Compare and Contrast

One of the interesting things about boat yards is "compare and contrast."  Here are two images of boats about the same size and design era, a Seafarer 34 designed by McCurdy and Rhodes in 1974 and my Aphrodite 101 designed by Elvstrom and Kjaerulf in 1977.  They were designed for similar purposes, racer/cruisers.  The design style of the Seafarer represents the shape of boats typically considered "good sea boats," and they are.  The Aphrodite is a bit more radical.  Its shape follows the design innovations of the US West Coast Cal 40 and later the Peterson 34.  The Aphrodite is a Danish design, modern even today.  The Seafarer is pure US East Coast.  The style is still favored in that area.  Go anywhere in the world and one will view the two types (and many others, as well) activly being sailed.

Geographic regions usually have a home/house design-style, or a few typical styles.  They seldom transplant well.  A California modern house is out of place on Cape Cod as is the reverse.  Boats, on the other hand, travel pretty well and are often transplanted.  That's their purpose.  At a boat yard one gets to see what many designers and owners consider the best interpretation of a suitable yacht.  Drive around an area and one doesn't see nearly the variety in home design.  And, once built, the home seldom moves.

Another thing about house vs boat.

Check out this blog.  The writer owned a Seafarer and writes about voyaging it.  Also writes about life aboard, house vs boat.  http://www.sailingchance.com/chance

Pro-Tip: Don't overdo it!

Averisera

August 2015:  Just another boat bottom.  What's the story?  Stripping paint from a sailboat bottom is a hard job.  By comparison, at the new house, a lot of landscaping and hardscaping is required.  Pulling weeds, spreading gravel, building lawns, and laying flagstone patios is harder.

Doing most of the work by hand resulted in some debilitating injury to a 65 year old body in what I had thought was in pretty fair condition.  Pro-Tip:  Power Tools.  Slow Pace.  Low impact.

Some years ago, I started this blog with the thought that it would continue on line the sailing instruction work I had done and loved for so many years.  I had moved ashore reluctantly.  I find it is now an "interesting-to-me" way to track a comparison of life on the hard with live on the sea.  No kidding, hard is hard.

Sailing and Voyaging with Children

A recent blogspot post by Henry Lane (http://bluewatermystique.blogspot.com/) raised the question of sailing with children.  Consistent with the theme of this blog, I will look at it from the point of comparison with raising children ashore.

The central difference between the sea and the shore is that for kids under sail: every day is a field trip.  Kids like field trips.

So do teachers, especially when the teacher is the home-schooling parent.

Truth is, the work done in a day in a classroom is able to be accomplished way more quickly by a kid on board than that same kid in a classroom.  As a schooled aboard kid during the sixth and seventh grade years, I had no trouble with eighth grade at a competitive prep school after the family came ashore.

My two biggest problems were: studying for tests and time management.  Thanks to my room mate, Phil, I learned how to prep for a test and get to class on time.  That's what I missed by sailing for two years.

An added benefit, more so in this era than mine, is quiet time.  On board, children have time and opportunity to observe and reflect quietly.

Cost of Cruising: Figured Out!

We had a brutal winter, snow and serious cold.  Meanwhile, worked like demons on the house.  The thought of being on board and in the tropics was never far from my mind.  Came to realize that the cost of cruising is the same as the cost of living in a house:  you live according to what you can afford.  People who lose their way and over spend may lose their home.  Same with a boat.

The choice isn't governed by how much money one has it is governed by what one wants to get out of life.  If you like life in a house with property to garden, or whatever, live in a house with the accouterments you desire.  It will cost what it costs.  Same with boats and cruising.

Having worried the question of "what does it cost" to death, I now have an answer.  The answer every cruising blog gives:  it costs what you have.

What kind of boat questions have similar answers.

Can Money Buy Happiness?

The title is from an article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, 10 November 2014.  The short answer is, "Yes."

The longer answer is more interesting.  It starts with debt as being very debilitating.  No debt and no savings is the neutral position for happiness.  Savings is pretty much a guarantee of happiness.  Not big happiness the way debt leads to big unhappiness.  They are inverses.  So I suggest that lack of debt leads to a happy life.  The article was probably a couple thousand words and has way more supporting detail.

The other very interesting revelation was that the purchase of "things" leads to short term elation and long term... well there is no long term up side since we grow used to the things we have and they are familiar, uninteresting.  The experiences we purchase lead to short term elation and long term satisfaction.

This has to do with the evaluation of Boat vs House.  Boat has lots of experiences and few things.  Boats don't have enough space to fill up with stuff.  Every time the boat shifts its anchorage, there is a new experience and a new set of rewards.  Houses, one notes by observation, fill up with stuff faster than they deliver experiences.

Mission?  Make the house experience richer.  Putter more, purchase less.

Boat vs House: Library

Working away on the house, land yacht as I call it and got to thinking about our library.  Specifically, I was thinking about why live ashore and what to do to make that as pleasant as possible.  My thoughts turned to our library, my easy chair, the table that holds the glass from which I refresh myself and how those things aren't on the boat.  Not just not on Averisera but not really part of any regular cruising boat.  At least not a library with maybe a thousand books.

Thinking back to St Maarten and my Caribbean years.  There were book swaps at Shrimpies or Business Point: they were fun and just not the same as your very own library.

The house is getting more library attention.  Maybe I will even get a library card to the town library.

Size!

 Correspondent Kelly Girl Waterhouse describes it pretty well in her blog:
http://kkmoorea.com/losing-the-excess-pounds/