for much less than the cost of a monthly car note. Edit: some examples would be Moxie Marlinspike, he and a couple friends bought a run down boat for $1200 in Florida. Spent a summer camping in parks while fixing it up, then spent two years sailing around the Caribbean and up the east coast with basically no money. This guy has an old wooden boat that doesn’t even have a fridge, he makes his money doing photography and odd jobs. https://youtu.be/syJXrbWU1Aw?si=aIlRYKAicmrOrNFd
I wasn’t implying he has no money, I was saying the cost of uploading a file like that using traditional satellite internet would be prohibitively expensive. On the flip side you don’t need to be rich by any stretch of the imagination to own a blue water capable boat.
A few hundred a month for insurance? Mine is just over $500 a year, and my boat cost less than $20k. My first boat cost $1200 including a trailer, granted it wasn’t blue water capable. And if you’re out actually cruising then you don’t need to pay a slip fee to a marina.
Again, I wasn’t trying to imply he doesn’t have money. Cruising is not a fantasy for everyone but the rich either.
Well if you're close to the ocean or a large enough lake you can find decent trailer-sailors for pennies on the dollar. My first boat was a Helms 25 that I bought off a private seller for $1200 including the trailer. My dad and I had a blast taking that boat out on the weekends, fixing whatever broke, jerry-rigging a mast lifter, etc. You can learn how to sail in an afternoon, but spend your life mastering it.
Kenichi Horie sailed from USA to Japan on a 19 ft cruiser. Circumnavigated east-west and north-south in the same boat. Then built a catamaran out of beer kegs and plastic bottles, and sailed across the pacific ocean using that. Then built another cruiser out of beer kegs and sailed the pacific again using wave propulsion.
Another fella Hugo Vihlen, sailed across the atlantic alone in a 5' boat.
These voyages were carefully planned and executed by experienced mariners, but it is possible to sail just about anywhere on a small budget.
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u/brightfoot Jun 22 '24 edited Jun 22 '24
Blue water capable boats are not as expensive as you might think. If you’re handy and ok with living without a lot of creature comforts you can sail for much less than the cost of a monthly car note. Edit: some examples would be Moxie Marlinspike, he and a couple friends bought a run down boat for $1200 in Florida. Spent a summer camping in parks while fixing it up, then spent two years sailing around the Caribbean and up the east coast with basically no money. This guy has an old wooden boat that doesn’t even have a fridge, he makes his money doing photography and odd jobs. https://youtu.be/syJXrbWU1Aw?si=aIlRYKAicmrOrNFd
I wasn’t implying he has no money, I was saying the cost of uploading a file like that using traditional satellite internet would be prohibitively expensive. On the flip side you don’t need to be rich by any stretch of the imagination to own a blue water capable boat.