Our family, unlike many we see in our culture these days, is a together family. That means we do everything together—school, work, play, church, outings, meals, happiness, misery—you name it, and we do it together. When we went to meet Take Two for the first time, we drove the five hours to Fort Lauderdale together. The kids were aged 6, 5, 4 and almost 1. Although we’re not running a democracy (it’s more like a monarchy), we wanted their input. If everyone looked at the boat and said, “No way!” that would have figured into our decision-making. We want happy subjects in our little kingdom. But everyone thought it would be a great adventure, and the boys thought the boat would be their own personal playground, complete with climbing apparatus and trampolines. They still think so.

Now, since that time, a bit of the romanticism of that first day has disappeared. We’ve had rainy, leaky weekends, uncomfortable conditions at sea, cabin fever, loneliness, malfunctions, mischief, broken toilets, spills, frustration, and a toddler.  But life is life wherever you are, with good and bad all mixed together. So we all feel ambivalent. Sometimes moving aboard seems like a great idea, and at others, we pine for our stable life on dirt.

Although we won’t have to yank our kids out of school, they are still leaving an established group of friends among neighbors and other home-school families we see regularly. That part is hard, because we can’t promise them a stable social environment where we’re going. Do they have cub scouts in the Caribbean? We will meet other families afloat, but to call it “regular” would be misleading. It makes us happy we have four—they are an established social group in and of themselves.

They express nervousness about all the normal things: shipwreck, storms, sharks, seasickness, boredom (hahaha), and discomfort. They look forward to visiting places we read about, to exploring and climbing and snorkeling and finding interesting creatures. Sometimes they miss being at the house, but they are the first to brag to people we meet that they are moving onto our boat. I think I know how they feel.

People always ask me this, but I’m not sure why. Um, we eat…food, just like you. That may be a bit sarcastic, but, seriously, we cook on the boat just like we do at home. If you have been aboard, or seen interior pictures, you know that I have a gargantuan galley. For a boat “kitchen” it is unbelievably large and well-stocked. I mean, it has a dishwasher. I’ve never used it, and it’s going bye-bye to make space for a clothes washer someday, but still, who ever heard of a dishwasher on a boat?

Cooking over the last year or so has been its own adventure. The ancient electric BOSCH stovetop and oven are power hogs, and require running the generator. The stovetop does not work properly—it only works on the “high” setting and only one burner at a time. For “low” or “medium” heat, you just manually switch it on and off a few dozen times, and pray you don’t get distracted.  I’ve almost mastered it. The oven is fine, but it heats the whole boat up and seems to be very inefficient, taking forever to warm up and forever to cool down. To compensate, I use a toaster oven for warming things up, and an electric skillet or crock-pot for cooking off of battery power. (I’m the anti-microwave oven type.) We also have a great little gas grill which is perfect for cooking al fresco.

We are in the process of replacing old and broken fridge and freezer units, which forced us, for awhile, to use a cooler for a refrigerator. That works okay for weekends, but not long-term.  Food storage is a subject of its own, but that is definitely a challenge for a family of six. My friends have jokingly called me the Little Red Hen, since I started grinding grain and baking bread a few years ago, but it’s a skill that will serve me well on the boat. Whole grains, if kept dry and well-sealed will store for several years. We can carry a few hundred pounds of grain and I can make bread, tortillas, pancakes, breakfast cereals, pasta—you name it. Beans and brown rice are also easily stored and easily prepared, but meats have to be frozen or dried, fish have to be caught, and things like dairy, eggs and fresh produce have short life-spans. Canned goods are the old stand-by, but I try to use them as a last resort. Basically, we are very old-fashioned, and make everything from scratch. That doesn’t mean we don’t eat pizzas or hamburgers, it just means that we made the crust and the buns!
 
We’ll carry as much food as we can, to be self-sufficient for several months, if necessary, but everywhere we go in the world, people have to eat, so although we may not have as many (or the same) choices, we will still be able to find food. We are trying to raise kids that are not picky eaters, knowing that one day they may have to eat octopus and be thankful for it!

