Two ways to travel - RV v. Sailboat

Raven at the dock in South Carolina (the one with the white hull).

Our NuWay rig and GMC pickup.

We are working hard to get Raven ready for another spell of cruising. That means we will have to pare down from our luxurious lifestyle in a NuWay 5^th wheel back to a bare bones lifestyle on the boat. There is a lot to be said for both modes of living. In our travels, we have met several boaters who were heading back to land for a “land yacht”. I've yet to meet anyone at an RV park who was contemplating living on a boat, but there may be someone out there yearning for blue water.

I've lived aboard our 36 foot sailboat for seven years, and lived in the NuWay for almost three years. Back in 2003, we made a four month road trip towing a 17 foot trailer. Both the RV and boating lifestyles have lots to recommend them, and both have lots of drawbacks.

Space

NuWay: We have SPACE. Wow! Lots of space! We have three slides. You can swing a cat in the living room.

Raven: Very little space below decks. Everything is stuffed everywhere it will go. Hopefully you have pared down enough that everything is stowed properly. But in the cockpit – you have the entire ocean around you and the entire sky above you and generally not another person in sight. This is not a shabby view, and makes the space inconvenience a non-issue for me.

Multiple rooms

NuWay: There are three different rooms in our RV (the living/kitchen area, the bathroom, and the bedroom). I enjoy going from one to another…I love the privacy afforded by closing doors.

Raven: Basically one long room with a closed off head that is about the size of a bookcase. So when you get mad at your spouse, you end up steaming in very close quarters.

Light

NuWay: I love the light. In the RV we have lots of windows and we have 100 watt bulbs for reading, sewing, etc. The older I get, the more my eyes need this help.

Raven: It tends to be dark below (although our new white trim may help that). If I want light, I sit in the cockpit. I spend most of my time in the cockpit.

Conveniences

Nuway: Our RV has 'em!! I love the microwave. I can use all my electric kitchen appliances. I simply wallow in the luxury of an on-board shower. I truly enjoy my hanging closet. Making the bed is so incredibly easy.

Raven: No closet. All clothes folded and on shelves or in boxes. No shower, per se (okay we have one, but it's for desperate times). At the dock, it's the public restrooms and public showers. The good news is, I don't have to clean them. Making the v-berth? Ask David. He gets in there with the sheets and struggles and curses and I stay out of his way. I'm trying to think of a convenience on a boat and my ears are smoking. Oh! We do have a refrigerator. No, actually, we don't. The “refrigerator” is basically an electric ice box into which I can wedge some perishables. Nope, no conveniences on a boat.

Housework

Both: Although you wouldn't know it to hear me whine, there just isn't much in the way of a space to clean. The bad news is, you pretty much have to do it every day. But even if you have a slob attack and don't look at it for a month, you can do the whole “house” in about two hours.

You're not stuck

Both: If you don't like the park, the location, or the neighbors, you just move. Takes about an hour to pack up and an hour to unpack and there you are in your new location. This is an advantage for boats and RVs alike and it's a big advantage. It's a hard one to give up when you're thinking of moving back to a house or an apartment.

Travel

Both: Yep. That's the whole reason for both RVs and cruising boats for David and me. I know there are people who like to rush around the bay with big engines and people who like to fish, and people who like to meet friends and party, and people who live in RVs because they travel from one city to another for their jobs, but the only thing David and I want to do is see the world.

Adventure

Nuway: Not so much.

Raven: Heavens, yes. Life is 3-D technicolor when you're cruising.

Scenic parking

Nuway: Nope. All those ads you see with the RV parked next to a mountain lake? Forget it. Unless you have a little bitty trailer, you end up in big RV parks surrounded by other RVs. The view out your window is usually another RV.

Raven: Scenic “parking” when you are cruising is another story! No bad news here. I can't tell you how beautiful everything is from the water. Marinas tend to be to be parking lots, but we don't spend much time in them.

