Browsing: liveaboards

Cruising Life
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Airline Pilot Commutes To Work on Ranger Tug

In the early 1900’s, New York businessmen discovered that the trip from Long Island and Connecticut to Wall Street in Manhattan could be accomplished faster and more luxuriously on a boat. They built some amazing fast commuters or business boats specifically for this purpose. Pan forward a hundred years and boat commuting still works. A resourceful airline pilot based in New York City and flying out of LaGuardia follows the lead of these early commuter boat pioneers by living aboard and commuting to work on a Ranger Tugs R-29. Instead of staying in an expensive and tiny Manhattan apartment and…

Cruising Life
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For Some New York Liveaboards, the Party’s Over

The party may be over for a  group of liveaboards on Newtown Creek, a now toxic piece of waterway between Brooklyn and Queens in New York City. The federal government declared it a Superfund site in 2010, and about 13 million gallons of oil have been removed since then. Now the cleanup may go at a faster pace. But the 130-foot Schamonchi, a former ferryboat operating between Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford, Massachusetts, is still there, as are a handful, or more, of other boats, with liveaboard owners. There’s no marina. The city owns the land, and they don’t pay…

Cruising Life
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Converted Ferry Now a Luxury Liveaboard

If you’re looking for a large liveaboard, or an explorer yacht with a 10,000-nm range, you might want to consider Dot, a converted 154-foot Hong Kong ferry. It has one unique advantage: You don’t have to worry about turning around; it has props at each end, so the traditional notion of bow and stern are irrelevant. Dot was the flagship of the Hong Kong Star Ferry fleet when it was launched in 1988. It was built to handle 200 passengers. Its current owner, a Brit living in Hong Kong, was one of them, and commuted on it every day for…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Restored Nantucket Lightship for Sale: Asking $4,950,000

Looking for a new liveaboard? Or perhaps a sturdy, long-range cruiser with a storied past? Then consider the Nantucket Lightship, a floating lighthouse now docked on Boston’s Commercial Wharf. It has a steel hull, six elegant staterooms, a 3,500-nm range, a crow’s nest, and a double Fresnel lens on its foremast. And it’s for sale for $4,950,000. The 128-foot lightship, WLV-612, was built for the Coast Guard by Curtis Bay in Maryland and launched in 1950. It cost about $500,000 then. The vessel served outside the Golden Gate as the San Francisco lightship and then as the lightship for Portland,…

Cruising Life
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Miami Liveaboards Get Reprieve from Marina Closings There

The Miami-Dade mayor has some good news for liveaboards and some cruisers, in the midst of the coronavirus threat. The Mayor, Carlos Gimenez, just announced that marinas, fuel docks and boat ramps can remain open for people who live on their boats, who are removing their boats from the water or performing “emergency maintenance,” and who are returning from international cruises. He previously announced that all boat ramps and marinas would be closed. See the Miami Herald story below: Party’s over: Miami-Dade mayor orders boat ramps and marinas closed amid coronavirus BY SAMANTHA J. GROSS, AARON LEIBOWITZ, AND ALEX HARRIS…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Liveaboard Owner Saves His Two Bulldogs from Burning Boat

Mike Babbitt, a retired police detective, saved his two bulldogs after his motoryacht caught fire when he was moving it to the fuel dock at the Bremerton (Washington) Yacht Club. His fast thinking saved the dogs, Pearl, who weighs 60 pounds, and Hootie, who weighs 70; it also saved other boats from becoming involved in the fire themselves. About 3 on a recent calm afternoon, Babbitt, who lived aboard his yacht Doctor’s Orders with his wife Jamie, took it out of its slip to get some fuel. Then he saw flames coming from the engine room. Babbitt maneuvered the boat away…

Cruising Life
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Walt Bueller, 100, and Living On Board for 37 Years

Walt Bueller just turned 100 years old, and he celebrated with a party on his boat, Why Not, a 32-foot Pacemaker, where’s he’s been living for the past 37 years. Bueller’s boat is tied up at the Marina Pacifica in Long Beach, California.  He moved on board in 1982, and he plans to stay. “I have salt water in my veins,” he told The Grunion. “This is where I want to be.” Bueller and his family lived in Minnesota until the Great Depression hit, and his father sent him to work on a farm in Northern California. That didn’t work out…

Cruising Life
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Larry Polster: Selling the House and Moving On Board

In the past, we’ve written about Larry Polster’s decision to buy, and then start cruising on, hull number one of the new Kadey-Krogen 50 Open series. Now, Polster, who’s a vice president and partner of Kadey-Krogen, and his wife, Janet, have sold their house and moved on board their new boat, Together, full time. Here’s his story about how they made that decision, and how it’s working out. (As a former liveaboard myself, on a Grand Banks 36, I can just say that all this rings true.) Many of you know that Janet and I are the proud owners of the first…

Cruising Life
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New Floating Bungalows: How To Downsize with a Boat/Home on the Water

Here’s something new: Floating Bungalows, built to ABYC standards, complete with a hull number and 550-square feet of living space. They cost only $225,000. Floating Bungalows are the brainchild of Warren and Cynthia Billings, who sold their large house in New Hampshire a few years ago to move to warmer weather and all-year water access in Florida. They also wanted to downsize. Once they got there, however, they suffered severe sticker shock at prices for homes on the water, even small homes on the water. So they started to design something themselves. It had to be on the water, small,…

Cruising Life
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San Francisco Couple Moved Aboard 58-foot Trawler Ten Years Ago To Beat High Housing Costs. Still Love It

A lot of us dream of living aboard. I know. I actually did it for a few years, including winters, in Connecticut on my Grand Banks 36. We do it for a variety of reasons: It’s a great experience; you get to spend more time on your boat; you become much more aware of the day-to-day marine environment; you are part of a small community on your marina with shared interests and passions. And it’s fun. It also can be less expensive than living ashore, particularly if you’re in a soaring real estate market, such as San Francisco. That was…