THE SEVEN YEAR PLAN

My overall goal of living on the boat is to make it our permanent home, not a toy we use 5 weekends a year. And I really don’t want to wait until traditional retirement to make that goal happen. I would have spent the most physically capable years of my life sitting at a desk. That plan just won’t work, I need to do it faster. As in only 7 years from now faster. The goal is to have minimal financial obligations so that we can spend most of our time traveling, and very little working.

My current line of work is project based. On my most recent project, we adopted the agile methodology of project management. Our scrum master was constantly reminding us not to eat the elephant all at once. The idea is to break things down into manageable parts and continually evaluate your progress so that you don’t get to the end and realize you have created something that doesn’t meet your needs.

And now, to take a crack at breaking this shiny object into smaller chunks.

Year 1

Spend time at my Dad’s boat, slowly exposing Hubbie to the feel of being on a boat. Take the boat out on the river a time or two and introduce him to the other boaters at the marina. Show him that it is similar to camping and that it can be just as comfortable as being at home. Invite his buddies to spend a weekend on the boat for a little positive reinforcement.

Look for little things that can be done each week (or as often as possible) to keep the goal at the forefront of our minds.

Year 2

Bring my dad’s Ranger 20 sailboat over to Eugene and spend some weekends out on Fern Ridge Reservoir. Maybe haul it over to Newport and hang out in the bay. Focus on sailing lessons and getting comfortable with being out on the water.

Financially, this would be a big year too. Hubbie should be wrapping up his apprenticeship and getting his journeyman’s card. Not only is this a huge accomplishment for him, it would mean a bit of an increase to our income. The key is that we have been functioning perfectly fine without the extra income, so we should be able to put all of it toward savings goals. Another important step will be to meet with a financial planner to make sure we are saving as efficiently as possible.

Year 3

Continue spending time on the Ranger logging hours under sail. Extend our stomping ground to a long weekend or two in the Puget Sound, increasing the challenge a bit and giving a destination, not just tacking back and forth across the lake.

A critical step in this process is determining how easily either of us gets sea sick. As a kid I definitely struggled with it a bit, but I also believe that some occurrences were mental, not physical. Hubbie has only been out on the ocean once, and it was in a small fishing boat that got tossed around fairly easily. While he did get sea sick, I don’t know that we can definitively say it will be an issue for him. The ideal way to test this out is to accompany my parents on their trip down the Columbia River and up the Washington coast to the Puget Sound.

Year 4-5

Graduate from small trips on the Ranger to bareboat chartering in the San Juan Islands. Then, try out a bareboat charter in the Caribbean, preferably on a catamaran to get some experience with the differences between a cat and a monohull.

At the end of year 5, purchase the boat and move aboard! (I’m so excited for this part!!)

Year 6-7

While we are acclimating to life on board, rent out our house to cover the mortgage payment. I imagine us living at a marina most of the time, with some weekends anchored out in the Puget Sound somewhere. Continue to work as we do today. This will give some time to adjust to the new lifestyle while keeping some things constant. If we don’t like it, we can always go back to the house.

Finally, at the end of year 7, we quit our jobs and cruise the Puget Sound, San Juans and up to Alaska. Once we have had our fill of the Pacific Northwest, we can head out to warmer waters.