|
Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today. |
17th December 2017, 12:13 AM | #521 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 31,644
|
|
__________________
OECD healthcare spending Public/Compulsory Expenditure on healthcare https://data.oecd.org/chart/60Tt Every year since 1990 the US Public healthcare spending has been greater than the UK as a proportion of GDP. More US Tax goes to healthcare than the UK |
|
20th December 2017, 08:43 AM | #522 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 5,760
|
The Inner Harbour of Victoria, British Columbia, is too famous and well-populated to qualify as a sleepy backwater port, but: Some years ago, when I was the crew on a 29-foot sailboat going from Oregon to Alaska and back, the harbourmaster's shack was closed when we arrived just after sunset and docked in front of the Empress Hotel.
We checked in the next day to pay our fee and because we wanted to spend a day in Victoria, but no one would have stopped us if we had just up and left at dawn, as we did a day later. Apart from Victoria and Vancouver, where I was dropped off to return to the US, all of that voyage's ports were too sleepy for any government officials to check on us. |
10th February 2018, 12:49 PM | #523 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 17,646
|
Much less convoluted a story, but another example of committing to a sailboat adventure of a lifetime- with skills possibly not up to the task:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...nks/326152002/ |
10th February 2018, 02:42 PM | #524 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 5,449
|
That last one is kind of weird.
Can you actually live the yachting lifestyle with no money ? I mean, if these guys sold everything they owned to acquire a $10 000 sailboat and are having a hard time coming up with the $ 7000 to salvage it, how long would that "dream" lifestyle realistically last ? |
11th February 2018, 01:25 PM | #525 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 17,646
|
In re-reading the article perhaps it is even more strange than the voyage in the OP. First, to sell "everything" you own and only obtain $10,000 is quite sad. Then to plan to spend the rest of your life living aboard and making open sea passages on a $5000 (plus $5000 repairs) 28 foot sailboat is both scary and stupid (IMO). Even if they had a large sum of money held in reserve for food, fees, repairs, replacements, ground transportation, medical needs, etc., the living aboard and sailing of such a minimal vessel would be a serious and frequently unpleasant challenge for even very experienced sailors. It would resemble living with your spouse in a walk-in closet for the rest of your lives, except far wetter, bouncier, more dangerous, and with less head room. Without any real cash reserve the trip would probably fissile out within a month as soon as the first real expense arose.
I can't really figure it. Of course the couple might have been naive and excessively optimistic. Um- do we know if the boat and the possessions within were insured? (but if it were an insurance scam it would have been better to sink the boat in a lot deeper water). This story does point out that committing to a sailing life on board even a large boat raises the question of what do you do with your important personal items? We all have stuff that is extremely important to us, either due to its monetary value or its personal meaning. Taking the risk that it can all suddenly get lost in many feet of water is one risk that does not arise from owning an apartment or a house. Another argument for not giving up the apartment or house if you buy a boat to voyage the world- if you can afford not to. What do the people who retire, buy a camper/RV, and hit the roads do with their important stuff? |
11th February 2018, 02:07 PM | #526 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 8,624
|
Storage locker maybe? Or they just get rid of it all.
I think it's possible that the couple in the above link were just that stupid. Easiest explanation. Some people just are. Get two stupid people and put them together and there is no one to talk them out of a stupid idea. |
__________________
Why bother? |
|
11th February 2018, 02:12 PM | #527 |
Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 11,360
|
My area gets a lot of “snowbirds” who call South Texas home for a good part of the year. Some of them have a home up north and some of them live full-time in an RV. In either case, they don’t really think of stuff as “important.” They value the freedom that not having a lot of material goods provides. They have a bank where their retirement money is and they live off of that. Some of them have jobs while they are here.
If one is to embrace the sailing life and live full time on a boat, then it would be foolish to do so with no money to sustain you. But if you are retired and that’s what you wanna do, I know of people who do this. The people in the article, it seems, had no idea what hey were doing. |
__________________
Hello. |
|
11th February 2018, 02:32 PM | #528 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
Posts: 16,613
|
I don't know anything about boating, but I know that the self-storage industry has been one of the fastest-growing in the U.S. for decades. Anybody hitting the road (or the water) would likely rent a storage unit (as would anybody who gets tired of tripping over all their stuff). They probably also rent a P.O. box as a permanent address, if they can't use a friend's or relative's. No matter where they actually are, they have to file income taxes, register and insure their vehicle, get important mail, etc.
http://www.insideselfstorage.com/art...y-in-2017.aspx |
11th February 2018, 09:22 PM | #529 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
The articles I've read say that it costs $10,000 to get that sunken boat out of there and the government is making them do it. They didn't buy insurance for that.
