Question " WHERE SHOULD YOUR HOUSE BE?' is no longer relevant.

EVERYWHERE, ANYWHERE!

Our company has started producing Houses that can move on water. And this is not a yacht or a floating boat. It is rather a FLOATING ISLAND or a LUXURY HOUSE.

WHY SHOULD THE HOUSE BE ON THE WATER?

Because almost all over the world, housing on the water is not taxed. You can absolutely legally place your House in the center of Moscow or New York, Sydney or Barcelona. Only in some cities, such as Venice or Amsterdam, where there are a lot of people living on the water, you can only get permission for temporary parking. In the rest of the world, the duration of your residence in a particular country is regulated only by the duration of your visa there. But more than 90% of the most calm and warm countries do not limit your stay in the country at all. And in a country like the United States, more than 10 million Russian-speaking people with a long-expired entry visa have been living fully for decades.

WHY NOT JUST BUY A BIG YACHT?

Because a yacht the size of our house is much more expensive. And to live long time or permanently more comfortable at home rather than on a yacht. In addition, motor yachts are not able to overcome the ocean, and to control sailing yacht of this size, it takes a whole team. Our Homes will easily sail to Miami and beyond.

WHAT IF THE HOUSE RUNS ON A STONE AND DROWN?

The body of our house is built according to state of the art technology. It consists of honeycombs filled with polyurethane foam. Even if you pierce the hull through or cut out a large piece of the hull with a saw, or simply pour water from a hose inside, the house will continue to float without changes. It's like trying to drown a thick sheet of Styrofoam. You can pick holes in it or break it into several pieces, it will still float.

WHAT IS THE DIMENSION OF THE HOUSE?

The Standard House is 20m long and 10m wide on three levels.

The house consists of:

Large living room with kitchen area, dining table, sofas, large plasma screen.

Two guest (or children's) rooms with bathrooms.

Large master bedroom with king size bed and ensuite bathroom.

Open top veranda with awning, jacuzzi and garden.

An open sun deck on the middle deck.

An open circular veranda around the house.

Inner deck for storage of inflatable boats, jet skis, trikes, surfers, bicycles and electric scooters.

WHAT IS THE PRICE?

Since the goods are piece goods and there cannot be two identical houses, the final cost of the house consists of many nuances discussed with the customer at the design stage.

The cost of a unique case does not exceed half a mil. US dollars. To this we must add interior decoration, as well as household and navigation equipment.

WHERE TO GET ELECTRICITY, WATER AND OTHER?

Our house is absolutely AUTONOMOUS! It does not need to be connected to any shore communications. (although it is technically possible)

- ELECTRICITY is provided by solar panels with a total power of 15 kW, which is stored in special helium batteries.

Distillers sea ​​water allow you to conserve water.

Wastewater treatment systems bring its quality to the possibility of recycling.

Climatic installations allow you to adjust the temperature and humidity individually in each room.

The kitchen is equipped with a large fridge-freezer and a stand-alone ice maker; induction hob with oven; a microwave oven and a lot of household equipment (mixers, combines, juicers, etc.).

HOW CAN A HOUSE WATER THE OCEAN?

It is assumed that the vast majority of the time (over 95%), the House does not move anywhere. (however, like most yachts). He is in some picturesque bay. However, there are plenty of opportunities for movement.

In order to slowly glide along the coast, the house has 4 absolutely silent electric motors. They allow you to move at a speed of 5 knots (9 km/h) all day long.

For faster movements or in conditions bad weather there are two economical diesel engines that allow the house to move through the sea at a speed of 14 knots (the usual speed of a cruise ship).

But to cross the ocean, you need a sail. Our house does not have sails, but wings, like an airplane. Therefore, there are no stays, shrouds, halyards, sheets and other indispensable sail accessories.

The wings act as a sail when needed and as a tarp when anchored. In total, the House has three wings. In working position, the wing rises in 4 seconds with the help of a hydraulic drive. To do this, you need to press a button. The computer sets the wing to the optimal angle of attack of the wind, and automatically maintains this angle, regardless of the direction of movement of the House.

It remains only to set the direction of movement and the autopilot will do all the work for you at the helm. The global positioning system will allow you to track the direction of movement of all ships in your area, and they can see you, avoiding a collision.

WHAT IF THE STORM?

Currently, only ships that are forced to strictly adhere to the route of movement get into storms. You can always dodge the storm. After all, a storm or hurricane has a local character. You will have constant information about their location and trajectory. And only you can decide whether to go into the storm or not.

