
I thought I'd post this, even though it might be considered a little far-fetched. We've talked about boats, and how the main difficulty in maintaining a potential floating bug-out vehicle has to do with parking these days...slips generally run $300-400 per month here, unless you can negotiate a better deal with someone who owns private waterfront. Much of the country it's about the same, but some places, NY, CA, or HI are more.
Perhaps it hasn't been mentioned, but there are other ongoing costs of owning a boat that have to do with bottom painting, replacing sacrificial zincs, varnishing any sun-exposed woodwork, and painting and resurfacing weather exposed decks, whether they be fiberglass or some other material, keeping some kind of engine running to get in and out of harbors and other tight spaces....it's a lot, and the costs go up exponentially with every foot in length. Rigging, the stuff that holds up the mast and take the stress of the wind, that has to be maintained and eventually replaced.
You might have noticed that smart solo sailors almost always prefer fairly small boats. Ray Jason's boat is a thirty footer. It's because it's less work to sail, more manageable in a storm, and more maneuverable in tight quarters. The trade-off is living space and storage. The boat my wife and I used to dream about owning was a Hardin 45, a huge thing with a salon big enough to throw a cocktail party, and a huge galley, pilot house...really nice when parked but a pain in the ass to get in and out of the average marina, so much so that many owners equipped them with bow thrusters to help them turn in tight marinas.
There is a boat called the Nor'Sea 27, a compact but well thought out boat designed by the late Lyle Hess, who started his career by building a small boat he and his brother used to sail down in Baja. He met a guy with similar ideas to his (smaller is better) named Wixom, and together they built many of these well-founded micro-yachts, which have been referred to as "simply the finest small voyaging vessel ever built". The idea was that they would be light enough to trailer. They weren't that light because they had a cast lead keel, so they are more properly referred to as transportable, rather than trailerable. They still make them, but really top flight boats aren't cheap, and a new one might go today for $175,000 or a bit more with upgrades, including a triple axle trailer. And you'd need at least a one ton pick-up to pull it.
But the nice news is that in today's deflationary environment, you could expect to find a decent used Nor'sea 27 for maybe 35-40K, with trailer. Not the cheapest boat out there, but built like a brick shithouse, and cleverly laid out. Several have circumnavigated, and several sailing couples have made one their home for periods of years.
And you could store it indoors on the trailer, out of the sun, out of the salt water, and out of the rain. Cost on the Texas coast, maybe $135/month. A trained crew of two can launch in 3 to 4 hours.
To me this compares favorably cost-wise to owning a medium-sized RV, and an awful lot of people seem to have the money to buy those.
I saw this one on my semi-local CL, which is what got me thinking.
http://houston.craigslist.org/boa/4795861097.html