The Boat

Kurt says:

I purchased Elizabeth in the summer of 2011 after living on a 23' wooden sailboat for four years. The little boat, as she is aptly called, was a challenge. No head, a couple of alcohol burners for cooking, about 4 feet of headroom and one electrical outlet. I could not stand up, could not walk, could not cook anything other than pasta and soup and slept on the settee every night. After a few years winters became unbearably claustrophobic. The rest of the year was wonderful as the first lesson in living in small spaces is the realization that the world is your home and your space is where you sleep and where you go to get away from the cold and rain. It is a beautiful world to live in and that is the beauty of living on boats and why I continue to live aboard. Still, I came to dream of just being able to stand up and walk somewhere during the long dark winter nights. Twenty feet would be enough. So, Elizabeth became inevitable.

Elizabeth is a 1981 O'day 34 -- big enough to be comfortable and small enough to sail single-handed. In theory she will sleep six people; two in the forward vee berth, two on the port settee, one on the right settee and one in the aft quarter berth. She really only sleeps two people comfortably.
Six people would have to be really patient and really good friends to sleep on this boat for more than one night. Most of the year I sleep in the forward berth and move to the settee in winter so I do not have to heat the forward section of the boat. When Alison joins me we will have to figure out where we want to sleep. I expect, in order to stave off divorce, we will use the entire boat.

There is a full working head, with shower a desk/nav station, a reasonable galley and 60 amps of available power. There is running hot and cold water with 56 gallons stored in tanks that must be filled whenever weather permits. All the comforts of home. I have so far made no drastic changes to the interior. In order to process my images I added a computer and mounted an HDTV to use as a monitor. The computer is the only source of entertainment on board. I pay an absurd amount for mobile data.

During the winter I heat the boat with a small electric engine compartment heater, a larger quartz infrared heater and a small alcohol heater. She warms up fast, and cools down even faster. Heating is by far the largest expense. My electric bills soar to over $150 a month in the winter from only $20 a month the rest of the year.

Alison says: 

The boat leaves me a little speechless which is hard to accomplish. I don't really have more to add. I mean I have a whole lot more to add, but I am trying to keep this whole experience perky and positive. Okay?