But even if you decide to go through the storm, then this is not a tragedy, but rather an adventure. You do not need to stand at the helm. You will admire through the window how your House slowly makes its way through the elements.

I HAVE A BAD STANDING!

However, like most people

Our House has the shape of a TRIMARAN hull, i.e. ship least prone to roll. There will be no pitching at all in the parking lots. For movement, you can choose calm weather.

FOR TWO MILLION. DOLLARS I CAN BUY A HOUSE ON THE COAST IN ANY COUNTRY OF THE WORLD!

Of course, but it will be just one house. And you will live in another country. And with the world to communicate on tour. trips.

The concept of our House allows you to “try on” the entire globe without compromising the comfort of your home. Live for a few years in the States, and then move a little to the Bahamas or take off for a year in New Zealand. You do not want to hang out in the ocean for three weeks? Tell us about it and we will transfer your House to a new parking place, and you will arrive by plane.

HOW MUCH DOES PARKING COST?

Paid parking exists only in yacht clubs. Yachtsmen are forced to enter them to refuel with water and electricity, to access the shore shower and washing machines.

All this you have in the House of the best quality. Therefore, you do not need to buy these services from the yacht club.

The coast wall is usually free, so it is always densely crowded with yachts. But you have a trump card that will help you find a free place in almost any city. The minimum draft for yachts is 1.5 meters, for our House it is only 50 centimeters. That is, if the water is knee-deep - that's enough for you. And places in shallow water are always free.

For the same reason, it is easier for you to find a place in the roadstead, because you can always stand closer to the shore than yachts. It is not very comfortable to anchor (or in the road) on a yacht, because there is only one anchor and, depending on the direction of the wind, the yacht spins around the anchor all the time. Our house rises on 4! Anchors from every corner, so it stands reinforced concrete, like an oil platform in the ocean.

WHAT ABOUT COMMUNICATION?

Only satellite communication can work in the ocean. Today, a satellite phone costs no more than an iPhone. You can also use expensive internet via satellite. But for mail it is quite acceptable.

If you are not standing on a desert island, then you always have 3G and Wi-Fi with the help of an antenna and an amplifier. After all, almost all cafes on the waterfront have a free field that will reach your home thanks to the equipment.

But if you got carried away desert island, then to order a lobster for dinner you just need to dive for it. All the necessary equipment for this is in the house.

And there is also a hydro-motor hang-glider, on which you can fly around the island, or go around it on a high-speed inflatable motorboat. All of this comes with the house.

To move on land, electric scooters are provided in the house. They can be driven almost everywhere on the roads without registration.

WHAT IS THE OWNERSHIP RIGHT OF MY HOUSE CONFIRMED?

The house is registered in Russian Federation upon you as a NON-COMMERCIAL SHIP. It meets all the requirements for such vessels and has a Certificate of Conformity issued by a government agency. The tax, according to the legislation of the Russian Federation, is levied on horsepower, and there are fewer of them in the House than in a car. Therefore, the annual tax luxury home less than a normal car.

Registration and the corresponding certificate (ship's ticket) confirms your rights as the rightful owner of the House.

HOW LONG DOES THIS HOUSE BE BUILT?

The house is under construction for 6 months and about the same amount of household and navigation equipment is being installed. That is, the approximate duration of construction is one year, adjusted for the season.

It will take about two more months to drive the House to the Mediterranean. During this time, the House is actively tested in all modes.

YOU HAVE READ THIS ARTICLE. ITS AUTHOR WOULD BE GRATEFUL IF YOU WRITE WHAT YOU DID NOT LIKE IN IT. MAYBE YOU HAVE QUESTIONS? IT WILL ONLY TAKE YOU A COUPLE OF MINUTES.

Of course, you can just leave silently, but then the author will have no incentive to write for you.

If suddenly this idea comes to mind, it is clearly not by itself, somewhere I saw and heard that people live on yachts, travel and enjoy life. Ok, it happens ... Then you start trying on yourself, but what if it's true, instead of buying a house or apartment in Thailand, Cyprus, etc. buy a yacht?
Pros:
- as in none of the countries South-East Asia it is practically impossible to get permanent residence, then why buy something here? It is not clear what will happen there and what to do with this house? And in general, according to the docks, your only house, and the land on which it is rented, also does not warm the soul very much.

