This book has magic in it. Contained within
these pages is a formula developed over the last 20 years. This formula
is the key to using a sailboat as a mobile platform to run a small business.
This book will teach you the basics of running a small business from
a boat. It will also start you on the road to developing a few of the
skills needed to change your life. No commute, no office, no boss, just
true freedom.
You will learn how to identify profitable everyday situations in the
yachting world and how to turn these situations into a win/win ending.
Allison and I have either run each of the businesses listed over the
past 20 years, or we personally met people that had worked these business
from their boat. A few others we just considered a dang good idea but
have never gotten around to doing. You will notice on many of the business
I clearly state “we made money this way” or “we met a boat and they
profited in this manor”. This is important as many people try these
business and don’t turn a profit.
Topics Covered Include
50 potential cruising
careers, including:
yacht deliveries, sail repair, massage, beach equipment rentals,
hair cutting, surfboard repair, outboard/dinghy repair, kids water
delivery, video and radio production, artwork, bounty hunter, computer-based
work...
Picking your working location
Working for other yachties
Working locally for local
wages and the tourist trade
Working for the first world
while living in the third world
Finding your clients
Getting your business off
the ground, marketing, advertising and getting paid
Click here to buy "How to make money with boats"
Excerpts from the books
The delivery game
Delivering boats from one exotic location to the next sounds like the
perfect job, and in fact it can be. Deliveries and charters are normally
the first two moneymakers yachties think of when cash start to run low...This
is one of the most sought after positions in the yachting world and
competition is steep. Luckily you don’t have to compete on price, and
in fact being the least expensive guy on the block can be a disadvantage
in this case...Being the most expensive guy on the block often is best
if your reputation can command it...
This chapter continues with information on locating delivery jobs,
what to bring, inspecting the vessel, keeping out of trouble and more.
Kids water delivery
This small business can be run by just about anyone, but for some
reason it always seems to be the teenage kids that provide this service.
This is the mobile fuel or water refill. Only a few of the larger ports
in the world have a fuel or water dock you can pull your boat up to.
For the rest of the ports its break out the jury jugs, load them into
the skiff, carry them to the fuel depot to be filled. Then lug the jugs
back to the boat. For many boat owners living on a retirement they would
much rather go see a museum, fish, or just read a book rather than heft
water jugs.
This chapter continues on with information on how to keep the children
occupied while earning pocket money. You get specific instructions on
how to sell the service and allow the children to run their own growing
business.
Sewing, sail repair, canvas work, and the mighty Pfaff 130
Sewing is one of the best moneymakers for the traveling yacht. Making
sun hats, fixing sails, building canvas or general canvas repairs all
bring in needed work in far off locations. Sewing is one of the sailing
professions that can be completed anywhere in the world, learned as
you go, and the farther off the beaten track you are the better. Best
of a sewing machine should be aboard the self-sufficient yacht your
sailing in remote areas anyway.
This chapter continues on with what machine and supplies to purchase,
how to locate sail repair jobs and how to complete the special reef
points and hand sewn gromits.
Leading yoga, meditation or massage at resorts
Take a course before you sail away from the first world and you have
the perfect skill to sell to resorts, hotels and all inclusive holiday
makers.
This chapter continues on with information about how to sell your
services, locating clients, and building a one off service business.
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"How to make money with boats"
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Like most of us, Scott Fratcher, a marine engineer, and Allison Thompson,
a 200 Ton Sea Captain, spend a lot of time working on their boat. But
here’s the catch: they’re not just working on the boat,
they’re working from the boat. So far, they’ve managed to
scratch out a living and they want to share their experience and knowledge
with other metal boat owners who are interested in doing the same thing.
For a price.
While many of us daydream about extended cruises or one day pointing
the bow toward the horizon and never coming back, few of us have the
resources to do so indefinitely. Cruising can be as expensive or as
inexpensive as you make it, but no matter how lavish or how frugal,
it does require an income. Some folks manage on retirement accounts,
savings, proceeds from investments or even trust funds. Others stop
off every now and then to work ashore and refill the cruising kitty.
What Scott and Allison do is set up shop along they way. And they self-publish
accounts of their experiences, dispensing how-to advice and knowledge
as they do so.
Freedom comes when you’re ready to sail away. True freedom comes
when you don’t have to return until you decide to.
Were going to discuss working from your yacht as a means to support
your cruising lifestyle. We’ll start with by discussing a formula
developed over the last twenty years. This formula is the key to using
your boat as a mobile platform to run a small business. This mobile
business is designed to support your sailing or cruising lifestyle.
