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Living aboard your boat while cruising the world conjures romantic scenes of peaceful nights and visions of some tropical paradise. Rightfully so, and that may be true for some cruisers, but living aboard a boat with a normal nine to five life is another matter entirely.

When you tell people you live on a boat, they first assume you mean a houseboat. A houseboat is much like a land based house, only it floats. A houseboat usually doesn't travel further than the lines tethering it to the dock or dockside services. A houseboat is more of a barge than a boat.

Once you've established that you mean a boat that moves under it's own power, a change passes over the face of the person you're speaking to. They, if only for a second or two, have a far off dreamy look in their eyes and you know they see your life a whole lot differently than it is.

There are many types of personal yachts, within reach of those not listed on the Forbes 400. Most common are sailboats of various configurations and cabin cruisers, normally referred to as power boats. Generally speaking, the beam, or width of a power boat is wider than for an equal length sailboat. Additionally, a power boat hull is essentially a U shape, whereas a sailboat is a V shape, or W if a catamaran. A power boat has a great deal more interior room, both for living and storage.

Life on a power boat is usually fairly level. A power boat interior will accommodate most normal household furnishings. Glass and delicate knick-knacks are not advised, otherwise, a power boat is fairly close to a small traditional house.

But a sailboat is designed to tilt, sometimes quite dramatically, and that changes everything. Furniture is built in or anchored to the sole (floor) of the cabin. What serves as your dining table during the day does double duty as a berth for two at night. Usually the companionway steps (entry) to below decks (the cabin) the will be onto, or over, the galley (kitchen) counters. Below deck configurations vary greatly on sailboats so whether you have a berth or a bed depends on what boat you have.

I had a 1964 Rawson sloop. It was thirty feet long (32' with the bowsprit), it had slightly over a nine foot beam at it's widest and a cockpit that could easily seat eight adults. The cockpit was larger than most boats of that size, which meant that below decks was much smaller. The 500 slip marina where we lived had a total of fifty boats that were lived on full time by their owners. On our dock there were nearly forty

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