# Ever known someone who owns a yacht? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 24, 2015, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844 "2015-03-24T09:46:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/41 "2015-03-25T05:39:10Z")
My personal yachts: 15.5’ Snipe 21’ Victory ( fixed keel ) 23’ Olympic cabin sailboat ( Think a nicer Catalina 22 ) [Olympic 23](http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=183) 1938, 32’ Tumlaren Swedish full keel designed by Knud Reimers. ( One of the most important Scandinavian yacht designers of the 20th century. ) It had 3 transatlantic crossings under it’s keel before I found it sunk and bought it. I had it from ( 1977 to 1992) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knud\_Reimers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knud_Reimers) [1938 Tumlaren pictures](https://www.google.com/search?q=1938+tumlaren+sailboat&hl=en&gbv=2&spell=1&as_q=&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=5EcSVeDeEZGxsASkzYCgBw&ved=0CCsQsAQ&tbm=isch) It would go to weather like a train. Could beat a 1/4 ton upwind in decent air. They are only 7’2" max beam. Wheeeee 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/42 "2015-03-25T22:53:47Z")
Man, the Tumlaren is pretty and sleek. You say you found it sunk. Was that done on purpose to tighten up the wood? I always loved the fact that part of a good maintenance regimen was to sink the boat every few years. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/43 "2015-03-25T23:11:54Z")
My friend, a life long sailer, bought a huge sailing yacht after making tens of millions of dollars in the late 90s. He was employee #13 in a dotcom that had a huge IPO. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/44 "2015-03-26T04:45:59Z")
> [@Fubaya](#): > > Man, the Tumlaren is pretty and sleek. You say you found it sunk. Was that done on purpose to tighten up the wood? I always loved the fact that part of a good maintenance regimen was to sink the boat every few years. It was sunk at the dock on an inland lake in Oklahoma. About 1 foot of the cabin was above water. I spotted it from the air on the way back from a photo job. Went back on a weekend, scoped it out, waded through it, water was clear enough to see what was what. A mess. Found the owner, the widow of the guy who had it. He had a heart attack and they just ran in and docked and left it. Did not even shut the cabin. He died & she never went back. Eventually rain filled it and she was hanging from the dock lines. Been under water for 3 years. Started calling her about buying it. Took about 6 months to convince her to sell it to me. I eventually got her to sell and in the mean time I had refloated her, hung some really grungy sails that were strewn about and took her sailing. I was grinning all day. Back then, they did not design to a rule ( the mono hull 12 meters are slow for their size actually. ) They designed to get there as quick as they could for the size they wanted. They were a meter boat originally I read… I sent a letter to Knud Reimers and we wrote back & forth for a while. Learned about the transatlantic crossing from him. He actually remembered this actual boat. I also contacted some of the distance sailors of the day, Donald Street, Lyn & Larry Pardey of the ‘Serfin’ books, ( got to be old to remember those people, mid 60’s to the 80’s mostly ) Hal & Margret Roth of “After 50,000 miles” fame and others I was acquainted with at that time to get their opinion about this type boat. I hauled her, dragged her to the lake I sailed and had a blast. In heavy air, there was no boat on the lake that could stay with her. Like a train man, like a train… Never got her in the ocean but I was offshore many times in the 23’ Olympic. Canadian built I think and a good little boat. Old sailing boats are a treasure trove IMO. I can no longer handle the physical part of sailing due to body damage yet just talking about or viewing my slides of those years still gives me that feeling… Thanks for your interest. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/45 "2015-03-26T12:07:08Z")
> [@GusNSpot](#): > > I also contacted some of the distance sailors of the day, Donald Street, Lyn & Larry Pardey of the ‘Serfin’ books, ( got to be old to remember those people, mid 60’s to the 80’s mostly ) Hal & Margret Roth of “After 50,000 miles” fame and others I was acquainted with at that time to get their opinion about this type boat. You don’t have to be old, those people are legends still. I just listened to an interview with the Pardeys recently. There’s a guy named Andy Schell that has a sailing podcast called 59 North, he interviewed them. I think he’s interviewed Donald Street too, but maybe that was somewhere else. There was another podcast called Furled Sails that had some great interviews too, it may have been on there. I was googling the boat last night and found that Larry actually owned a Tumlaren when he was a teenager, but an earlier shorter one, 27ft I think. He apparently spoke very fondly of it. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/46 "2015-03-26T12:14:12Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Should we be worried that our minds immediately go to a cartoon?😛 I worry more about the people who don’t immediately get the reference. We have a 26 foot sloop we keep on Long Island Sound. We know many other boaters, some of whom have much larger boats than we do. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/47 "2015-03-26T12:24:23Z")
