Liveaboard

therannu · 16-05-2006 12:51pm #1

Hi there,

I've got the crazy idea into my head of buying a boat and living on board. There's a healthy online 'liveaboard' community in the UK but I can't find anything online on the subject in Ireland. I'm doing a little research into what kinds of vessels are available here and where one can get residential moorings. Is there anyone on Boards who lives aboard/knows someone who lives aboard/has any good advice. So far, anyone I've contacted has just tried to sell me stuff!

I have no idea what type of boat to look for, as the first thing, in my opinion, is to find out if it's feasible by locating somewhere to moor it. A couple of marinas say they accept liveaboards, but are not really forthcoming with much more information until I can tell them what kind of craft I'm thinking of, which is perfectly understandable. So, I guess, basically what I'm after here is the experience of anyone who's gone ahead and lived on a houseboat.

My job is in Cork City, so any titbits on Cork Harbour are especially welcome!

Cheers.

pclancy · 16-05-2006 3:05pm

Cant help you personally but here might be a few places to start or find people that can help you!

http://www.iwai.ie/index.php

http://www.waterwaysireland.org/

http://www.cruising.ie/

Maybe someone else on here knows more then i do so maybe keep an eye out for a reply here also

I'd love to live on a boat i'm always amazingly peacefull near water. Fair play let us know how you get on!

dragonkin · 20-05-2006 12:09pm

Depends where you want to do it. In general it's frowned apon in the good spots near Dublin and I imagine Cork. If you've found a marina that accepts liveaboards you're doing very well, but remember in order to live comfortably you'll need to large boat ideally a barge or large cruiser/yacht (very very expensive). A barge is probably the cheapest (to buy!) and most practical but it would be massively expensive to moor at a Marina as they normally charge by the foot, in general marinas are very expensive.

Alternatively you might be able to find somewhere on the inland waterways, this article http://www.iwai.ie/boating/liveaboard.htmlexplains the IWAIs view on the situation (not good at all) and some of the disadvantages of living onboard.

Anyways why not? If you do it, I'd be fascinated to see how you got on.

Western Cruiser · 21-05-2006 12:44am

Try the very helpful Inland waterways and Motor Cruising forums on www.powerboat.ie as well.

Quite a few barge denizens there and full of helpful advice !

pclancy · 22-05-2006 12:44am

sheesh the IWAI is fairly against the idea arent they? Suppose they're right about the practicalities of it all though but I would have thought they would make some provision for people that dont care about the downsides and just want to live afloat.

therannu · 23-05-2006 1:33am

Absolutely. The powers that be appear to only approve of people holidaying on Shannon cruises and people with a lot of money who just leave their yachts wherever it will be safe. It's been a dream of mine for a very long time to live aboard, but apparently that's just not allowed in this country. Heaven forbid that a regular citizen would get in the way of the tourists and the super-rich! Maybe I'm a bit oversensitive at the moment, due to the fact that I'm from Limerick and haven't been sober since Saturday morning! THERE IS AN ISLE...

pclancy · 23-05-2006 10:09am

Haha

Congrats on the win!

skenn_ie · 24-07-2006 6:37pm

Hi, What's so strange about living afloat ?. I grew up on a barge on the shannon, and am currently seeking a suitable vessel to return to that lifestyle.
I may well buy a tug, or retired fishingboat to convert...living in basic on-board accomodation while I work. One vessel I found had a caravan dropped in the hold .. for the resident to live in while they construct their ideal home.
Unfortunately, many harbours, and local authorities prohibit residential mooring, which is a great pity. I suspect this is due to waste disposal fears, but with modern waste disposal systems, this need not be a problem.
BTW: My Dad designed a harbour for Ennis, which was rejected by the board, then an almost identical layout built, supposedly designed by someone else !.

Thomas_S_Hunterson · 01-08-2006 3:25pm

skenn_ie wrote:

BTW: My Dad designed a harbour for Ennis, which was rejected by the board, then an almost identical layout built, supposedly designed by someone else !.

