Semi Liveaboard Trailer Sailer

[Norm L.]

I love the term gray nomading. I would happily be doing it as I always wonder what is around the corner or over the hill. But she who must be obeyed thinks it is not a sane thing to do. Despite the fact that we did years of it when the kids were young.

She will go as long as there is air conditioning and a clean dunny with a shower. And a king-sized bed. And HGTV on the telly. And it's not too long a trip away from our daughter. Probably file that under high level glamping.

[Grith]

I love the term gray nomading. I would happily be doing it as I always wonder what is around the corner or over the hill. But she who must be obeyed thinks it is not a sane thing to do. Despite the fact that we did years of it when the kids were young.

She will go as long as there is air conditioning and a clean dunny with a shower. And a king-sized bed. And HGTV on the telly. And it's not too long a trip away from our daughter. Probably file that under high level glamping.

Not our yacht that actually comes very close ( all of the above except only a long double bed and the hot/cold shower is on the back deck ) so not quite but our All Wheel Drive slide on truck camper has all of the above!
Just find the right platform including all those things she wants and then drag her kicking and screaming!
Once you are out there I am sure she will actually love it! 🙂

[Grith]

Still not finding many reports from those long range cruising on trailer sailers. Can anyone point me to some here?
For our planned long range cruises I have just completed making a Katadyn Power Survivor 40e into a completely portable unit. Our next planned cruise will involve 3/4 months on water in a very remote,beautiful but extremely challenging area with no ability to resupply.
Wild water sources are what many rely on in The Kimberley's but these are sometimes uncertain and often involve dodging prehistoric monsters (crocodiles) to reach them. Hence this purchase.
In most cases our coastal or inland waters extended cruising doesn't involve such long absences from civilisation and our onboard tankage and portable containers are usually more than adequate for our needs. We have lasted 5 weeks between needing to resupply fresh water to date.
With limited room and generally not needing a reverse osmosis watermaker I decided to see if I could turn the secondhand unit I purchased into a portable system and this has been successful.
After a good deal of thinking and searching I found a cheap pelican case copy at a auto parts store on special and that combined with a variety of extra parts has cost me around Aus $200 to now create the unit pictured below.
It fits perfectly in my yachts stern generator box still leaving room for my smaller of two Honda suitcase style generators an eu10.
Given on our last 2 month cruise we never needed to start the generator I am considering leaving it behind for our future cruises despite our all electric induction cooking, compressor fridge and freezer, 240v hot water system and charging our torqeedo auxiliary electric outboard batteries amongst other 240v uses.
To this end I have purchased two fold up solar panels total 450w (claimed!) to supplement our 900w current hard solar panel system which will be deployed on areas like our upturned inflatable dingy on the foredeck and our secondary at anchor fold out Bimini.
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[Norm L.]

I think your adventures far surpass anything done by the trailer people here. There have been some great trips but not as liveaboards or in the wilderness for over a week.
I have mentioned here a woman yacht surveyor who spent a year on board a Nimble Nomad which is a 7.3 M boat with a 50 HP outboard. She explored the many rivers and swamps in the U.S. southeast off the grid for a few weeks at a time.

[Grith]

My travels are in their relative infancy versus elderly friends of mine still trailer sailer exploring for sometimes months on end for the last over 30 years. Eric is now late eighties yet they are still out there doing it if perhaps coming closer to the end now of a fantastic adventurous trailer sailer based cruising life.

[Norm L.]

Grith, it is obvious why the Aussies have more adventurist nature than Americans. Here the culture was built by Puritans and there by criminals. 

If I have a choice it would be spending time with the criminals and not the Puritans.

[Grith]

Grith, it is obvious why the Aussies have more adventurist nature than Americans. Here the culture was built by Puritans and there by criminals. 

If I have a choice it would be spending time with the criminals and not the Puritans.

😂 Well if you look at what most of the criminals were transported to Australia for a lot wouldn't even get goal sentences these days. One of my own relatives (yes I am 7th generation Australian) was a butcher convicted of slaughtering/butchering a sheep for customers that was apparently stolen.
You don't know who knew what back then but he definitely wasn't involved in the actual theft.
It was a single sheep not a flock and these days probably even the actual thief or thieves wouldn't even come close to a custodial sentence never mind banishment to the other side of the world for the term of their natural life! 
Like many after some years of hard labour he was released to remain in Australia and started a butchers shop surprise, surprise!🙂
I am in contact with a fair few adventurous Americans and Canadians but much fewer English as I think the weather there is perhaps a bit of a put off especially for those of us with a smaller lighter trailer sailer bent!🙂

[Norm L.]

I was joking about the "criminal" population. I know transporting was a way for those with power to get rid of those without power that they, for any reason, disliked. But they only started sending them to Australia when the American War of Independence prevented them from sending the unwanted to the American Colony.
Australia got the meanest ones as they all arrived pissed for being on a ship for months, with horrible food, and rounding The Horn
Later in America it was a little neater. There were certainly transportees, but the cleaner term was indentured servants. The U.S. Appalachian region is populated by the ancestors of these "contract employees". 

But you did have Ned Kelly and The Rocks Gang. And your version of Scarface Capone, Squizzy Taylor.

[Grith]

Don't worry these days most of us multi generational European heritage Australians are proud of our convict ancestors unlike earlier times.
Also you could hardly call us invaders when many of my ancestors were originally sent here as prisoners and banished from ever going back to England.