If followed, you may never have to return to the “real”
world to earn your cruising money. You may be able drop out of the modern
world of bank loans, credit cards, and the daily grind, and become a
truly free citizen of the world. You will no longer feel the claws of
society dragging you back to another day of work. No more sitting in
traffic. You won’t be worried about money; instead you’ll
be trying to dodge work. You’ll have to leave port at night to
get some peace and quite.
In my book “How To Make Money With Boats” I teach you the
basics of running a small business from a boat. It will start you on
the road to developing a few of the skills needed to change your life
in ways unknown to most wage slaves. No commute, no office, no boss,
just true freedom. I don’t mean to imply you will have no responsibilities
or that you don’t have to get up and go to work. It’s a
whole lot of work. Maintaining your own boat is enough of a challenge,
but start adding in other people’s boat problems and your responsibilities
can grow out of control.
You will learn how to identify profitable everyday situations in the
yachting world and how to turn these situations into a win/win ending.
This ending will so impress other boaters that they will begin to talk
of your prowess. Word of your arrival will precede you to new cruising
grounds. When you arrive people will greet you and say, “I’ve
heard about you and I’m glad you’re here, when you’re
ready to work I have a few projects I would like you to look at”.
Allison and I have either run each of the businesses listed over the
past 20 years, or we personally met people that had worked these business
from their boat. A few others we just considered a dang good idea but
have never gotten around to doing. You will notice in the book many
of the business I clearly state “we made money this way”
or “we met a boat and they profited in this manor”. This
is important as many people try these businesses and don’t turn
a profit. Importing Native Art Work is a classic example. We have known
over twenty people attempting to import native artwork. Only a few made
money doing it. We include their individual methods along with many
others.
These are legitimate small businesses that turn a small profit every
year. Small is just fine since you’re not spending much money.
You only need a little to live comfortably. For me “a little”
is enough money to keep the boat maintained, sailing, and let us fly
“home” every now and again.
Life outside the first world can be inexpensive. In Ecuador lunch is
a buck. That includes soup, meat, vegetable, and desert. A maxi comfort
bus in Peru is a dollar and half an hour, stewardess, video, and dinner
included. If you decide to, you can step into another economy, but you
can return to your old economy any time you want. It’s the best
of both worlds, and one of the biggest advantages to traveling on a
first world passport.The trick to making this happen is to pick up a
trade you can work while you travel.
The yacht is a mobile platform that carries a special set of tools
and provisions designed to carry you almost anywhere in semi-comfort.
With a little effort you can add supporting your family to that list
of your yacht’s description. You can work at almost anything.
Whatever you do now you can probably transfer those skills to the water.
Well that is unless you have some job shuffling papers here and there,
or sitting in the bureaucracy. If you have a “real” job
that you get up every day and produce or maintain something then chances
are you’ll already posses some of the skills to support yourself
in the cruising lifestyle. If you have ever felt overpowered by some
bureaucrat sitting behind a desk pushing papers then the working sailing
world is your chance to turn the tables. Take a look down the list of
boat jobs and find one that corresponds to something you are good at.
You don’t have to have any special training; you just have to
have the aptitude and the motivation and start to build your skills.
Now comes the real trick. Whatever job you choose you have to learn
to do it expertly. Not just well, but spectacularly. You can start by
reading the manuals pertaining to your new occupation. Read before you
go to sleep. Turn breakfast into lesson time. You will have to study
until you can talk on this single chosen subject so well that those
with an interest will seek you out. Take courses, and send for correspondence
material. Every time you meet someone working in the field ask questions.
Get a job working in the field even if you have to take low pay. Consider
it school. It’s okay, the jobs are not that difficult, and there
are easy learning techniques on almost every aspect of them. It’s
really a matter of your motivation. You have to be able to identify
a need you can fill, and then sell yourself to the person with the need.
That is what “How To Make Money With Boats” book is all
about. Teaching you how to identify the opportunity and then starting
you on the road to learning the skills you will need to support yourself.
Next comes the most important part. Do what you agreed to do very well.
It may sound simple, but it’s rare in the world. Those who arrive,
on time, tools in hand are highly valued. If you produce a wonderful
service or product your customers will seek you out the world over.
Here is an excerpt from one of Scott Fratcher and Allison Thompson’s
downloadable PDF, on making a living along the way through welding:
Making the big bucks as a welder
“A mobile welding shop is one of the best methods of supporting
yourself, your boat, your family and your dog. The work will find you!
In fact being able to work metals is about all you have to learn to
be able to support yourself anywhere in the world”
Dockside Gossip
That is what we are told on the docks before we leave anyway. It’s
not exactly true. You will need two more things. The first is to follow
the rules of business laid out in the first chapter, and the second
is a reason why someone might need your services. If you’re to
make a business out of being able to weld then you need to create a
need, and then fulfill that need. Sure you may make a few bucks here
and there when someone breaks a chain plate, or cracks an engine mount,
but in reality just about every out of the way nook and cranny of the
planet has a welding machine stashed here or there. It’s not that
difficult to find a guy to come and make a repair when needed. The trick
is to offer a service that needs a welding machine somewhere in the
process.