And that came from where?

I would suggest he contact a lawyer about this

delop · 16-08-2006 5:04pm

I work as a yacht skipper most of the year, mainly in the med or south us/ caribbean..

The issues I would be worried about are

Cold in the winter
Not secure unless in a marina (expensive and who would want to live in a marina)
Nothing electronical will last
Washing facilities cant onboard and expensice out
Noisy (storms, halyards bangain from unmanned boats etc...)
Space

I reckon you would have to be very diciplined or really love it...

Although saying that a mate of mine it bringing his boat 33ft contessa to cork hauling it and living on it for the winter.. good luck to him...

ocha · 03-09-2006 11:32pm

I'm up North and also looking for a liveaboard. At one point had 2 options; a 37.5 foot concrete furrow that has been a liveaboard for the past 5 years or a 40 foot wooden carvel larch over oak. Decided against concrete and we were going to buy the wooden one, but unfortunately the day before the deal was settled the Ferry at the small town where it was moored came in way too fast just as the tide was starting to come in and the enormous wash caused the boat to fall out from the harbour wall. 15 tonnes of wooden boat, broken ribs and cracked planks and submerged engines in salt water ( not the end of the world if you can get them lifted out and flushed quickly and check seals- we weren't so lucky)... not the ideal purchase, not to mention all the electrics( G-sat , radios etc) had been soaked. As the tide came in the boat began to sink and it took 2 fire crews to pump the water out so we could save her. Liveaboard can be comfy enough on 35-40 foot, depends how much you want to spend also and how much luxury you need. Our moorings in Belfast have shore power and we can install a phone line etc if we want. For heat a lot of liveaboards use wood burning stoves-20 minutes and you feel like you're in a sauna. Personally I wouldn't use fibreglass as a liveaboard as they need to come out for a while every year to get dried down to stop osmosis whereas you can get away with anti fouling a wooden boat every 2 years. If you are willing to put the work in to conversion, ex trawlers are great.
I'd recommend you get busy as liveaboard boats are destined to become extremely fashionable and popular because of the vast rise in property prices. We have estimated that liveaboard boating would save us at least 6,000 pounds a year. The boat club we belong to has several liveaboard permanent members and to be honest they are welcomed as they are always about to keep an eye out for everyone else's boats. There is also a great community to be had within the boating people. You have to make compromises with regards to how much of your belongings you can take on board and how much fresh food you can store at a given time, but that's a small price to pay for peace of mind.

disco biscuit · 08-09-2006 5:52pm

Hi there,
I was thinking of doing that myself.I live in Cork City .A guy I know fishes in Cork harbour and he told me there is a guy who lives on a boat in the harbour.He doesn't have a mooring.When he wants to come ashore he anchors the boat in the bay and comes in on a punt.I don't think that would suit me.I would prefer to live on a boat on a canal where you could walk ashore anytime.You can have a boat on the royal and grand canal for about 138 euros for the year but I am not sure if that officially entitles you to be resident on it all year round.Does anybody know what are the regulations concerning living on a boat on the Shannon.Can one moor a boat along the bank anywhere without having to pay.

skenn_ie · 25-09-2006 9:08pm

As far as I can determine, residential moorings, in principle, are ok by the Dept of the marine, but the County Councils are a different matter. With them, anything novel is totally beyond their comprehension. They view the concept as another version of "travellers", and are to be avoided at all costs.
I would love to see, or better still, be involved in developing a couple of residential marinas. Why should boating (other than dingy sailing)continue to be out-of-reach financially to all but the wealthy !. Looking at DunLaoghaire, a 15m boat there would cost €6000 per year...just for a berth, and they specifically prohibit liveaboards.
Given the opportunity, I would have 50 or so berths, with plug-in services...water supply, electricity, bin collection, waster water system, and wireless internet. Many of the muddy estuaries around the country would look BETTER if they had some boats moored. Properly managed, there is no rational reason why not !. Talk to your local TD, Co Councillors etc. The planners have their heads so far up their .....'s that that can't see anything beyond prior experience.

ocha · 04-10-2006 5:30pm

skenn_ie wrote:

Given the opportunity, I would have 50 or so berths, with plug-in services...water supply, electricity, bin collection, waster water system, and wireless internet. Many of the muddy estuaries around the country would look BETTER if they had some boats moored. Properly managed, there is no rational reason why not !.