But no problem. After a few days with GoFundMe they nearly have all of it. https://www.gofundme.com/new-sailing-life She says that they ran into a submerged object, but I think the submerged object was the bottom of the ocean. They are going to get another boat and do it again. Even asking for leads on a replacement boat right now. So they do have money to spend or will do another GoFundMe so that other folks pay for a boat. |
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
12th February 2018, 04:06 AM | #530 |
Grammar Resistance Leader
TLA Dictator Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Pattaya, Thailand
Posts: 41,468
|
They're already over $10K a few hours later. Who actually contributed to this? How do they plan to live while sailing. I know a guy who does that, but he is a seasoned captain and while he might not pick up a captaincy he can always find a month or two of work crewing for someone in the Med or Caribbean. They don't seem to have gotten a handle on basic seamanship, though.
|
__________________
Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
|
12th February 2018, 08:41 AM | #531 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 5,449
|
Damn, I was coming in here to post an answer to my own question about this couple sailing the gulf with no money. They're Americans, they can work legally in the USA where I as a Canadian would have a very rough time trying to pull that off.
So now the people who say "Money isn’t everything!" are now, ironically begging for money. It's the pug that's bringing in the cash. They're editing that GoFundMe page fast. Last night they said they were going to sail the Caribbean. They've still got the line about delivering yachts up but I expect that will disappear soon and, the comment section is now gone. |
12th February 2018, 08:50 AM | #532 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
Originally Posted by CBS Denver
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/02/1...s-sail-crashes |
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
12th February 2018, 09:01 AM | #533 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
There doesn't appear to be any edits to what she wrote about their story of what happened, what they need and what's next.
The comments are now gone but that's understandable given what happens in public comment sections. Why would they remove the explanation of what he was doing to earn money in Tarpon Springs while they waited two months for their boat to be fixed up? |
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
12th February 2018, 09:12 AM | #534 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 96,875
|
|
12th February 2018, 09:34 AM | #535 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 5,449
|
I've read maybe a dozen versions of this story, it's made international news now and the online world isn't being kind to these two. For the most hilarious comments, see Fox news.
Sail the Caribbean, sail the world, on no freakin' money I read nothing about what they were doing in Tarpon Springs, save the "delivering yachts" True they may have been crew on a few yacht deliveries but there's no way, no how, that any boat owner is going to trust their yacht to a couple of inexperienced yahoos. |
12th February 2018, 09:39 AM | #536 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
Posts: 10,589
|
Well the spot where the boat is sunk isn't deep enough to cover the boat. It certainly looks like they just plain ran it aground, or hit a rock sticking up a foot or two out of the bottom. I don't think you have much opportunity to learn about handling a boat in the ocean living in Colorado. If they're a broke as they claim to be, I have to wonder what they were planning to eat, or how they expected to buy fuel and other supplies.
|
12th February 2018, 09:41 AM | #537 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
Posts: 10,589
|
|
12th February 2018, 09:46 AM | #538 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
Originally Posted by New York Post
This may have been a prime motivator for them. They were probably paying more than $1000 per month for rent in Breckenridge, Colorado. Then add the other expenses of living in an apartment or whatever. They figured it was much cheaper to live on a sailboat and do work on land. With this, you own your "house" and take it with you as you move around. I suspect that they were going to bop around west Florida and the Keys until savings and food/supplies started running down. Then probably decide where to park on the west coast of FL and start working again. |
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
12th February 2018, 09:52 AM | #539 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 5,449
|
|
12th February 2018, 09:56 AM | #540 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
They bought the boat in Alabama for $5000. Then his father helped them sail it to Tarpon Springs and teach some things about sailing as they were inexperienced. It was docked in TS for a couple months and had $5000 of work done on it. During that time he is working locally and they are stocking the boat with food and supplies. Probably because they wanted a nearby ocean tour before setting down marina roots and getting back to working.
|
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
12th February 2018, 01:51 PM | #541 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
Posts: 10,589
|
$1000 per month in Breckenridge won't get you much at all. There's a reason most of the people who work in ski towns in Colorado live elsewhere and make long commutes. Most of the housing near the slopes gets rented out to tourists at way higher rent than regular working people can afford.
