yacht life youtube

10 Best Sailing YouTube Channels

Last Updated by

Daniel Wade

June 15, 2022

If you've been planning to join the Big Blue for a sailing escapade, then you've probably watched and drawn inspiration from numerous sailing YouTube channels that are available on the web. But which are the best sailing YouTube channels? Well, let's find out.

There are a lot of pessimistic individuals out there who are probably trying to dismiss sailing YouTubers and the massive audiences as another ascendancy of what might be referred to as the "couch-potato" society. Whatever your opinion on this matter, we strongly believe that sailing YouTube channels is an excellent and modern way of exposing our beloved sport not just to sailors but to other people as well. And unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard or even watched several sailing YouTube channels. But which ones are the best of the bunch?

You probably do not have much time to go about research for the best sailing YouTube channels. For this reason, we've made it our duty to ravage through, do thorough research, and present you with the 10 best sailing YouTube channels. This means that you can now easily watch the glorious sailing lives that these YouTube sailors share with millions of viewers.

So if you want some inspiration or a way of learning a thing or two about sailing, you've come to the right place. These sailing YouTube channels are beautiful, fun, and will teach you a thing or two about sailing.

Table of contents

Sailing La Vagabonde

This is a sailing YouTube channel that's run by Australian video bloggers Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu. Founded in 2014 when the couple met in Greece, this sailing YouTube channel documents the couple's life aboard their sailing catamaran known as La Vagabonde.

This Australian couple has so far sailed over 90,000 nm across many oceans and is inspiring millions of viewers to explore living on the ocean as an alternative option. This lovely couple sustains its sailing lifestyle publishing weekly YouTube videos. Having received noteworthy media attention for sailing with Greta Thunberg from Virginia to Lisbon to raise awareness on Climate Change issues, the couple has attained patrons who are always willing to fund their travel and sailing expenses.

Onboard the La Vagabonde, they have established roles. Whitelum is tasked with taking care of boat maintenance and sailing logistics such as checking the weather and planning ahead of sailings while Carausu is tasked with cooking, cleaning, and editing the videos.

Subscribers: 1.47 million

‍ Spearfishing a Deserted Island! (Sailing La Vagabonde) - Ep. 12
BOAT LIFE: Our Morning Routine Onboard
Our Tiny Home on the Ocean
Sailing Around the World (Sailing La Vagabonde) - Ep. 1 Intro & Sailing Turkey
TIGER SHARKS surround our boat. WE SWIM WITH THEM! 🦈 Ep.197

Sailing SV Delos

When Brian Trautman bought a sailboat 2008, he had never envisioned that he would be so immersed in it that it would become his home; a part and parcel of his lifestyle. More than a decade later, this sailboat has covered more than 70,000nm, visited over 46 countries, and helped in creating more than 200 YouTube videos.

As one of the original and the best sailing YouTube channels, Sailing SV Delos has become a sensation among sailors as it documents the travels and adventures of a lovely crew aboard the sailing vessel, SV Delos. The crew often includes the boat owner Brian, his brother Brady, Brian's wife Karin Syren, and crew member Alex Blue. The team also invites crew members to help with sailing, boat maintenance, cleaning, and, of course, filming.

Sailing SV Delos has always kept it real and chronicled several ocean passages including some of the most challenging and intense weather conditions such as a severe lightning storm that the crew had to deal with on their way to Madagascar.

With his experience as a former electrical engineer, Brian Trautman has been able to make several improvements to the boat to ensure that they remain environment-friendly whenever they sail. The crew has also contributed to several philanthropic activities such as giving $50,000 to charities and contributing to restoration efforts in Dominica after the island was ravaged by Hurricane Maria.

Subscribers: 581K

‍ Buzzed by the U.S. Coastguard Chopper
How long can we survive out here?
When STUFF BREAKS 😭 Middle of Nowhere
Birth of the Two Titty Yacht Club!

Gone with the Wynns

If you want a sailing YouTube channel that offers an unscripted tale of an eccentric couple who left their everyday life to become perpetual travelers and experience whirlwind adventures, you've come to the right place. Known as Gone with the Wynns, this sailing YouTube channel chronicles the adventures of prominent travel vloggers Jason and Nikki Wynn.

The couple started by chronicling their travel adventures by buying an RV and undertook an epic road trip in search of endless exploration across the country. They went around North America and even trekked around Alaska and admit that they'd have stayed there forever had it not for the fact that they suffer from what they term as incurable sedentary life phobia.