I hear you Skenn . There is exactly that facility up North here in Fermanagh. but watch this space, as we are in talks with a company in England with a view to buying up a marina in the North to have as a residential mooring facility for liveaboards with all the facilities you mentioned. We probably won't do shore power mains electricity, but will use solar panels and wind gens like we have on our own live aboard, although I recognise that it might be exoedient to have the shore mains facility available as and when needed.
Right now we are in the process of wrangling with the yacht club we joined as they want us to move our liveaboard elsewhere... they reckon there's a planning debate over it..... not according to the planners we contacted. Then they reckon that it will draw harbour masters concerns..... not according to the harbour master.
When you have a liveaboard you come across so much pure snobbery it would make you sick. Secretly in the yacht club we belong to , I reckon it might be a little bit of jealousy too as we don't rely on shore power ( as we are the only ones with the foresight to have solar power and wind gens and use gas for heating, cooking etc) like the rest of them do plus we are able to live very comfortably in ours for as long as we wish, which is more than the rest of them are able to do.
With the vast boom in property prices, many people cannot afford to get a foot on the rung of the property ladder these days. I predict that liveaboards are about to be the next big thing. it's just a vastly untapped market right at the moment.

Toft · 04-02-2010 9:32pm

I've been lazily looking into buying a widebeam barge with a view to living on it and I'm thinking of buying a cheaper/better one outside Ireland and importing it in. Has anybody done anything like that? what was the import tax like? or here's a good question what's the best place to buy a good sized barge?
A trip to a boatyard in the Philippians could be just the thing for a holiday and a new boat!

Tabnabs · 05-02-2010 10:32am

Holy thread resurrection batman! :eek:

This one's been dead four years!

ISAW · 09-02-2010 12:35pm

Dyflin wrote: »

Holy thread resurrection batman! :eek:

This one's been dead four years!

It isn't illegal to live aboard.
It does happen in some places.

But it is frowned upon.
I think mainly because of the attitude to "new age travellers"

It should probably be enhouraged and regulated but ther are outsytanding problems such as
- what to do with the people who bought barges and rented them out
- how to charge people for waste and power

it certainly shouldn't be a cheap option.

Put it this way suppose someone says "I don't want to live in a house I want to live in a tent" That wont cause many problems. the person however will be using your water and your bins to dump their rubbish and not pay for it.

Nopw suppose a thousand people said "well I want to do that too! Look you don't even have to pay for bins, water, rates. You can travel where you like and just pitch on the side of the road."

See the problem?

So maybe regulate it by licencing the occupant annually which means they have to

1. Pass a test of competence
this means safety on water, radio use, first aid etc.

2. Satisfy a number of standards over the course of the year.
e.g. Proof of an audited waste policy. contribution to the community (not necessarily financial e.g. in helping out the harbour, or locks maintainance or running, or yacht club.)

3. Be in good financial and legal standing.

There are also loads of other matters relating to access to services but that's just for starters.

burrentech · 20-12-2017 9:15am

Just discovered this post, so here's its second resurrection!

I also had the idea of buying a boat and living aboard. Having that option to go sailing on good days, and hunker down when the weather turned nasty.

As would happen I had a chance to visit a marina in Co. Cork that would allow you to live aboard, either moored at the jetty, or on the hard!

I did look at a few boats/yachts and there was one that would have been suitable for me but it was at the top of my budget and looked like it would need a lot of work, especially below the waterline. It was on the hard at the time so easy to see those faults.

