and in the "hardly surprising" department...

I'll be honest and admit that I really hate being surprised, especially where boats are concerned. Maybe it's that I grew up on horror films where surprises were always sort of horrific. On the other hand, it just might be most of my surprises have been of the negative sort so color me somewhat gun shy where surprises are concerned.

The funny thing is that, reading other boat folks blogs and suchlike i see that they also talk about surprises on boats and it's never ever a happy occurrence. More often than not it's a problem and unbidden problems are going to be expensive.

It's just the nature of boats and cruising.

For instance if I sail off to some place new and don't check about the rules, costs, and politics of visiting there I'll find that there is going to be a surprise of some sort just waiting to happen. Or, if I jump into a project without some due diligence beforehand there will be some consternation in the mix to bite me on the ass.

Lucky for us we have the internet which makes it pretty easy to do some homework to find out what to expect whether you're cruising or taking on a boat build or refit.

Nothing keeps surprises at bay as well as a bit of homework and due diligence.

Need to know what food costs in St Thomas, Hawaii, or Guam?  Go to Costuless online and see what your grocery bill should cost. Pretty much anywhere you go in the world will have chain stores with online shopping so you can get an idea of what you'd have to pay for groceries. More importantly, it gives you a base line so that you'll know when some stores are on the high side.

Same goes for projects. I always check to make sure that what I'll need is actually available to finish a project as having a half completed project can ruin your day/week/month/year. Nearly as important is knowing what things you need for the project should cost. I've noticed that a lot of boat blogs and YouTube channels tend to share affiliate links for gear and materials that are on the high end of what they should cost so before you start buying epoxy and suchlike from Amazon it might be a good idea to do some cost comparisons before you buy stuff.

Seriously when that $300 dinghy project winds up taking two years and costing you $1200 you really can't blame it on a surprise.  The same goes when arriving on some island with wall to wall Megayachts expecting to find stateside bargains as high prices tend to go with the neighborhood.   

Sadly, these days, common sense is often in short supply but it's a learnable tool that will go a long way to extend your budget as well as improving your quality of life.                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

Swimming against the stream...

Back in the dark ages, when I was living on a CAL 20, I went to a lecture by Herman Daly who really blew my mind with his thoughts on economic growth. Sadly. he passed away recently.

I mention this here because his take on economics has a whole lot to do with my thoughts on living within a finite resource envelope, growth for growth's sake, and the process of swimming against the prevailing current.

I'm pretty sure that if I had not found myself in a economics lecture all those years ago I'd be going along with the great unwashed hordes thinking that one can buy one's own slice of happiness by spending more for a bigger boat. Which makes Daly one of my major influences in terms of boat mindset.

I'd seriously check out some of his books and lectures if you have the chance.

a boat with a lot of resources...

Checking Craigslist this morning I saw there was a Pearson Triton being sold off at a marina in the San Francisco Bay area for $750. You might say it caught my attention. 

 

It's a great design, Dan Spurr used the Triton as his main example of how to fix up a small boat for cruising in his "Spurrs BoatBook Upgrading the Cruising Sailboat"which amounts to a great how to do it guide.

James Baldwin circumnavigated his Triton twice and now is an awesome resource on how to make small boats better and a great resource on all things Triton with an excellent website and a wonderful YouTube channel.

The going price for a good to excellent Triton seems to be between $10K to $28K so a fixer upper for $750 that's floating right side up and appears to be in OK condition is certainly a good candidate to check out.

What I particularly find attractive about the idea of refitting and cruising a Triton is that all of the brain work has already been done for you. Between Spurr's book, James Baldwin's books , articles and videos you pretty much have the answer to any issue you'd encounter in the project.

For example take a look at one of the Triton refits on Baldwin's Atom Voyager channel;

I'll be honest and say that if the Craigslist ad was down here I'd be there with money in hand as fast as I could get there as it would be a great boat to fix up and resell for a profit...

On the subject of sustainability...

SUSTAINABILITY

noun

1. The ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, or confirmed. 
2. Environmental Science: The quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance: The committee is developing sustainability standards for products that use energy.

 

The other day I found myself trying to explain the idea of sustainable cruising to someone and found the process a lot more complicated than expected. It is really a very simple concept and not complicated at all. Basically, sustainable cruising is simply just living within our means.

Simple right?

In hindsight, I've come around to the idea that maybe it's not all that simple. As it happens, the majority of folks I know actually don't live within their means or, to be more precise, are so close to the edge that any unforeseen dip in their income puts them into unsustainable territory.

Worse, it's not just a large percentage of individuals living in an unsustainable manner but the cities, states, and countries that they live in are also not working in a sustainable fashion. Even the world we live in is being run in a way that, considering it has finite resources but an ever-increasing population and demand on those resources, works on the premise that we can somehow continue population and economic growth forever without adverse effect.

So, considering that most everyone on the planet is not living within their means, it sorta/kinda makes the whole concept of sustainability something of a foreign concept to a lot of folks and yes, Dear Reader, a lot of those folks are interested in boats and cruising.

Which, I guess, also has a lot to do with not everyone quite getting the whole VolksCruiser concept which is really just about getting a boat and cruising off into the sunset in a sustainable fashion.

Some more on the subject soon come...

Speaking of sustainability...