Tools of the trade:

Vita-Mix Super Blender, dry blade for grinding, wet blade for juicing
Family Grain Mill, manual grain grinder and oat roller
KT Oil-Core 12” Stainless Electric Skillet (makes great popcorn, too)
Rival Crockpot
Bodum Stainless Steel Coffee Press
Dehydrator
Toaster Oven with convection
Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Machine, manual crank
Electric tea kettle

Favorite Cook Books:

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer
Gourmet Under Way by Robbie Johnson
The Care and Feeding of a Sailing Crew by Lin and Larry Pardy

Some Favorite Ingredients:

Rapadura sugar (a truly raw and unrefined sugar from Rapunzel)
Bronze Chief and Prairie Gold Wheat Berries, whole oat groats (Wheat Montana)
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (Tropical Traditions)
“Really Raw Honey” (expensive, so used sparingly)
Bulk Herbs, Teas, Essential Oils (bulkherbstore.com)

Little by little. That’s the short answer. Here’s a shorter one: arson. For a few days after returning from the month-long live-aboard experiment, I felt completely overwhelmed. It seemed an impossible task—I was surrounded by so much STUFF, and I had to actually deal with each object. For about a week I had this niggling thought that it would be a relief if the house caught fire and I wouldn’t have to think about what to do with everything. When I vented to Jay, he basically said he didn’t want to join my stress fest and he wasn’t too worried about it. He has bigger fish to fry.

Emotionally, I started to let go of my stuff about a year ago. I started with my tea-pot collection because it means the most to me and I can’t take it; besides, tea-pots and cups make the best gifts to friends and family with whom I have shared a cuppa’ over the years. We can still share a cup of tea halfway across the world from each other if they think of me while pouring.

I now have lengthy lists of every item in every room, with a little mark next to each item indicating where it goes: B for boat, S for storage and D/S for donate/sell. I packed up all the home-school stuff once we finished our year, getting rid of all excess packaging and making everything fit into small bins. Clothes are easy: everyone gets 10 changes and the rest get donated. That allows for a week’s worth of laundry to build up, which is a lot, and usually laundry day comes every four days, and has to be done by hand until we do a renovation of the navigation table and put a compact electric washer/dryer beneath it. We’re not that fond of any of our furniture, so it will be sold. Kitchen gadgets are a toughie, because I’m really attached to things like my Italian pasta-maker, waffle iron, and vacuum sealer. Kids’ toys might be tough, as they will have to say good-by to their stuff, too. Some of the toys will go to cousins, but the smaller, more versatile toys get to come with us: Eli and Aaron need little besides their bin of Legos, Sarah has some magnet dolls (like paper dolls), a baby and a small horse barn, and Sam is happy with a few train tracks and Duplos. They spend a lot of time in and around the water, collecting and observing interesting specimens from the sea, and inside reading, playing games, or doing puzzles and art projects, so I’m not too worried about keeping them busy when we’re not doing school. Besides, there’s always laundry they can help with if they get bored!

Book sorting was actually the hardest task, as Jay and I are both avid readers and book-lovers. I donated 8 boxes to the local Friends of the Library Book Store, 3 boxes to various friends, and a box to the marina laundry-room book swap. Photo albums will go into storage, and we’ll just have to enjoy the occasional digital trip down memory lane. Several boxes of leather-bound books will go into storage, and several boxes of books I deem necessary for boat-schooling will—hopefully—fit on the boat. I guess I’ll pack in as many books and kitchen gadgets as I can and whatever doesn’t fit will go into storage.

Of course, I keep remembering how little I seem to need when we are afloat. There’s just no way to squeeze our land-life onto the boat, so why try? It’s almost better to pack it all into a storage unit, empty the boat, and then only bring aboard what is absolutely necessary. Start from scratch. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Depends on our usage.  The boat carries 200 gallons of diesel.  Between what was in the tanks when I bought her a year ago and what I’ve put in, I think I’ve burned about 100 gallons to date.  In theory, each 29HP propulsion engine burns .75 gal/hr and the 12KW generator about 1.25 gal/hr.  

If we’re taking daysails or overnights from the dock, the generator doesn’t see much use since the batteries will hold us for a couple days  and we’ll recharge when we get back on shore power.  Sailing is generally faster and more enjoyable than motoring, so unless the wind is against us and/or we’re in a tight channel we try to sail whenever we can.  