As to expense, the yard I visited seemed to charge about the same for the berth as for being up on the shore after you take into account haul out, a relaunch fees. Power was available, and possibly internet, but the mooring covered a sizeable area and doubt they will have all of it covered. Costs would have worked out about the same as renting an apartment in the city, maybe even more so. Not including power which was definitely more than you would pay in a conventional dwelling.

The final straw for me was the shower/toilet block they provided. Nothing more than a portacabin that looked like it had seen better days.

I follow a Danish YouTuber who is restoring an old boat and his cost are a mere fraction of what is being asked in Ireland. In the marina he is berthed with 4 liveaborders including him, they have their own shower/toilet/laundry block as part of the marina's shore facilities and included is a communal dining/cooking/lounge area for their exclusive use.

Its such a shame that no one here has seen the potential and gone with it. Given the cost of housing in Ireland you would think an enterprising marina owner would jump at the chance to increase revenue.

fergal.b · 20-12-2017 6:21pm

burrentech wrote: »

Just discovered this post, so here's its second resurrection!

I also had the idea of buying a boat and living aboard. Having that option to go sailing on good days, and hunker down when the weather turned nasty.

As would happen I had a chance to visit a marina in Co. Cork that would allow you to live aboard, either moored at the jetty, or on the hard!

I did look at a few boats/yachts and there was one that would have been suitable for me but it was at the top of my budget and looked like it would need a lot of work, especially below the waterline. It was on the hard at the time so easy to see those faults.

As to expense, the yard I visited seemed to charge about the same for the berth as for being up on the shore after you take into account haul out, a relaunch fees. Power was available, and possibly internet, but the mooring covered a sizeable area and doubt they will have all of it covered. Costs would have worked out about the same as renting an apartment in the city, maybe even more so. Not including power which was definitely more than you would pay in a conventional dwelling.

The final straw for me was the shower/toilet block they provided. Nothing more than a portacabin that looked like it had seen better days.

I follow a Danish YouTuber who is restoring an old boat and his cost are a mere fraction of what is being asked in Ireland. In the marina he is berthed with 4 liveaborders including him, they have their own shower/toilet/laundry block as part of the marina's shore facilities and included is a communal dining/cooking/lounge area for their exclusive use.

Its such a shame that no one here has seen the potential and gone with it. Given the cost of housing in Ireland you would think an enterprising marina owner would jump at the chance to increase revenue.

All depends on where you go I suppose there are people living in the marina I'm in "lakeside" and the facilities there are spotless I know another guy living in Malahide marina a bit more expensive but still cheeper than renting a flat.

burrentech · 20-12-2017 6:35pm

It would depend one what the rental on a flat in your area. As you're in Dublin then I would expect rents to be much higher than areas not in Dublin.

The Danish YouTuber pays €500/per annum for his berth, which less than a tenth of the prices I was quoted for a marina south of Cork. I am sure your own costs will be considerably higher than that.

fergal.b · 21-12-2017 12:10pm

Some of the boats on the canals only pay a few hundred per year. What were you quoted for the mooring in Cork ?

.

pedroeibar1 · 21-12-2017 12:22pm

Whatever happened to the guy who was posting about liveaboard and had planned an 'earth closet' for heads?

burrentech · 21-12-2017 12:28pm

fergal.b wrote: »

Some of the boats on the canals only pay a few hundred per year. What were you quoted for the mooring in Cork ?
.

Is that for liveaboard? The parts of the Grand Canal I have seen did not have any facilities for people wishing to live on their boats, and certainly not safe to leave unprotected at anytime.

I was quoted varying prices and would have been charged around €40+/week on the hard depending on the length of the boat. Costs for a berth were a little more, but by the time you add haul out, and re launch fees it worked out the same for 6months in & 6 months out of the water. That did not include any additional fees for power, water etc.

Liveaboard

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