Many people are happy to buy something, but they cannot decide on a country, a city, or a region. Well, really, how do I know where I want to live in 5 years and I don’t really want to be attached “forever” to some place.

Sometimes I want to travel, but with a bunch of children it is not only expensive, but also quite difficult and tiring. There is an opinion that if a family has children, then everything, life has stopped. You are tied to school, kindergarten, housing ... We don’t want to put up with this :)))

yacht: all yours! I wanted to live in Thailand, I wanted to live in Cambodia, I wanted to live in the Philippines, etc. your home is always with you, and impressions around you can change. You can just as well live in Hua Hin or Koh Samui, Phuket, do business or the same thing we do, but at the same time live on a yacht and when you want to travel around the islands. It is akin to a Turtle that always carries its home with it.

a few more benefits olegradul

"In the sea, it's like you find yourself in a parallel universe that lives according to different laws. I'm still in awe of the world in which I found myself when I started sailing.

At sea there is no such crowd as in most others beautiful places planets accessible by land. You can go to the most beautiful corners of any popular resorts and be surprised to find that you are here alone.

Even the central embankments, always full of tourists, are always open and free from the sea. You can come here and stand, in fact, in the very center of the city, while remaining at home. Tourists will walk along the promenade and take pictures of your yacht, and you can sit inside and drink tea. Or go for a walk with them."

A yacht is a kind of transport to a parallel reality. Even going ashore, you still remain in a slightly different world than those who move on land.

Having lived on a yacht, you understand in what rigid framework we all live on land, being under constant control by the state. For example, in the sea there is something like traffic rules (called COLREGs). These rules are needed to ensure that ships do not collide with each other. But no one catches violators, hiding in the bushes. No cameras, no posts, no radar. Or here, the permissible number of ppm in the blood of the helmsman. Zero three? Zero eight? Yes, as much as you like! If the captain decided to put someone on watch, then he has every right to do so. All norms and rules in force on land are replaced at sea with just one concept - the responsibility of the captain. On each boat, the captain himself sets his own rules, but he will also have to answer, in which case. Such a simple law. Freedom and responsibility.

Here you arrive, say, in another country. Or you are coming. One way or another, you go to the window, hold out your passport, the stern uncle looks at your photo, then at you, then he finds a visa, studies it and stamps it. Only after that you can enter the territory of the country. Things are quite different at sea. I happened to pass the borders on a yacht five times. In all cases, the issues of passport control on the ship are completely entrusted to the captain. That is, no customs checks how many people you have on board, who all these people are. The captain himself goes to the port and provides data immediately for the entire team. Either passports are stamped, or more often just a list of people on a piece of paper (crew list), even without passports. At first, of course, the brain takes out: how so? You sail to the territory of another state, no one checks you. You go to the beach, no one cares. You run around the city, looking for the services you need (port duty officer, customs), while neither you nor your team, no one has yet looked at a single document! So, for example, when I came to Italy, I ran for half a day, trying to put stamps on entry into Schengen. And I went to the police, and to the coast guard, and even looked into the tourist office. The whole city went around in circles. As a result, one policeman told me “wait”, got into the car, drove somewhere for a seal, brought and stamped all the passports that I had with me. And all this, again, in absentia - neither people had to be presented, nor a yacht.

A week later, I got into a conversation with an old acquaintance and it turned out that he, the cunning one, did not get formalized in Italy at all! He just comes on a yacht from Montenegro and hangs out in Schengen as much as he wants, and then back, as if nothing had happened. This, of course, is already beyond good and evil, but nevertheless it illustrates very well the degree of control at sea.

________________________________________ __

OK, everything is cool, we decided to live on a yacht, but we do not dream of going around the world at a frantic pace, we are a family with four children who just want to live on a yacht, like in ordinary house and sometimes explore the coast of the Asian region and maybe change countries.
We began to study the yacht market and found that there are simply no yachts that meet our requirements!
These are either yachts for athletes, lonely sea wolves, little space, a lot of speed, almost no living conditions, a washing machine is a dream! Or charter yachts for week trips. A little more comfort, but for the price this is already a yacht for Abramovich.
And our requirements are simple - a yacht-house, bright, moderately spacious, with the surrounding space thought out for long-term living, with shelves, cabinets, etc.
you have to build it yourself! :)

Photos

andrey stekachev

Summer on a yacht moored in a cozy picturesque bay is a real dream. The Village talked to Ksenia Kushnarenko, the founder of the Le Picnic market, who spends the summer with her family on a sailing yacht in Orekhovaya Bay near Moscow, and found out if life on a boat is really like a fairy tale.