The couple then decided to sail around the world and have been on a sailing voyage of more than 10,000nm. The couple has always been inspired by their unparalleled desire to explore, grow, learn, and share their travel experiences. To them, sailing is far more surreal as it's almost akin to exploring the world as it was done in the 1400s.

Subscribers: 333K

‍ Boat Tour - Custom Built Off-Grid Expedition Yacht
First Impressions of Big Boat Life
Daily Life aboard an Expedition Boat
BIG BOAT LIFE & Diving Into The Surf
SAILING THE WORLD WITH ONLY 6 MONTHS TO LIVE

Free Range Sailing

A lovely couple named Troy and Pascale, shares with the world their off-the-cuff voyage in remote Australia in their 30ft yacht named Mirrol. With their minimalist lifestyle, the couple has endeared itself to millions of viewers across the world who are always eager to see how they do more with less.

This couple has documented their simple life in some of the remotest locations in the world with the main aim of showing the rest of the world that self-sufficiency is the way of life. They show their viewers how to cruise around some of the remotest locations in Australia as they indulge in other activities such as fishing and adventure.

Subscribers: 92.5K

We're Sailing to the Kimberley!
LIFE ON A SMALL SAILBOAT Working, Cooking, Sailing & Exploring in our Tiny Home
Finding Fish 🐠 🎣🐟: It's Easy When You Know How
The Nude Latitude

RAN Sailing

If you've been looking for a sailing YouTube channel that has no fakery and no fuss, RAN Sailing is meant for you. This channel revolves around the incredible life of Johan Hammarlund and Malin Lof, an adventurous Swedish couple who were looking for a different and unique lifestyle.

Four years ago, the couple decided to sell everything they owned and set sail on its 1987 custom-built Beason aluminum sailboat. They've sailed to various destinations including their homeland of Sweden, Alaska, and Seattle. In 2019, the couple welcomed a daughter, bought a bigger boat, and continues sailing the world as a family.

They've also sailed the Pacific and have attracted even more fans across the world as they showcase an incredible Swedish lifestyle with no fuss. And despite the Coronavirus pandemic, they've assured their fans that they'll ensure that they never leave the couch as they set sail despite the current situation.

Subscribers: 103K

The Beginning Of An Adventure
Provisioning for an Ocean Crossing
Drama Aboard a Swan 60
A Crazy Or Perfect Boat? 6 Cabins In A 52 Ft Boat!
Getting Boarded At Sea

Tula's Endless Summer

You've probably wondered whether it would be possible to bring your lovely pet to your sailing escapades. Well, a young couple known as Billy Swezey and Sierra Groth have been showing that it's possible and very inspiring thanks to their Tula's Endless Summer sailing YouTube channel.

Their sailing adventure started in 2013 when Billy bought a dilapidated boat in an abandoned boatyard in New York and set about restoring the boat. Billy, who describes himself as a water bug, then met the lovely Sierra in Florida. Since then the couple together with their dog, Jetty, have been inseparable as a Dream Team and have shown the world that taking up sailing as a lifestyle is very possible.

This lovely family has sailed in the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and other destinations on their Tula, as well as other boats. Bill describes himself as a jack of all trades who has been surfing, kiting, diving, paddling, and doing everything in the ocean. On the other hand, Sierra is a lovely girl who wishes she had the power of breathing underwater. And what about, Jetty the Gypsy? Well, this dog has seen and done a lot more than most people will ever do in their life.

In essence, Tula's Endless Summer is a superb sailing YouTube channel that vividly chronicles the life of a young and lovely couple going about their sailing escapades.

Subscribers: 132K

CROSSING THE Gulf Stream To West End (Grand Bahama)
How Much Does It Cost To Live On A Boat?
First Time on an Electric Foil (We Brought Our Dog!)
COAST GUARD INCIDENT..
She Was FEEDING SHARKS!!!

Sailing Uma

Neither Dan Deckert nor Kika Mevs grow up sailing and never dreamt of buying a sailboat just to cruise around the world. But soon after graduating, this gorgeous couple founded a successful architectural design-consulting firm as a way of earning a living. Fortunately, Dan and Kika soon realized that the rat race wasn't their cup of tea. They both had dreams of traveling the world and seeing for themselves of the earth was a beautiful place. Again, they had been inspired when a friend advised them not to buy a couch!

Having realized that the conventional life wasn't meant for them, the couple bought a sailboat named UMA even though they didn't know anything about sailboats or sailing. They had to Google their way out and restored their lovely boat to their liking. They came up with a 5-year plan to learn step by step before sailing around the world. The plan was to start with a small boat and learn how to sail on a lake before getting a vessel that they could use for their offshore adventures.

