Extreme preppary on the high seas

[Fidshackle]

Hi all,

I'm new here and thought I'd explain my setup a bit as it's fairly unique, and what I've learned over the years could easily be implemented in a house (room) or outbuilding so could perhaps be useful to some of you, though in my particular case this is boat based.

Why a boat?
Essentially because I get a detached home that I own outright, in a nice environment, and I don't have the insatiable claws of bureaucracy constantly wanting my time and resources. I (had) fairly consistently earned well north of the average UK salary, but yet I could still never afford a house. I'd never entertain the idea of a mortgage because quite frankly the thought of working for the bank for the rest of my days is unappealing. As soon as that paperwork is signed you're pretty much agreeing to take part in the rat race until your terminal moment. Each to their own, but I'd honestly prefer a trip to Dignitas than suffer that sort of economic imprisonment indefinitely. There's just no other way of living freely like this in the UK; I know people that live in campers, I even converted a van myself, but living in a van is hard work, mostly because you're frequently moved on, not welcome, etc. Also, like a house, you can't own a vehicle without the state wanting its pound of flesh. Nope, boats are the last bastion of state-free freedom.

Costs
As soon as you say the word 'yacht' the layman usually pictures daddies trust fund, but this couldn't be further from the truth in the majority of cases. The number of skint sailors in the UK is substantial. Poor folk like sailing too! You can buy a small boat for less than a grand. My first, a modest 6.5m tub with crouching only headroom, stood me at £2,000. It was my full time home for over four years. If you can afford a secondhand car or a motorbike, then you can definitely afford a boat.

Qualifications/Paperwork/etc
Ironically, it is much harder to live on the inland waterways (canals & rivers) than in coastal waters. To live on a canal you need a boat safety certificate, a waterways licence, and must adhere to the gestapo like river and canal trust rules and regs. To buy and use a boat in coastal waters you need... a boat. That's it.

Toilet/showers
Always a common question. In short, I have a sea toilet which pumps everything straight out in to the sea. Ergh! Exactly, so they should only be used whilst at sea. Using them in marinas/harbours is rightly frowned upon, but to be honest the odd pee in the middle of the night isn't going to hurt anybody. Showers and more solid evacuations can be undertaken at marinas, and I've used public swimming baths before now too. I first went by stealth pretending I wanted a swim, but it turns out most of them will happily just let you use the showers for a modest fee. Also, I know in this modern life people have grown far too soft and demanding, but this idea of having a shower every day is quite a recent development as far as us humans go. It would have been entirely unheard of for my grandad as a kid. You can always wash in a sink.

You can get boats with showers, or build them in to boats that don't have them, but it's just not worth it from my experience. Unless you've got a pretty huge vessel then you're going to have to top up the fresh water tanks on a daily basis.


Heating
The most important thing to consider on a boat in the UK is heating. Without it, life aboard is grim. It's not just the cold, it's the condensation. I can't remember the exact figure but I believe a single adult exhales about 2 litres of water in your average night in bed. That's 2l of water that condenses on everything that's cold, drips all over the place making everything wet, promotes mildew, and eventually makes you and your life smell like a mothball.

There are LOADS of heating options, but for my money the only realistic solution is an oil burner that doesn't require any electricity. Blown air heating from the likes of Eberspacher are quite popular as they're very compact, but they draw an awful lot of 12v power to run the fan/glow plug, and if there's one thing that's at an absolute premium on a boat it's free electrons. Releks make some well respected and seriously reliable diesel stoves, and I use a kerosene burner that was made in the UK and is quite honestly the most impressive piece of engineering and metal fabrication that I've ever put on a boat. You're going to be looking at anywhere between £500 and a grand to install a heater on a sub 30ft boat.

The other option is to rely on shore power (plug in mains, like a caravan) to run a fan heater or electric oil radiator, but that's not ideal when there's a power cut on the pontoons at 3am in mid January, and you're going to be cold with no choice whilst at sea. I don't like being cold, or reliant on the national grid.

My heater uses circa 100ml per hour, and I usually have somewhere in the region of 50 liters aboard. It's started via 25ml of mentholated spirits or ethanol, and takes about 10 minutes of messing about, but once it's running you can leave it for days.

Cooking
Origo stoves are the only way in my opinion. Many modern boats use gas because it's "just like home" but gas is silly dangerous on a boat. It's always quite difficult to safely stow spare gas bottles anywhere other than the deck, and the first rule of sailing in bad weather is if it's on the deck, consider it lost. My origo has two burners and runs on unpressurised ethanol. It's actually designed for meths, but in the UK meths can't be pure so it tends to stink the boat out with noxious fumes. I managed to source a bulk supply of bio-ethanol which burns way cleaner. In a SHTF situation, alcohol is easier to procure than LPG... at least in the long term.

I also have a small electric oven for when I'm on mains electricity.

Electricity/power
Most boats run 12v systems, usually broken down in to two banks - an engine starting battery, and a domestic bank. Requirements for this vary massively, but in my case I've got a very small 110ah domestic bank, and an 85ah starter battery. Typically a liveaboard would be looking at 200ah minimum for the domestic bank, but space constraints prevent me from squeezing that much in here, so 110ah is my limit. It's certainly usable, and I've spent days away from shore power without a problem. The trick is to be aware of what you're using. I designed and built the full electrical system on this boat and I'm pretty handy with that sort of thing, so I can tell you at a glance what the battery state is, and even how the mains supply is behaving as I've got volt/ammeters on both systems.