> [@GusNSpot](#): > > I can no longer handle the physical part of sailing due to body damage yet just talking about or viewing my slides of those years still gives me that feeling… I hear ya. A buddy of mine had a Hobie Cat (hardly a yacht) that we we took to Hilton Head for family vacations. We would sail out from the beach with a six pack or two until we could _just barely_ see land. We routinely had “close calls” where we’d lose sight of land. A few times we’d flip the boat and be almost too exhausted to operate the righting system. Crazy days! ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/48 "2015-03-26T14:33:47Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > Lots of people live on boats that mostly remain parked in marinas. A lot of marinas are setup to cater to this by having showers and other services for slip renters to use. It can be cheaper that renting an apartment. In the middle 80s, we had a 1937 gaff rigged cutter that we lived aboard for a year - with a newborn. We owned it outright and at the time, it was the alternative to moving in with my inlaws. It was very cramped and the deck over my side of the bunk leaked (funny how I ended up on that side) but it got us thru a very tight financial period, and at the end of that year, we moved into a new house. In the late 90s, we bought a 37’ Fisher motorsailer that my husband ended up living aboard on several occasions, including a 2-year stint before I was able to join him. (Not marital issues - changing jobs and keeping a daughter in one place for high school.) Once I transferred to this area, we lived aboard together for about 3 months till we took possession of this house. Unfortunately, we didn’t own that boat outright, and between the boat payment and the slip fees, we were well over $1K/month. But it still beat renting because it was our boat. Most marinas that permit live-aboards have decent bathroom facilities and many offer on-site washers and dryers. Some have restaurants on site or adjacent. Some have loaner bicycles, altho they’re usually used by transients rather than permanent residents. Some include electricity in the slip rent, others have metered slips. Some offer cable hookup. The disadvantage of living aboard in places where you get real winter is fresh water. Marinas around here turn off the water to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting. The place where my husband stayed in Baltimore would drag hoses to the residents’ boats weekly to refill their fresh water tanks. THAT was a nice service. Otherwise, you’d have to carry your own water for cooking and cleaning. I’m glad we had the chance to live in a couple if different marinas, but I’m gladder that I now have a house with my own washer and a reliable supply of water and I don’t have to worry about being jostled away when some moron ignores the No Wake signs as he zips past. Good times… ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/49 "2015-03-26T19:36:39Z")
An uncle of mine went off and retired on a big pile of cash thanks to never having kids (or so he says), and now he and his wife spend their days on their yacht going from Alaska down to Central America and back every year. I have no idea how big the boat is, but it has two masts, and comfortably sleeps 6 (?). So at least 2 bedrooms. I haven’t had the chance to join him, because I have a job and responsibilities, but I’d love to. There’s always an open invitation - the catch is I have to catch them in port and have a few weeks of vacation (plus a week or so on the end in case weather or some other occurrence prevents us from getting back to shore). ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/50 "2015-03-26T23:58:53Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Where did he keep it and how often did he take it out? He lived in Boca Raton, Florida, and docked it in a local marina. He said that he took it out most weekends. My wife and I spent a week with him and, once I sorted out his wiring issues for him, spent three of the six days that we were there on the boat. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/51 "2015-03-27T00:58:08Z")
I do know someone. I don’t know if you’d properly classify it as a yacht, but at something like 500k in value, it’s expensive enough for my purposes. They actually took out a loan on it, so “Where’d you get the money?” is not a very interesting question. Might as well ask the same of any homeowner. They also offset quite a few of the operating expenses by chartering it out through the same company that managed the mooring. This brought in something like 15-20k of revenue a year, which was about half of their total expenses to maintain it and pay the loan. So it never had the potential to be profitable, but it certainly cut down on the cost. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/52 "2015-03-27T01:16:00Z")
Growing up, my father was really in to boats. When I was a teen we had a 38 foot Egg Harbor on Lake Erie. Looked just like [this](http://images1.americanlisted.com/nlarge/1972-egg-harbor-38-sedan-sport-fisherman-in-texas-americanlisted_34602769.jpg). It turned out to be a _lot_ more work (and expense) that he expected. There was quiet a bit of wood on that boat, and wood on a boat requires a lot of upkeep. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844/53 "2015-03-27T04:54:04Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Most marinas that permit live-aboards have decent bathroom facilities and many offer on-site washers and dryers. Some have restaurants on site or adjacent. Some have loaner bicycles, altho they’re usually used by transients rather than permanent residents. Some include electricity in the slip rent, others have metered slips. Some offer cable hookup. > > The disadvantage of living aboard in places where you get real winter is fresh water. Marinas around here turn off the water to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting. The place where my husband stayed in Baltimore would drag hoses to the residents’ boats weekly to refill their fresh water tanks. THAT was a nice service. Otherwise, you’d have to carry your own water for cooking and cleaning. > > I’m glad we had the chance to live in a couple if different marinas, but I’m gladder that I now have a house with my own washer and a reliable supply of water and I don’t have to worry about being jostled away when some moron ignores the No Wake signs as he zips past. Good times… Question: I thought those large boats had regular bathrooms on them and they just ran sewer and water supply lines to them. Are you saying you had to use a community bathroom when you were at that marina? Also do people living in marinas become a close community? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-who-owns-a-yacht/715844.md?page=2)