Despite the steep learning curve, this lovely couple had solutions to many problems during their sailing escapades and now is showcasing their sailing escapes in one of the best sailing YouTube channels around. So far, they've visited 22 countries, covered 18,358 nautical miles, and have incredibly used zero gallons of diesel.

Subscribers: 254K

Naked Night Dive + Exploring the Baths
BOAT TOUR: The Modern Interior of our 50 yr old DREAM YACHT
5 Years Living offgrid on an ALL ELECTRIC Sailboat
Biggest Waves We've Ever Seen — DAY 10 / North Atlantic Crossing
HURRICANE SURVIVAL TACTICS (I Stayed on the boat)

Sailing Doodles

With one of the most-watched sailing YouTube channels on the internet, Bobby White and his partner Laura began their sailing escapades after Bobby suffered a medical scare in his late 30s. He was good-looking, had a flourishing career as a corporate pilot, flying the rich and famous around the world. He had suffered a stroke and his career was gone just like that!

After healing, Bobby sold everything he owned and bought a C&C 37-foot sailboat. Along with his two lovely dogs, he set sail from his native Texas to the Caribbean. He made the wise move to document his new life and that is how Sailing Doodles came to be. With his partner Laura, Bobby admits that chronicling their sailing journey on YouTube isn't as easy as many people think but it's certainly worth it to share and inspire others in a very cool way.

Subscribers: 289K

‍ No Bikini Needed
Sailing Miami Style
Beautiful Skipper - Sailing from Phuket
Who Needs Clothes on a Private Island?
Group Shower on the Isle of Capri

Whitespot Pirates

Who said that sailing was only a man's stuff? Well, if you've been thinking so, you might want to have a second thought. Nike Steiger has been inspiring girls all over the world to take up sailing. Through her Whitespot Pirates YouTube channel, she's been documenting her solo-sailing escapades after she bought an abandoned boat in Panama.

For the last 6 years, she's been sharing unscripted videos of her voyages in her 30-foot aluminum boat named Karl. In addition to keeping it real with her adoring viewers, she's comprehensively detailed the wonderful highs and cyclonic lows of her sailing life. To top it all, this is an award-winning YouTube channel that documents Nike's astonishing voyages.

Subscribers: 79.6K

UNTIE THE LINES - A Weekly Solo Sailing Documentary
Crash! Boom! Bang! - UNTIE THE LINES IV
The Sailboat I bought is a COMPLETE DISASTER!
Arriving In PARADISE With My Sailboat. A DREAM come true!
Solo Sailing Cuba: I Am Not Allowed To Go Ashore

It takes a lot of guts to sell all your possessions and begin sailing around the world. While many couples cannot even contemplate taking such an action, it's exactly what Matt and Jessica Johnson did as soon as they realized that their life had become boring as a result of spending a lot of time in front of the TV.

But instead of taking up yoga or exercising, they decided to make a radical change by selling everything they had in their possession and began sailing around the world. Today, MJ Sailing is one of the most popular sailing YouTube Channels. This is a couple who left everything including their careers and took up a great hobby without ever regretting it.

Subscribers: 125K

Our Engine Has Been Still for 10+ Years ... Will It Start?
A Tour Of The Boat Graveyard
Our Bank Account After 5 Years of Cruising & a Refit
Our Thoughts on Going Bare
Exploring the NUDE BEACH of St. Barth's!

I've personally had thousands of questions about sailing and sailboats over the years. As I learn and experience sailing, and the community, I share the answers that work and make sense to me, here on Life of Sailing.

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YouTube’s Sailing Stars

By Erin Carey
Updated: March 10, 2021

Armchair sailors around the globe are living vicariously these days as they watch sailing adventures unfold on YouTube. But while a handful of sailors and their channels have star power enough to earn a living, is posting videos a viable way for most of us to feed the cruising kitty? To find out, I reached out to eight video bloggers—or vloggers—and their answers were surprising. While a few report a steady, reliable income, several others were quite candid about how hard they had to work to capture what was supposed to be a laid-back lifestyle.

With 1.9 billion people tuning in to YouTube each month from 91 countries around the world, the platform reaches more viewers than any TV network. Individual channels receive a portion of their advertising revenue, so there is real potential for popular channels to earn a decent salary, but just as with music, movies or sports, the pros work seriously hard to make it look easy.

