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That's amazing! I have a client who runs an acting studio (also an actor himself) and he lives on his boat for most of the year, docked at harbour-front right in Downtown, Toronto.

He tells me the harbour rental is one of best kept secrets. He only pays $100/mnth (a 1bdr studio in the area would go for $2100/mth) and lives in a beautiful yacht, with a master room and guest space, just minutes away from the downtown core and all the essentials. It's the kind of free-spirited lifestyle i'd like to live in the near future.

My question is, how do you deal with icy water? don't you have to pull out the boat when ice starts to form? In Toronto you could pretty much skate out on the lake in winter.

If your boat is in good shape and you're in a harbour it's not a problem. If you're not protected from the open sea by a bulwark of some kind the ice might drift towards land powered by wind and put a lot of pressure on a boat or whatever else is in the way. This will only happen if you're moored somewhere you shouldn't be though.

Basically what happens is that your boat just gets stuck in the ice and moves with the ebb and flow of the water.

The only problem you have is that you can't go anywhere until the ice breaks up. Last winter I got stuck in the ice somewhere in the Copenhagen harbour a few miles from my homeport and ended up staying there for almost three months. Here's a picture: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=oa2m2b&s=7

Well, you have a steel boat. Leaving GRP boat to ice might not be as good an idea, although we had one here one winter and it still seems to sail fine.

Sure, the harbor's cheap ($200/month) say but what about the Yacht itself? Probably costs more to rent than the apartment!!!! No?

I paid $40.000 for the boat and spent around $15.000 on repairs and upgrades. If you take a loan you're going to pay around $800 a month.

In my part of the world that's pretty cheap. Might be expensive elsewhere though.

What part of the world is this? How big is the boat, and where did you find it so cheap?

I see yachts selling for over $500k...

I am seriously considering this. Can you please point me to some links? I am in NYC. Maybe I can buy a yacht somewhere else and sail it to NYC?

Do you have an e-mail? I'll mail you some links.

That sounds amazing.

Side note as someone who grew up in Toronto and lived in the downtown core for several years: A studio would go for under $1200/mo. You can get a pretty swanky 1bdrm for under $1400/mo. Though I have no doubt one could also find an apartment for much more than $2100/mo, too.

I did a quick search for monthly boat fees to park them in the marina, looks like it's around $20.25/ft/mo [1]. Any idea which marina your friend uses?

[1] http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/thewaterfront/marine/rates...

How do you deal with passports, customs, borders etc? Can you just sail into the port of a new country or do you have to pass through some kind of registration or security each time?

I'm in the European Union where you're free to travel from one country to another as you like, so it isn't a problem. Theoretically I could be borded by a customs boat, but I've never had it happen and suspect it's quite rare. I'm not sure how it would work if I went to a country with stricter control of their borders.

You'd do well to keep your VHF radio open on channel 16 though(this is where boats communicate with each other when at sea). I've had customs call med up when passing the border from the Netherlands to Germany to hear who I was and where I was going. Once they got a satisfactory answer we never heard from them again.

This is quite simple. Every time you sail into a new country you have to approach one of the ports of entry[1]. This has to be the first place you visit and there you can arrange all the formalities (customs, immigration, health, depends on a country). Afterwards you are usually free to visit any other harbour in a given country. Rinse and repeat for each country that you visit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_entry

If I recall there was some mention of you possibly writing an how-to style eBook about your experience?

You're right - the memory of HN is excellent :-)

I've kind of shelved it for now since I'm pretty busy doing other things, but I hope that I'll have time to do it within the next year sometime. I don't think it's a great way of making money though, so it's not a top priority. More like a hobby project.

Would you happen to know a list of places where it's practical to rent out semi permanent harbour space, either just in the EU or (preferably) all around the world? I imagine in your planning of your current situation it's possible you compiled such a list?

Have always wanted to do this.

How do you use the bathroom? I heard that although boats have bathrooms, you cannot use them while in harbor because they essentially dump the waste in the water.

How do you shower?

Most bigger boats have a holding tank for grey water and a water tank for fresh water. When you shower you use the fresh water and dump it into the harbour, it's not that dirty just because you've showered. When you go to the toilet you use saltwater to flush and flush it into the greywater tank, which you can then empty either by having it sucked out (All European ports are required by law to have equipment for doing so, though many don't) or dump it into the ocean once you're more than 12 miles off the coast.

Simple :-)

but if you shower and dump it in the harbour aren't you basically dumping chemicals straight into it (shampoo, soap, conditioner)? Not that I think it's a big deal, I just thought rules were stricter.

Not a big deal? I actually was a bit scared when reading that. Sure, one person doesn't make the game, but a harbour is full of ships.

Sounds dreamy. I'd love to see some pics of your boat and / or the view.

What kind of boat do you own? I couldn't find it in your comment history. Given the choice would you still buy that particular boat today or would it be something else?

A dutch built steel canal boat. There's a link to a picture elsewhere in the thread. Covered in ice...

Overall I'm happy and would buy the same kind of boat again. The Dutch build excellent boats and have for centuries. The only thing that bothers me is that since it's a canal boat it has very low draft (0.8 meters) and almost no keel which is great if you're sailing in canals that aren't very deep, but makes for a pretty rocky ride once you hit some real waves.

I'd never buy a wooden boat, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that doesn't work professionally with wood.

Fun fact : for years Richard Branson lived on, and conducted business from, a canal boat moored in Maida Vale in the middle of London. I'm not sure if it ever moved or was permanently moored.

The downsides are that it's cold in the winter

Can you not sail south for winter to the Medditterranian? South of France or Italy would be a nice warm place to overwinter.

What about pirates and criminals at sea? (seriously.)

Well in Danish territorial waters I'm probably as close as you'll get to a pirate :-)

The poster is in the European area. Very few pirates in that part of the world.