There's a permanently installed ctek charger which keeps the batteries healthy when plugged in to mains, and I've got the engine alternator and a 30w solar panel for charging away from the power station umbilical. You can get small wind turbines for boats, but they are a bit rubbish. Solar is the way to go, and if you have the room/budget for a couple of hundred watts, then you're almost certainly not going to run out, even in winter.

Engine
It's a sail boat, so the engine is only really for getting in and out of places, or for use when there's little or no wind. It's a 300cc single pot diesel and it uses naff all fuel and will happily run for days at a time without turning it off. It has a small 30amp alternator too, which is handy for topping off the batteries whilst at sea if I've been using a bit too much power.

Domestic services/Other
This boat has a 50l water tank and running cold water via a pump. I have installed hot water systems on previous boats, which is nice, but not essential. I chose not to this time as it's not exactly difficult to stick the kettle on for the rare occasion I need warm water.
I don't drink from the water tank as I don't drink tap water. Instead I carry about 50l of bottled water. If you've got a bigger boat/budget then desalination is an option, but that sort of setup is beyond my pay grade and only really suitable for proper deep sea work and not filtering muddy coastal water.


Benefits of boats for SHTF
Well, if something happens in the next 5 minutes, I just need to untie my lines, fire up the diesel, and I'm off. The bit of water I'm in right now can take me to any other place on the planet that's by the sea. If I need to be, I'm 100% off grid, and there's nearly always enough fuel, food and water aboard to last me at least a month. I actually reckon I could do 6 months in the summer just off dry stores and fishing, but my limiting factor for winter is how much kerosene I can carry.


Hopefully useful/interesting for some, and please feel free to ask questions if you have any.

Fid

[i11matic1795]

Sounds awesome, a different life for sure!

I have a few friends who are in to their sailing, although I'm not sure what their boats are capable of, or their skill

[filsgreen]

Fascinating Fid, thanks for that insight into marine life. Welcome to the forum.

Phil

[nickdutch]

Yep, boats are cool. My father has a small boat on the east coast and I have been sailing a few times. Being a competent crew (qualified) at yachting helps as far as basic skills are concerned.

[Wingfoot]

Hi Fid

Thanks for the interesting write up, I don't know if I could live full time on the water as you do, but I think having access to a suitable craft has many benefits, I need to take a closer look at boats.

Cheers
Wf

[MissAnpassad]

What kind of boat do you live on? Is it made out of plastic, metall or wood?

I live in a house without a bathroom and I use an battery powered portable campingshower while standing i a plastic tub. It works well for me. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Battery-Power ... 1737956704

[Fidshackle]

Thank you,

It's not for everybody, I know. It'd probably be a living hell for a lot of people, but I love it. I know quite a few people that have sold their houses, bought or built boats of various sizes, and now live in places like the Caribbean, and the eastern Med. I'm in my thirties and single (who'd have thought, eh.), but the majority of people that do it tend to be 50+ couples. I know of one family who cruised the world for decades - their kids were born and grew up on their boat, circumnavigating the globe - what an education!

Wf, as you say, even if not intending to make the jump to permanent floaty life, having access to a vehicle that will carry tons of kit and get you anywhere in the country within a few days without using roads could be quite useful. I think if there was ever a proper SHTF, I'd be off north where there's good fishing, good game hunting, and plenty of sheltered bolt holes to get out of any weather.

Actually, shelter. That's important. I spent three days at sea without landing a couple of weeks ago, and one night on the anchor the boat was rolling through 20 degrees every second or so, and I had to get up three times in the small hours to go on deck and reset the anchor as we were dragging. I've yet to find it in me to enjoy nights like that. haha.


MissAnpassad - it's plastic. Wooden boats are a serious labour of love and require endless work, sadly, as they are beautiful. Steel would be my ideal, but steel boats under 30ft are quite rare, and nothing was on the market when I was looking this time.
That shower is interesting. Good find. I suppose I could rig something up hanging from the boom and just shower in the cockpit if I got desperate. In fact, you may have given me a project idea here.

[Briggs 2.0]

Thanks for an interesting read. I've employed some boat-logic to my woodland container in order to conserve power and water but it's nowhere near the level you've done it to be full time off-grid and afloat.

[filsgreen]

Do you have to have a skippers license to sail on the high seas Fid?

Phil

[Fidshackle]

Nope. I probably wouldn't have ever got in to sailing if you did to be honest as spending a couple of grand to get paperwork would have put me right off.

The Royal Yachting Association has a series of qualifications that most people in the industry will advise you to do, but they want your money for it, and it's not cheap, and there's absolutely no obligation to do it.


I suppose at the end of the day you need to weigh up what sort of person you are. I taught myself as I didn't know a soul that was in to sailing when I got my first boat, but on the flip side I've seen some people attempt to teach themselves and do the most horrifically stupid things - navigating on road maps is my favourite example, or just going to sea and not knowing how to even use a chart. The latter is increasingly common with modern GPS navigation platforms, but not knowing how to use the old school paper charts and navigation methods like dead reckoning is seriously misguided, and will almost certainly earn you a trip on a lifeboat at some point, if you're lucky.

Here's a short vid to give you an idea of what it's about. Basically, if you can read an OS map and navigate across fells in bad weather, you can do coastal navigation at sea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahroe-DidO8

To do anything at sea commercially you do need tickets though, and you also must have a ticket to skipper a boat bigger than about 100ft (if I remember correctly). No chance of that ever applying to me though :p