For example, being able to offer the installation of a second high output
alternator to fast charge a yacht’s batteries will bring the amp
suckers crawling to your aft hatch. Selling custom made aluminum skiffs
that fit a yacht’s deck layout will give the people about to purchase
another inflatable skiff a reason to search you out. Yachties will sail
hundreds of miles if they know the end of the sail contains the man
who can build a set of davits that match their new skiff. The guy that
just purchased a brand new 40 horsepower outboard for his fast skiff
will loose sleep at night wondering if someone is planning to steal
his new toy. Your security lock will change his life.
See what I am getting at here? You have to offer a special service that
nobody else can build because they don’t have the welding machine.
It’s not the welding machine, it’s just the tool. You will
still have to run a business, market your idea, sell it and finally
build it. Still the big bucks are waiting for the person who is willing
to work this industry.
SIDEBAR:
Some of Scott Fratcher’s advice is practical and some of it strikes
us as being ingenious, whether you use it to make extra money or simply
as useful how-to knowledge in an emergency. Take this example of making
your own welder, using an alternator:
The welder you already have on your boat is your high output
alternator.
I have installed many different forms of welding machines onboard our
boat over the years. From the small MIG welder powered by the boats
gen-set to a huge aircraft starter motor that had to be spun at about
7000 rpm’s. Then one day someone mentioned to me he saw a guy
welding on a farm with nothing but a lawnmower engine belt driving an
alternator. With that I began experimenting and came up the “Scotty
Weld”. Now the plans for the Scotty Weld are yours free just for
reading this book. When I explain this simple system you might say “that’s
too easy” but I assure you this works. In fact I have welded for
hours straight with this simple system and then merely changed the wires
back over to use the alternator to charge the batteries. After the first
few alternators burned up in the testing I have not had to replace the
welding alternator again.
You will need at least a 100 amp alternator and a 120 amp is about perfect
(the Delco CS144 is a great alternator for this application). A 110
volt 60 watt (or more) light bulb and socket, a few cables you can weld
through (#4or larger) and (here is the important part) a variable resister
capable of passing 4 amps continuous. You can expect to pay about thirty
dollars for this special variable resister. It should be look rugged
and be at least two inches across.
To use your alternator as a welder you will have to first attach your
welding cables to the back of the alternator. The ground lead will be
attached to the negative of the alternator and the positive lead will
be the welding electrode or stinger as it’s often called. At the
same time wire the light bulb across the positive and negative of the
alternator. This is important as the light will glow bright any time
the welder is not burning a rod. This light is what takes up the extra
current and voltage when the welding is stopped. When welding the voltage
drops down to about 20 volts and the light goes out. It kind of works
backward from what you would expect. Light on at rest, light out while
working.
The variable resister is wired in line from positive of a battery,
through the variable resister and into the positive field brush, through
the field and back to the negative of the battery.
Your alternator should be a P type. In other words one brush should
be grounded and the second brush should need 12 volt positive to produce
current. Almost every high output alternator is wired as a P type.
When you’re ready to weld, start the engine, turn off the battery
switch connecting the alternator the battery. Gently turn up the variable
resister. The light should begin to glow. Turn the light up bright,
but not maximum and get ready to weld.
Note- Normally turning off the battery switch with engine running would
ruin the diodes of the alternator. This is because, while the alternator
is producing power, the stator or outside of the alternator has an electrical
field formed. When you disconnect the load, (battery) that electrical
field has to go somewhere. It looks for a path to ground. It finds the
shortest path through the diode, thus ruining it along the way. The
light bulb run in parallel with the welding leads prevents this from
disaster from happening and gives the electrical field somewhere to
go.
That’s all there is to it. Sounds too simple to be true? Well
maybe it is and that is why it took me years of using complicated welders
before I finally found this simple solution.
Tip- If you find yourself in an emergency and just need to weld but
don’t have a variable resister you can use a 12volt light bulb
wired in place of the variable resister. Put two in parallel or even
three in parallel till you get the right resistance. This is kind of
crude, but it will work in an emergency.
Tip- Don’t try to back feed a battery switch as a simple method
of switching between battery charge and welding. The switch will arc
inside and weld itself together. I went through three battery switches
before I worked out why this happens.
Warning- Make sure you are using a good 110 volt light bulb and a secure
electrical connection to the alternator. If the light comes disconnected
or the bulb burns up the diodes in the alternator will immediately fail.
For this reason if you’re planning on using the Scottyweld then
carry a spare set of alternator diodes