Lifestyle

We bought this boat with my parents a couple of years ago in Poland. We went for one and bought a completely different one. Roughly speaking, they went for a tricycle, and bought a motorcycle. It took her a long time to get to us: we bought it in the fall, and she arrived only in the spring of next year.

The boat was launched at the Gals yacht club on the Pirogovskoye reservoir. The first year they stood there, and then moved to the neighboring yacht club "Nut Bay" - "Oreshka". It is very cozy here: a narrow bay, elongated like Pinocchio's nose, a boat to the boat, a compact pier and immediately from it - a hillock with a grove. Upstairs - houses, cafes, yacht parking and a yacht shop. In addition to yachtsmen and their sympathizers, wakers and windsurfers hang out here. Parents live in the yacht club almost all the time, and my young man Zhenya and I ride there as if we were going to a dacha. We try to spend all our free time in Oreshka, but if there is business, we jumped into a taxi - and already in the city.

Our boat is called Vesta. When we bought it, it had a different name, but traditionally it is supposed to change the name when the owner changes. We had many options, but in the end we chose Vesta: I read that this is the patron goddess of the family hearth. The boat appeared at a difficult moment for our family and probably really united and rallied us for some time. So for us it is a very symbolic name.

In addition to the boat, we have a house in Nut Bay, and we mostly sleep there.
We also tried it on the boat: nothing in the aft cabin, but in the bow you feel like in a single tent. At night, it is very inconvenient to get out to the toilet: you need to dismantle the bed from pillows, otherwise the door will not open. Zhenya climbed out through the hatch, but waking up is not easy. In addition, this hatch is quite decent in size and acts as a porthole. The light that enters through it makes it very difficult to sleep. Imagine that you are sleeping in a transparent tent - about the same sensations.

But it is pleasantly shaking on the waves. Sleep like a baby in a cradle. And only nightingales interfere with sleep. The nightingales here are somehow especially fanatical: they begin to sing around 23:00 and do not finish until the morning. No earplugs. In general, we usually go on a boat during the day, and spend the night in a house opposite. We also have a container - one in which goods are usually transported. It also stands nearby, and we want to convert it into a living space. We have already painted the container yellow, now we are working on the stairs, and then we are planning repairs inside.

Yacht device

Our yacht is sailing, centerboard, quite large by local standards - 33 feet in length, which is about 10 meters. There are only two such large cruise boats: ours and our neighbor - the French Jeanneau.

The boat was made at the Polish shipyard Maxus. We are not her first owners, but she was in perfect condition, and we decided to buy. I remember we went on a tour of the plant, where we were shown the entire process of assembling the ship from the matrix to the finished hull. Then we were invited to the regatta on this same boat, where we, together with the captain, took first place. And then there was a party with dancing, tables bursting with food, a river of beer and fireworks. Therefore, we had no chance not to buy a boat.

Inside there are three cabins (one bow and two aft), one latrine, a spacious saloon and a cockpit. The cost of parking our boat includes the actual parking itself, that is, mooring, and round-the-clock security - this is 8 thousand rubles a month. Electricity and water are paid separately. By the way, we have the purest spring water, from a local artesian well. The galley has a sink, refrigerator and a small gas stove. So we don’t eat diluted soups here, rather the opposite: every day, then tom yum, fish soup or pasta with mussels. Parents are very fond of throwing dinner parties - it seems that the whole Oreshka has already been to them. Not only from neighboring yacht clubs, they come to us from Voronezh.

All the water from our shower, toilet and kitchen is drained into a tank, and from there - to Pirogovka. But not into the bay, of course - we drain as soon as we sail away. According to yacht etiquette, no one uses a latrine during parking (only if it is completely pressed). We have two souls: one is in the same place where the latrine is, and the second is at the stern, right in the transom. It is very convenient: dived, swam, rinsed. By the way, it is officially impossible to swim in the bay - the guard swears. This is logical: boats and boats go back and forth. But we still swim.

We have never had a dacha, and the boat has become a great alternative to it. And the yacht has its advantages. After all, the house stands still and stands, and you took the boat and went out for a ride in the evening. Most often we ride along Pirogovka or go to the Pestovskoye reservoir. There is a wind - we set the sails, no - we go under the motor. The furthest we went was to Konakovo, on the Volga, through the Moscow Canal. It seems that there are six locks there and the same number back.