There are over 800 YouTube sailing channels now in existence, but only a handful actually draw enough attention to be called successful. Most of us are familiar with the Sailing La Vagabonde channel. With 1.5 million subscribers, it is easily the most popular sailing channel out there. Australians Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu have been uploading videos of their cruising adventures since November 2014, and have no doubt been an inspiration for many of the vloggers that I spoke with. While Sailing La Vagabonde’s success is difficult to match ( Delos , the second-most-popular channel, has less than half the number of subscribers), there are plenty of cruisers out there dreaming about endless palm-tree-lined sandy beaches, rum punches and dreamy sunsets. Why not film what you’re doing and share your journey on YouTube? After all, how hard could it be?

Sailing SV Delos

The crew of Delos , four adventure-seeking souls sailing around the world, seem to have mastered the video platform. Their zest for life and infectious enthusiasm make you want to quit your job and buy a boat. Brothers Brian and Brady Trautman started filming in 2010 with a $200 handheld Sony “dad-cam.” They now have over $35,000 worth of equipment, including more than 10 GoPro cameras. Having almost completed their circumnavigation, their adventures have seen them experience things most people only dream about: swimming with sperm whales off the Caribbean island of Dominica, paddleboarding with seals off Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, and diving with great white sharks at Ascension Island. With engaging content and excellent cinematography, it’s little wonder they have amassed 629,000 subscribers from their 418 episodes.

Yet their success hasn’t come easy. Brady and crewmate Alex outlined just how much work goes into their channel and how long it’s taken them to reach YouTube success. The Delos crew worked consistently for three years before they finally made it to the point where they could focus all of their time on editing and filming. Working for two hours to produce just one minute of footage, each episode often takes more than 50 hours to edit, not including the time it takes to film and rewatch the footage.

With no niche market or target demographic, the Delos team naturally produces videos they enjoy and that makes them smile. For them, it’s not about pumping out 10-minute vlogs every other day; it’s about storytelling. Earning approximately $7,000 per month from YouTube alone, Brady said their bread and butter comes from their more than 2,000 patrons. That is how they are able to sustain their lifestyle and keep sharing it with others. Merchandise and the “Buy Us a Beer” component of their website are two other revenue streams, that combined, allow the crew of four to live off $10,000 per month, leaving plenty left over for a rainy day. Admirably, the team also donated $50,000 to charity in 2019 alone.

Sailing Millennial Falcon

Speaking with the crew of Millennial Falcon , a young Australian couple from Melbourne, it was interesting to hear the perspective of up-and-coming vloggers Khiara Parker and Adam Seeber. Parker, a former model, spoke of the hours they spend down below in the cabin of their 42-foot Tayana, editing their videos and working on their brand. With 50,300 subscribers, the couple’s channel is doing remarkably well considering they have been releasing videos for about two and a half years. Yet compared with the hours they are dedicating to their channel, the rewards they are reaping don’t quite make up for the time yet. Earning roughly $430 per month from YouTube, these cruisers make most of their income from their 285 patrons, bringing in an additional $2,600 per month.

However, it’s been far from smooth sailing for this fun-loving couple, with Seeber attributing their success to the numerous boat mishaps they’ve had, such as losing their propeller—twice. They’ve also had various technical difficulties, causing them to miss weeks’ worth of income because they were unable to upload episodes. Despite filming their videos on only a GoPro and iPhone, the couple has accumulated $6,000 worth of equipment, including the necessary laptops.

Sailing Ruby Rose

Terysa Vanderloo and Nick Fabbri from Sailing Ruby Rose know all too well the amount of work it takes to build a successful channel. With 124,000 subscribers and 249 episodes under their belt, the couple often works 40-plus hours a week. Between filming, editing, creating content for social media, digital marketing, communicating with followers, and working on projects such as merchandise, designing logos, website development, networking and Patreon (the platform most vloggers use for fans to support the channel), there is little time left for much else. Vanderloo spoke of the pressure she feels to “feed the beast” that is YouTube. She also pointed out the recent press about the number of YouTubers suffering from depression and anxiety. With a need to continually upload, the pressures can be too much for some.

Vanderloo said they are only just now making a meaningful income after three years of production and 249 episodes. They earn approximately $600 per month from YouTube; the majority of earnings come from their 435 patrons and related donations.

Sailing Nandji

Bonita Herewane and Jarrad “Yoshi” Laver, a young Australian couple on a tight budget, have taken their viewers on a journey through parts of the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Sailing through the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, the uniqueness of their route may have contributed to their success. Then again, Australians love an underdog, and Sailing Nandji’s old boat and constant engine problems are not just an act for the camera. Despite having 110,000 subscribers, 214 episodes on YouTube and ranking 12th out of all YouTube sailing channels, these vloggers are earning only just enough to live frugally in Asia.

