So you think you want to live on the water? LIers share their experiences

Looking ahead, Marc Carlin has a pretty good idea about how he wants to spend his retirement — living on a sailboat in distant harbors.

Two years ago, that vision drove Carlin, a Ronkonkoma resident with a Manhattan hypnosis practice, to purchase a previously owned Columbia 36 sloop. A roomy, one-mast sailboat, it has a headroom of 6-foot-3 and can sleep six.

And this summer, after the Columbia completes its $5,000 rehab, including a rebuilt engine, tuneups and cleaning at its New Jersey point of purchase, Carlin, 69, and his wife plan to try out the liveaboard life with one- to three-day excursions around Long Island and to Block Island in Rhode Island.

In the fall, the Carlins intend to sail to Florida and further test the waters as liveaboards in a Tampa-St. Petersburg marina through the winter.

"I just love traveling, and it sounds exciting and interesting to live aboard," said Carlin, who has sailed seriously since college. Six years ago, he purchased his first sailboat, an Ericson 25, which he will position as a charter as well as for personal use.

"With the Columbia, I’ll see how it will be living a different lifestyle and right now, with the pandemic, it seems a much easier way to travel than by plane," Carlin said.

Long Island Sound has long beckoned residents to dive into boating and navigate its calm waters during mild weather. But for some of the region’s older sailors, bucket-lists go beyond spending a leisurely summer day on the Sound to living on the water — either for months at a time on their vessels in faraway ports or year-round in a house barge moored in a marina.

For these nautical enthusiasts, the appeal of living on a seafaring boat or a forever-docked barge — which is similar to a houseboat but without a built-in motor — ranges from picturesque sunsets and sunrises to connecting with a maritime community that shares their passion for the deep blue and can lend a hand when the going gets rough. And whether liveaboards reside full- or part-time on their boats, they hail the lifestyle for enabling them to indulge their wanderlust.

But living on the water isn’t for the faint of heart.

What to consider

Stormy weather can put boaters at risk as well as damage their vessels. And since mechanical breakdowns can occur anytime and anywhere, an on-site inventory of spare parts, including gaskets, cables, wiring and tools, is a must-have, as are the knowledge and skill to make the repairs.

Yet, the dangers that can accompany storms aren’t sinking Carlin’s plans for a liveaboard life. "I can’t think of anything that beats the ambience of waking up to a sunrise on the water," he said.

No data exists on the number of older Long Islanders who live on boats. But boomers represented 37% of the country’s new boat owners in 2020, preceded in market share only by Gen X, which accounted for 40%, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.

"A lot of people are boating because of social distancing," said Nancy Gaska, general manager of the Huntington Yacht Club. "It’s their own little casbah, and they don’t need to worry about the outside world."

In 1996, five years after sailing became his pastime, Huntington resident Eric Freedman, 75, became a part-time liveaboard. He spends days, if not months, on his sailboat in oceans and marinas far and wide, with the vessel serving as his home about 25 weeks a year.

His current boat, a 53-foot Amel Super Maramu, can sleep up to eight people and includes two bathrooms, two showers, a four-burner stove, two fridges, two freezers and a washer-dryer unit. Like the three sailboats that Freedman owned before it, it is christened Kimberlite, a rare igneous rock that sometimes includes diamonds.

Since purchasing the Amel in France in 2002, Freedman has sailed throughout Europe, including England, Portugal and in the Mediterranean, as well as to the Canary Islands, off of Africa, and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean island of Guadaloupe. A custom jeweler for a clientele that includes industry moguls and financiers, he generally winters in such tropical locales as Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, Trinidad, Colombia and Panama, and regardless of his sailing itinerary, Freedman typically docks the Kimberlite at its final destination before flying back to New York.

Three unpaid "crew" members — personal friends or individuals seeking an ocean-sailing experience — often join Freedman on his journeys. Each member, as well as Freedman, sails the vessel in a three-hour shift twice a day.

"When the boat sails for 24/7 and there’s no land in sight, someone has to be in charge of running it," Freedman said, adding he sometimes turns to Halesite-headquartered Off Shore Passage Opportunities, a 3,000-member network that "connects captains to crews," according to its website.

Yet, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the Huntington jeweler.

During a 2009 voyage from New York to the Caribbean — and just 400 miles off the shore of the United States — Freedman and his boat mates endured 36 hours in a fierce hurricane. With 110-mph winds and 60-foot waves, it submerged his vessel under water "multiple times," he said.

But, no harm was done. "The wave just rolled over the boat, and we held our breaths until the boat popped out of the water again," Freedman added, recalling that he maintained his stoicism throughout.

As the captain of his craft, Freedman said, he is keenly aware that he needs to remain composed during precarious events so as not to alarm the others onboard. "I can’t say, ‘God, help me,’ because on the ocean, it’s just me, the crew and my boat," he said.

While the episode hasn’t dampened Freedman’s love of the liveaboard lifestyle, the prospect of strong storms whipping through his sailboat and endangering all on board had discouraged him from venturing into the open ocean with his late wife.

"My wife was a petite national ballroom dancing champion, and I was afraid she’d go flying across the boat," Freedman said.

A bargain lifestyle

Christine Collura, 57, and her fiance, August "Auggie" Diaz, 55, are no strangers to the rocking, rattling and rolling that sometimes accompany their life on Long Island Sound.

For the past 3½ years, Collura and Diaz have called home a 1,500-square-foot, centrally air-conditioned three-bedroom, one-bath house barge in Port Washington’s Manhasset Isle Yacht Club. Along with a kitchen and dining and living rooms, as well as a stacked washer-dryer, the unit features a 60-square-foot deck off the kitchen and a 250-square-foot top deck.

Two months after moving into their barge residence, the couple acquired their sea legs, yet some storms have driven them to their barge home’s lower-level bedroom to wait out the bad weather watching TV, said Diaz, an Internet marketing consultant and real estate agent.

Far worse was what Hurricane Isaias brought in August — fierce winds that disconnected their home from its moorings and drove the boat into another marina — while they were aboard.

But their memories of storms are eclipsed "by the other 360 days a year, when everything is great and we sit outside and enjoy the beautiful view with coffee or wine as we watch the boats go by," said Collura, a real estate and insurance agent.

Plus, their residence has still another thing going for it: affordability. It costs about $1,500 per month to run their home, including electricity, slip rental fee and propane gas for cooking. In addition, barge owners do not pay real estate taxes, Diaz said, although some Long Island marinas are likely to pass on their own real estate taxes in slip fees while others might charge an additional fee.

Since Collura’s daughter, 20, is moving in with them soon and isn’t a fan of the barge life, the couple have placed the vessel on the market for $200,000 and plan to purchase a larger home on terra firma.

"We think of the boat as our savior, since we were both going through a divorce and this was our first steppingstone, our sanctuary," Collura said. "And it allowed us to save and travel to Las Vegas or jump into the car to go to the Poconos, without worrying about money."

Likewise, financial considerations partly figure into Carlin’s decision to adopt a liveaboard lifestyle. Unlike a Long Island residence on the shoreline, he estimated that his ocean-faring home will offer 24/7 waterfront vistas for $5,000 a year, including fuel, land storage, annual hull painting and mooring fees.

"As we get older, taxes will continue to go up on Long Island, and I can’t think of anything that beats the ambience of a sunrise or sunset on water," Carlin said. "It's a million-dollar view for quite a reasonable fee."