Theoretically, on our boat you can go to Ladoga, to Onega - we have a good lake type yachts. But with the sea it is already more difficult. Here it is more logical to take a charter on the spot. To go to sea their requirements. But if you prepare and if you have time, then you can go there, I think.

The captain is our father. He's the only one with the skipper's crusts. And Zhenya and my mother are like this - a soldered sailor (from the word payol. - Approx. ed.) as he calls us. We set the mainsail, work on the staysail, work out the tack and jibe turns. Recently we went to skipper courses, as a result of which at the end of summer we should receive an IYT Bareboat Skipper diploma (this is an international certificate that gives us the right to manage a sailing yacht up to 22 meters long). At the end of the course, they promise practice in Greece - this is very attractive. I would like to be somewhere other than Konakovo and Poland - well, to be in the captain's shoes, of course.

Glossary of terms

Cabin
small private room on board

latrine
toilet on board

Cabin
common room on the ship for food and recreation

Cockpit
internal open space on deck

Galley
kitchen on board

bow of the boat
forward part of the ship

Stern
back of the ship

Transom
lower part of the flat stern of a ship

Cleaning and maintenance

A boat in terms of cleaning is no different from a house - the only difference is that you have to clean up much more often. This is a yacht for guests - a holiday, they came and left. And for those who live on it, this is a harsh everyday life. All the time you clean something - the space is small, everything is in plain sight.

My father is generally a “clean freak”: he is as clean as in the medical unit, every stopper and every button on the dashboard are signed. It looks funny, but it helps. He seems to be the only one here. I have never seen my boat treated with such care. He always buys something for her: either a new sail, or a navigation system. Although why is she in Pirogovo? Reefs, shoals and schools of mackerel do not seem to be observed here.

All in all, a boat is a big toy that you can fiddle with endlessly. Well, it is necessary to feed it - in the sense of refueling. There is no gas station in Oreshka, so we bring fuel in canisters. It takes 40 liters of gasoline alone for the engine, and you still need diesel for the heating system.

Maintaining a yacht is not a cheap pleasure. Having bought it once, you will not only constantly upgrade the boat, but also repair it. One of the guests threw something into the latrine, and the tank became clogged. And to eliminate the blockage - 500 euros, take it out and put it down. Buy a storm sail - a thousand dollars, repair the stem - 30 thousand rubles. 30 thousand rubles for a site 30 by 30 centimeters is a thousand per square centimeter. In addition, like any transport, the yacht requires regular technical inspection. For the winter, the motor is mothballed, the yacht is taken out of the water and put on a trailer to spend the winter on land.

Summer in nature

We seem to be very close to Moscow - ten minutes by car to the Moscow Ring Road, but the proximity of the city is not at all felt here. It feels like you are somewhere very far away.

I love our house. We have panoramic windows everywhere, and we seem to be the only ones who have not curtained them. I studied in Denmark, and this habit I have from there: there, no one ever curtains the windows, and no one cares what you do. But the whole world is in full view.

So here - around the trees, the water is a few steps away. Like in the house, but like in nature. It turns out to be an ideal viewing platform, and you sit and seem to be watching TV: a reservoir, a hazel tree, bells, squirrels jumping, hedgehogs rustling, someone is conjuring over the grill, Lena is shouting from the wake station to one of the newcomers for the hundredth time about “softer knees”, the Kunashir yacht has gone, but our Vesta is departing. To be honest, it's impossible to work. I tried - a failed idea. You are distracted by something all the time. Communication, again. We have a very hospitable yacht, there are always some new people on the boat, there is always something to treat. Therefore, if the park is for work - I’m going to the city, you can definitely get together there.

power >>> wind

Personal experience: How to move to live on a yacht and not screw up

Anna Balagurova, former editor-in-chief of The Village Petersburg online newspaper, gave up her career and office work a little less than a year ago to travel across the Atlantic with her husband. On the website of Snob magazine, she maintains a detailed blog about her adventures, and she told us about how she got used to life on a ship while crossing the ocean.

I was on a sailing boat for the first time a year and a half ago. By some absurd accident, in Helsinki, during the Flow festival. My friend somewhere picked up guys from St. Petersburg who came there to race. We were, of course, invited to join, but only as detractors - we were not good for anything else. It seems that a friend was then instructed to "mine a spinnaker in a kitty." It was funny to me, but she was practically buried under sail.

