Sunsets

A major advantage of living aboard is you can enjoy sunsets from various places without straying far from your home.

When you sail offshore, you can enjoy watching the sunset over the ocean (which is a treat for those of us who live on the East coast). 

You can also tie up in a marina located near or in the heart of the city, putting you within walking distance of bars and restaurants!

We have been living aboard for 4 years now (I started in 2012, Maddie started in 2014) and we have really enjoyed the flexibility of living so close to the city night life, yet removed in our own little world inside the boat. The only reminder that we are in the city is the glow of the city light pollution peering in through the hatches and portholes, not much different from a full moon night.

For being in the heart of the city, we certainly don't pay as much as the neighboring land lubbers. Rent in our area is around $1800 per month for a one-bedroom apartment, and the condos cost $250,000 for a small one-bedroom (with $500 per month condo association fees). Our slip fee runs around $500 a month (including electric and water) for a 45 foot sailboat. Spending less on where we live lets us enjoy the area more and still save up to go cruising!

When you live aboard, the different sunsets are a delightful part of daily life.

Barber Hauler Setup

The process of setting up a barber haul is very simple, all you need is a snatch block!

On a beam to broad reach, the headsail is eased, causing it to twist and loose efficiency. 

The first step is to ease the headsail until there is slack in the line but not so much that the sail begins to flog. This will reduce the tension on the sheet, allowing you to place it into the snapshackle by hand. Then sheet the sail back in and trim to the apparent wind.

Now the headsail is able to hold a better sail shape, resulting in higher efficiency and more speed through the water. 

With the better sail shape, you can reach your downwind mark in less time and more comfort!

Fiddle Blocks

Maddie is working on writing thank you cards after our wedding and had everything setup on the table, but we were about to go sailing in a stiff breeze. Instead of clearing everything off the table, we decided to put the fiddle blocks in so that everything would stay put!

This is one advantage of a fixed table (over a folding table), there is space in the salon for the table to be set up with your current projects and go sailing! Without the fiddle blocks, all of her notes and boxes would have slid off the table as soon as we heeled over; instead, everything stayed on the top of the table.

These fiddle blocks are also removable, allowing us to have a smooth and flush table when in port. I must admit that these fiddle blocks get in the way when eating on a regular basis, but are nice for moments like this.

Synthetic Rigging Tensioning System

The setup to tune synthetic rigging with deadeyes is very simple, all you need is a turning block, and some leads that can be run to a winch. This allows you to use achieve the necessary tension in the stays in a controlled and repeatable manner.

To begin, the turning block is tied to the toe rail where a fair lead is in plane with the deadeye. This will ensure that the force on the lashings is vertical with no horizontal component.

Once the turning block is positioned properly, untie the tails and lead them through the turning block, then over to the tensioning line. The tensioning line (9mm VPC) is led to the winches in the cockpit. I use the secondary winch for the anchor and the primary winch to drive the tension. To connect the tails to the VPC tensioning line, I use a sheet bend with a slip; this knot will hold securely as incredible loads are applied to the system, but is also possible to untie after the procedure is completed.

One important trick when tensioning the stay is to set everything up as seen in the photo above, then apply tension to the whole system before untying the shroud frapping knot. This will make sure the tensions are similar between the tails and lashings once the shroud frapping knot is untied. 

Once the shroud frapping knot is untied, tension can be added to the stay via the cockpit winches until the appropriate amount of tension is present in the stay. I perform this adjustment on both sides of the boat at the same time to ensure that the mast stays in column and that the stays are of similar tension. This does require double the setup materials, but the end result is very even tensioning of the standing rigging.

For more details into how to tension your synthetic standing rigging with deadeyes, please read this post.

Bikes On Board

Each bike is designed to excel in a specific field of biking, usually sacrificing the other fields of biking. 

• Road bikes are great for long distance and efficient riding
• Mountain bikes are great for off road use, but not as efficient as a road bike
• Folding bikes are great at folding

Folding bikes are very handy! They provide wheels when you make landfall, and tuck away into tiny spaces while underway. While folding bikes may be very good at fitting into small spaces, they are not the best type of bike for covering long distances or varied terrains. Folding is about all they excel at.

Road and mountain bikes on the other hand are better at covering longer distances. Mountain bikes tend to be heavier and have wider tires which allow them to withstand the abuse of off road riding; whereas road bikes are much lighter and have narrower tires, allowing them to move along with significantly less rolling resistance.

Road and mountain bikes are great at covering distances in new places, but they can never fold up as tightly as a folding bike. This is where the space available in the boat comes into play!

Modern road and mountain bikes have quick release wheels, allowing you to easily transform a large bike into a frame and two wheels with no tools and only a few minutes. The separate pieces can be neatly tucked away into a locker, if the space allows.

If you manage your space well, you can fit many large items in the lazarettes on a sailboat. In the aft lazarette, we keep a 5 gallon pail full of rope for the stern hook, a shop vac, water hoses, shore power cables, and a large size frame (60cm frame) road bike! The wheels are removed and the frame is tucked into this storage locker. 

I chose to take a road bike with us on our trips because most of the places we arrive are near roads. While I have to carry the road bike across the beach and in to shore to reach pavement, it pays off when I then need to ride a few miles to get to my destination. A mountain bike would let me bike up the beach and into shore, but would not ride as efficiently on the pavement as a road bike would. These are all compromises that we must choose to live with when deciding which bike to take along on a journey.

While a folding bike will tuck away into a much smaller locker and take up much less space on board, it would not be able to bike along the soft sand of a beach, nor cover the miles of pavement as efficiently as a road bike would. If you have the space for a real bike on board, I would highly suggest it over a folding bike. If you do not have the space on board to fit a real bike, a folding bike will still provide you a set of wheels when you make landfall.