It makes a little more sense that they wanted the boat for living quarters and planned to continue working for a living. Still, never having tried living on a boat, I have to wonder if it's really much cheaper than renting an apartment, considering that you still have to rent space in a marina and maintain the boat, insure it, fuel it, etc., and it makes for very cramped living quarters. Well, I guess if you own the boat outright, you don't absolutely have to insure it, but if you don't, you are one mistake, or one hurricane away from losing everything, as they learned the hard way. |
12th February 2018, 02:14 PM | #542 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 17,646
|
"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."
attributed to Samuel Johnson |
12th February 2018, 03:27 PM | #543 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 13,384
|
It is a boatload (ha ha) less than an apartment. Up in the Boston area, it is a cheap alternative, even though you pay for insurance, which is a necessity. You're insuring against damage to others.
The need for insurance for a cruiser is less obvious to me, but if you dock in a live aboard place around here, it's way cheaper than an apartment. |
12th February 2018, 03:57 PM | #544 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
This sounds like they may have lost a cash stash on the boat.
Originally Posted by Tampa Bay Times
|
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
12th February 2018, 08:31 PM | #545 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
|
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
12th February 2018, 09:57 PM | #546 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
They might end up getting a replacement boat for free...
Originally Posted by The Denver Post
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/02/1...t-sank-florida |
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
13th February 2018, 06:54 AM | #547 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: As far away from casebro as possible.
Posts: 7,070
|
Not sure who is more stupid. The people trying to sail with no experience, or the idiots giving them money.
ETA. I've done a little bit of sailing. Anyone even contemplating a R.T.W. trip, or even any serious bluewater sailing, without having done some serious crewing on a boat with an experienced skipper is a naive moron. |
__________________
There is no secret ingredient - Kung Fu Panda |
|
13th February 2018, 07:07 AM | #548 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Arizona
Posts: 4,405
|
|
__________________
- "Who is the greater fool? The fool? Or the one arguing with the fool?" [Uknown] - "The only way to win is not to play." [Tsig quoting 'War Games'] |
|
14th February 2018, 11:22 AM | #549 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
Posts: 10,589
|
|
14th February 2018, 11:57 AM | #550 |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 20,145
|
Wet cash isn't good?
|
14th February 2018, 12:28 PM | #551 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
Posts: 10,589
|
|
14th February 2018, 12:35 PM | #552 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
Posts: 10,589
|
My experience is limited to taking the wheel of friends' boats or personal watercraft on inland reservoirs in good weather, paddling an inflatable down a desert river and one canoe trip in the Boundary Waters area in my teens. I don't think I would dream of venturing into the open ocean without somebody experienced on board. I damn sure wouldn't try to navigate something like John's Pass in the dark (I suspect going through that in the dark is a bad idea even if you know what you're doing).
|
14th February 2018, 01:05 PM | #553 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
I don't think they had a pile of cash on the boat. Just the $90 that they were rescued with. There are many dozens of articles and interviews and this is the only one that maybe hints at cash savings on board. I think instead it's a reporter who turned a phrase and did a bad thing by creating ambiguity.
|
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
14th February 2018, 01:09 PM | #554 |
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg
Posts: 7,599
|
|
__________________
The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) |
|
14th February 2018, 08:31 PM | #555 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
|
Jennifer Appel's abandoned boat has been spotted.
https://video.volvooceanrace.com/new...5-208827932cc7 https://youtu.be/skBATKYp9gE |
__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
|
16th February 2018, 11:32 AM | #556 |
Banned
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 58,581
|
|
16th February 2018, 01:30 PM | #557 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 19,788
|
|
__________________
Any sufficiently advanced idea is indistinguishable from idiocy to those who don't actually understanding the concept. |
|
16th February 2018, 04:19 PM | #558 |
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg
Posts: 7,599
|
|
__________________
The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) |
|
16th February 2018, 08:33 PM | #559 |
Banned
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 58,581
|
|
17th February 2018, 01:21 PM | #560 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 19,788
|
|
__________________
Any sufficiently advanced idea is indistinguishable from idiocy to those who don't actually understanding the concept. |
|
Thread Tools | |
|
|