Then, by another chance, I met my future husband - a yacht instructor. We drank a lot, talked about how we want to live and travel. In general, they were extremely romantic and agreed that sailboat- perfect for both of us. This is at the same time a transport that is moved by the forces of nature (that is, free of charge), a house anywhere in the world (also inexpensive), and even an opportunity to earn money by teaching or simply driving people. It sounded like a good plan, and we decided not to give it up.

It remained to choose and buy a boat. There were several requirements - a reliable yacht for the oceans (the so-called blue water cruiser), in the Mediterranean Sea (so that you can reach the Canaries without entering the evil Biscay and the English Channel), costing up to 60,000 euros (to leave a little for an upgrade) and, of course, in good condition. Through the Internet, we found several almost perfect options in Sweden for half the price of what we planned. But all these northern seas… in general, we became too lazy, because it was June, and already in November we were going to start in the transatlantic. We bought our 1985 Westerly in Greece. A solid English shipyard, pedantic owners, a beer opener on the step, again. I immediately felt sympathy for this neat and solid boat, for its funny plump owners, who, without hesitation, declared that they did not like strong wind, and also that they will take away the grill, because without the grill their summer will be ruined.

A little paperwork with registration of the boat and insurance - and already in July we began to slowly move towards Gibraltar with stops in pleasant coastal cities, from mossy Sicilian resorts to magnificent Syracuse and Palma de Mallorca. Thus began my life on the boat.

The first thing you had to get used to was roll and roll. How to live when your world is tilted 30 degrees? How to sleep when you are thrown from side to side? Well, let's say you're not in the transition, but at the anchorage, but damn it, you're still rocking, it's water! You go out to the ground - you sway out of habit. After crossing the ocean, I almost stopped paying attention to it. Firstly, I caught zen from the realization that in open water will have to hang out for at least three weeks. Secondly, I wanted pancakes and fried potatoes even in a five-meter wave, so I had to get out. Remember - sometimes at anchorages it shakes almost like in the middle of the Atlantic. So if you want to live on a yacht, train your vestibular apparatus. At least on the carousels.

Learn to conserve water. If you are not overly rich and cannot afford an extra 400-500 euros per month for comfortable marinas, get used to spending 10 liters of water on a major wash (in the ocean, 2-3 was enough for my body and hair, but this is too Spartan). Washing dishes or washing with fresh water is out of the question - everyone living on the yacht has taps sea ​​water(although we do laundry in laundromats and increasingly use paper plates). There is one controversial point here - all waste products are thrown out of the yacht straight into the sea. The so-called gray water (from dishes and showers) can be drained almost anywhere in the world. black water(from the toilet) in many countries it is required to save in collector tanks on the boat and pump out in specially designated places. Taken together, this all sounds terribly crazy. Shit diluted in water is much more harmless than fairies or alkaline shampoos. On a yacht, I try to use eco-friendly household chemicals and cosmetics, but rather for complacency. Because on the scale of the oceans, this is simply ridiculous.

In addition to water, you will have to save electricity. We travel in sunny regions, so for our needs (refrigerator, recharging phones and laptops, light, autopilot), two solar panels are almost always enough. Many people install windmills and water turbines on boats - versatile, but prohibitively expensive. We also have a distiller installed - an incredibly useful thing that gives complete autonomy from the coast. True, distilled water should not be drunk for too long due to the complete absence of useful substances contained in ordinary water. We fill full tanks every time we have the opportunity. 350 liters of water is enough for the two of us for more than 2 weeks.

Those who live on the water need to periodically get out to the shore - not everything is to sit at home. For this purpose, they usually use a small inflatable boat with a motor or oars (although in the Canaries I saw two girls who ignored the oars and rowed with fins). It is almost impossible to leave this enterprise with a dry bottom. So, let's imagine: early Saturday morning, you fall out of the bar. What's next? That's right, you get into a taxi to go home to sleep. And I wander along the beach or the promenade in search of my seedy boat, which turned into an inflatable pool overnight, enter into an unequal battle with a wave, jellyfish, an engine even more sluggish than me. In general, one wrong move and the boat is on your head. We recently forgot to take our oars with us, for the first time in our lives. Of course, on the way back, our engine died, also for the first time in our lives. We were stuck on our inflatable hernia in the middle of the bay in the very center of Bridgetown, where at that time we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the independence of Barbados. Under the hooting of the crowd from the embankment, they buried their hands and after 40 minutes they were on the yacht (the way under the motor was about three minutes). The ridiculous situations in which you find yourself while living at anchor are beyond count.