If we’re on a trip the generator is the primary user since we would get to a place and then stay anchored there for awhile.  On most boats, generator usage is determined solely by power replacement needs but we’re a little different because our oven/stovetop are electric instead of the usual propane.  We have big inverters to provide AC power from the batteries, but heavy loads aren’t practical on battery power.  We try to use the more battery-friendly toaster oven, electric skillet, and electric kettle whenever we can.  If only for charging batteries we could get away with running the generator an hour every other day, but for heavy-duty cooking it runs more irregularly.  Thanksgiving required a 4-hour run.  

After the batteries are charged to 80% capacity their acceptance rate drops, thus the load on the generator drops, and it becomes very inefficient.  It runs a constant 1800RPM to produce power at 60Hz.  If we have to run it for cooking, this is a good time to use the extra capacity for something else like vacuuming the boat or running the air conditioners.  We have a dishwasher but don’t use it.  Instead we’ll be replacing that with a clothes washer/dryer that would be another good free power user.  We would probably be better off with two smaller generators sized to individual appliances instead of the one big one.  Someday we’ll get solar panels that should reduce our need for bulk charging.

I had previously estimated that we could live for a year in conservation-mode on 200 gallons in our current configuration.  That may not be accurate because based on my understanding of our usage I really can’t account for the 100g of usage cited above.  We have propulsion problems and it may be that those engines are wasting fuel.

Fast enough.  8-10 knots is pretty comfortable and a nice cruising speed.  Going over that can be fun for short periods, but it isn't relaxing.  I've been 13 knots in the middle of the night and didn't like it much.  I'm more interested in keeping the boat moving in Florida's typical light air than I am setting speed records.

My information indicates that previous owners have had her up to 18 knots.  Speed stories are sometimes like fish stories, but it does give me an idea of what happened to the first mast.

With enough wind the boat will heel a little bit, but it should never lift a hull.  She weighs about 14 tons and if we did experience enough wind pressure to lift a hull, I expect (and hope) that the mast would break first.  I have no interest in pushing Take Two that hard.  Interestingly, the boat is on her second mast.  I haven't yet determined what happend to the first one.

The kids wear life jackets if they want to come out of the boat when we’re underway.  I only require they go below during docking or anchoring or other stressful situations.  Otherwise they can be in the cockpit or go on deck with permission.  They aren’t much into the joy of sailing and usually spend most of their time below reading or playing.  We could be having a glorious sail and they’d be pestering me to stop at a beach so they could swim and catch crabs.

We like the term “free range kids” and take it to mean letting them have a larger degree of freedom than most parents are comfortable with.  I was a free range kid and could be gone from the house all day without my mother giving a thought to the trouble I might be getting into.  And I did get into trouble.  Unfortunately times are different and we have to worry about things our parents didn’t, so we try to create the feeling of freedom without actually letting them too far off the leash.  My seven-year-old can’t operate a computer mouse, but he can free climb our 65-foot mast, is learning to operate the dinghy, and has caught what my information indicates is a record-setting seahorse.

I preface that to say that the kids do occasionally fall in the water.  None have gone off the moving boat, thank God.  Instead they fall off of the stationary dock.  Usually reaching too far for a crab or some other specimen for their observation bucket.  The aforementioned 7-year-old has been in three times (not counting the time I knocked him in on purpose).  The docks float so they don’t fall far, and somebody is always near enough to hear the splash and fish them out if they don’t climb out on their own. 

I estimate the interior living space is about 900 square feet.  If it were a house it would probably feel cramped.  I don’t have headroom over the kitchen sink (dang!) and a few other places, and I frequently have to ask small people to move out of my way in narrow passages.  But it isn’t a house, and by boat standards it has an immense amount of space.  As Tanya has written elsewhere, we have far less "stuff" aboard which is necessary for weight consideration and also helps alot for preserving the spaciousness.

Strangely, we feel more cramped in our house than we do on the boat.  On the boat we can usually see for miles in at least three directions.  Even when we’re tied up at the dock we have an unobstructed view of the sun setting over the water, and we’re constantly aware of the sky, the breeze, and the tide.  At the house when we look out the window we can’t even see a 100 yards before our vision is blocked by houses, trees, or fences, and can only see the sky by walking outside and looking up.