Neighbors

Nuway: Your neighbors run the gamut, from “full timers” (RV speak for liveaboard) to vacationing retirees. Weirdly, our experience in RV parks and even in National and State parks is that there is little of the comraderie commonly found in a marina or among boaters when they hook up. I suspect it's because RV-ers are still fighting traffic and surrounded by too many people, while boaters are thrilled to see someone after a couple of weeks of lone sailing. Maybe.

Raven: Boaters are ridiculously friendly. Get togethers include raft-ups on the water, clumps of boaters in any marina, folks stopping by to chat on the dock...maybe it's because boaters are outside a lot, in their cockpits, or sitting around in communal areas in the marina. How do you make friends? You knock on the hull of your neighboring boat (from the dinghy) and say hi.

Maintenance

Both: Something is always going haywire and it always seems to cost an arm and a leg if you can't fix it yourself. The RV service shops we have encountered (this is only our experience) have done shoddy work. We did have one contractor (not aligned with any RV center) install new carpet and fix our flooring and he did a fine job. Marine service can be similar. It's hard to find the local knowledge to know who to hire when you arrive in a new place. It can be wildly frustrating. And for sailors, even if you can fix your boat, you are often in a remote location where you have to wait quite a while for the widget you ordered to show up.

Traveling Hazards

Nuway: In an RV, you are basically pulling a building behind your pickup. You can't see a thing behind you. The simple mass of the RV makes traveling at highway speed terrifying. And there's always that idiot who pulls out right in front of you with no clue as to how long it takes to stop one of these behemoths. Ours is only 33 feet, but it takes about three times its length to stop and that's slamming on the brakes.

Raven: On a boat, you have to know what you're doing and you have to keep a sharp eye out for those boaters who have no idea what they are doing, or who are too blasted on brew to know which end is up. There are lots of them, generally in small harbors. Weather is really, really crucial. Interpreting forecasts is vital to safety. “Traffic” on the ocean consists of enormous container ships that have no idea you are out there. 24-7 watch is imperative.

Fantasies

Both: I hope I am not the only one, but I sort of have this fantasy that life on the road/water won't plague me with stuff I hate doing, like cleaning house, being bored, paying bills, feeling blue, being bitchy, etc. No such luck. In fact, in a tight space, you tend to be face to face with all those annoyances you could avoid on land. It's all there, right with you, wherever you go, and regardless of whether you're in an RV or a boat.

So, which is better? I guess we vote boat. If you are in search of a good RV, let us know. Ours will be for sale soon and it's in great shape, thanks to my amazing husband.

More scrubbing and some shine at last

[Hilde's log]

Let no one tell you that refurbing a boat is not glamorous work. I post this photo of me in varnish/paint thinner protection mask to prove my point.

I've almost finished the port side of the salon, and have moved into the galley. Here is the galley before I tore into it:

You can see why it is time to do all this work, after 20 years of hard labor for the original varnish. Here is a closeup of the wood before I started:

Why it takes forever...I am scrubbing off the quick touch-up coat Raven's previous owner applied without (I think) sanding the original layer. That touch-up coat turned leprous and took a lot of scrubbing to remove. I do it by hand, being a dead loss at electric sanders.

The galley, mid-refurb. The wood on the right is done, except for the trim and the framing. The junk on the counter is going home with me to be sanded while the current varnish dries. I am also in the middle of a stack of drawers that are being re-varnished and having their insides painted.

And here is a glimpse of the future! See how the new varnish shines and brings in the light? It's worth it, just so very slow.

Meanwhile, Cap'n Dave labors on. His work isn't as easy to appreciate as new varnish, but it much more important in terms of actually being out and sailing.

He installed a galvanic isolator, which required several hours of work in a hot boat (all the electric had to be turned off), and then a long shower and a nap to recover. That was it for that Saturday. The galvanic isolator should make our zincs last longer and keep us safe(r) from weird wiring at questionable docks.

This stern light cost David several days of work. "All" he did was move it from the stanchion (where it blinded us at night and was blocked by the wind vane) to the back of the wind vane. This involved creating a new bracket (multiple trips to store, storage, etc.), wresting the rusted screws out of the old bracket, disconnecting and reconnecting the various wires, repairing those that were UV-cracked, and resisting the urge to whack it with a large hammer. In other words, a week of evening effort.