School of Captains

Everyone can become a captain of a sailing ship - all you need is a desire and a good instructor. The Power of the Wind will teach you everything you need to know and be able to, and after passing the exam, you will be issued an international class driver's license. We conduct theoretical courses in the center of Moscow, and practice in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands. Come to class!

Otherwise, everything is like at home or rather in the country. A bedroom with a large bed, a living room with a large table, internet (we have an aerial booster to steal wifi from coastal cafes), even an oven (to store frying pans). There is a TV in the cabin - exclusively for watching movies and TV shows. There are speakers in the cockpit so you can dance on deck or just have a feast. As for the feasts - yachtsmen are not fools at all to drink. One of the terms that came into my everyday life after moving to the boat - sundowner - means "a glass of alcohol drunk at sunset." Another term was coined by my husband - "Polish Yachting". This is when you rent a boat for a week and never leave the marina because you drink all day. From the name it is clear that the Poles do this mainly, not us.

Any racer will spit in my face when they see what my boat turns into at anchorages. A hammock dangles on the spinnaker boom, a bucket is tied to the fur sheet of the staysail (well, so as not to drop it), shorts are dried on the rails. Books and clothes are scattered everywhere, the kitchen is overgrown with a bunch of little things - this happens to everyone who hangs in one place for more than a few days. After a couple of weeks in the parking lot, it's hard to force yourself to go out to sea. Too lazy to collect everything, fix it, lay it out in lockers. Reluctance to mess with the anchor, then with the sails. Well, if you need to go for a short time and with good wind. Transitions for more than a day in our case turn into seizure yachting. Long hours of procrastination on deck, and then - a sudden change in the wind, a gust, a torn sheet, running around under the heart-rending cries of the captain. At first, I was stunned by the fact that the captain is actually my husband. I still don't understand why he's yelling like that! They say that almost all skippers behave in a similar way, no matter how nice people they are in ordinary life. In the USA there is a yachting school for women, with women owners and teachers. So, their slogan is “No shout”. I think it's very cool and right.

I read in many yachting blogs that after life on a yacht it is difficult to return to the cities, because the boat gives a feeling of freedom and all that, and the city subjugates itself, leaving only the illusion of choice. It seems to me that in many respects this is slyness. To balance between the inexpensive gypsy life on a yacht and maintaining the boat in a condition suitable for serious transitions, you need money, at the current rate, quite a lot. This means that it is still impossible to exclude oneself from the circle of capitalist relations. To some extent, you become a slave to your own boat. If you want to radically change the situation, you need money not only for yourself, but also for the parking of the yacht. The apartment can be locked up and forgotten, and only a rather careless owner can leave the yacht hanging at anchor and just dump. The most painless, in my opinion, scenario is as follows: six months, while in Europe good weather, travel, stopping at anchor, and put the boat in an inexpensive marina for the winter (if you look, you can meet 600-700 euros for 6 months) and go home to work. With more exotic places, this will not work - flying away is expensive, leaving the boat is even more expensive. If everything is tired, you are in a hopeless situation.

A big bonus of owning a yacht in Europe is the opportunity to stay abroad almost indefinitely without worrying about a visa. If without unnecessary details - put a stamp on exit in any of the EU countries. This is done either at the local police station or at the passenger port. Both there and there there are more important things than you with your visa, so they put the seals without looking. Upon arrival at next country the entry stamp can be “accidentally forgotten” until the need to fly home. Such an unexpected loophole still does not fit in my head, because we are all used to serious control at airports and land borders. The Caribbean, on the other hand, turned out to be quite a bureaucratic place. In almost every Antilles where we spend this winter, you need to draw up documents for entry and exit. In Barbados, among other things, we were sent to the medical office, where we had to fill out a questionnaire with questions like “have you died on board” and “does the crew have diarrhea”. But except on paper, there is no control. For more than half a year, our yacht has never been checked, although we have already crossed half the world. Even bring slaves, even enriched uranium. In that sense, having your own boat does give you a certain amount of freedom. This is probably why same-sex couples and all those who, for ideological or any other reasons, have ceased to be satisfied with life in modern cities quite often travel on yachts.