Cruising without a watermaker, chart plotter, life raft or autopilot (wow), and doing all of their own boatwork, these vloggers are not thrifty for the fun of it. With their videos scoring 17 million views over the past four years, they estimate they’ve earned about $24,000 through YouTube. Again, without sponsorships and their 312 patrons, they couldn’t live off their sailing channel alone. This poses another question: Is it OK to ask strangers for money to fund your liveaboard lifestyle?

Working harder than most cruisers, vloggers still have to maintain their boats and relationships. Not to mention the fact that they need to get out and explore the world to ensure that they have something to actually film and vlog about. They work extremely long hours creating content for others to watch and enjoy. They provide a service for thousands of people who are entertaining the idea of becoming cruisers themselves, and they are inspiring others to live life to the fullest. Many cruisers cite YouTube as an instrumental tool in their decision to untie the lines and sail away. Clearly there’s a market for their content, judging by the millions of views some videos receive.

Sailing Sophisticated Lady and Sailing A B Sea

If there is a recipe for sailing-channel success, one might argue that it includes young, attractive bikini-clad women. The crews behind Sailing Sophisticated Lady and Sailing A B Sea are happy to dispute that claim. All are in their 50s, and their channels have loyal followers and show that it is possible to succeed even if you’re not young and model material. (Nevertheless, it takes only one look at the top 10 sailing channels to see that perhaps those qualities don’t hurt.) Yet, with over 136,000 subscribers and 232 patrons, Rick Moore of Sailing Sophisticated Lady is proving that he definitely has something to offer. With years of experience in the film industry, Moore likes to think he provides viewers information and insight into all facets of the sailing life by way of his high-quality videos filmed with state-of-the-art equipment. Although, he was quick to add, “it takes dedication to have a successful channel, and there is no quick or easy solution for long-term success. It isn’t just one full-time job; it’s many. Sometimes being bikini-clad is not always the answer. If there’s no substance or personality, you will lose viewers very quickly.”

Sailing Britican and Sailing Trio Travels

Another two channels that have had reasonable success are Britican and Trio Travels . Both crews have one child aboard, and perhaps their popularity could be attributed to this. Yet vlogging hasn’t been without its drawbacks for the Brown family aboard Britican . Kim Brown suffered a heart problem that was caused by stress, something she attributes to producing YouTube videos. With 23,500 subscribers and 17 patrons, Kim has been working tirelessly on her channel and associated avenues of income for over six years. She does all of the production herself and spends up to two days editing each video. Yet, despite her tremendous efforts, her channel earns only $150 per month through YouTube and $230 per episode from Patreon. However, she added, “for me, YouTube is not the endgame. I don’t look at it as a way to make money. The benefit of YouTube is to let a potentially massive audience know how we can help them. It’s a marketing medium. Our primary business provides guides, consultancy and liveaboard experiences to help people live the sailing dream.”

Besides a whole lot of hard work, what are the other downsides to running a YouTube channel? With his long hair and mustache, Seeber from Millennial Falcon is often ridiculed for trying to be the next La Vagabonde , and that’s not the worst of it. Parker also spoke of the negative comments and downright nastiness they’ve experienced, making her physically shake when uploading an episode.

Of the channel producers I interviewed, not one was free of taunts, with many citing the trolling as one of the major downfalls of running a YouTube channel. “We used to get quite upset over some of the mean, angry and hurtful comments people would say, but over time, you realize it’s mostly sour grapes,” Seeber said.

Realistically, YouTube should be viewed as a marketing tool to promote yourself for other avenues of income, whether that’s merchandise such as that sold by Delos , Ruby Rose or Nandji ; liveaboard experiences offered by Trio Travels and Britican ; or Patreon, which seems like a necessity for all involved. It won’t be an easy path. Still, if you’re wasting time having fun, you’re not wasting time. As Delos ’ Brady Trautman so perfectly summed up: “Make videos for you. Film what you are inspired to film, and edit the way that makes you smile. If you start making content for the sole purpose of getting views and making money, it will show. Be honest, authentic, and do what makes you happy.”

Erin Carey and her family cruise aboard their Moody 47, Roam (@sailingtoroam).

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Living on a Boat Full Time: What to Expect as a Liveaboard Cruiser

pin of sailboat sailing on the ocean with second sailboat on the horizon

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captain at helm looking through binoculars at horizon

12 Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving Aboard

Before moving onboard, there were a lot of things I thought I knew about living on a boat full-time. Despite my research, I was only scratching the surface of what it’s like to live this lifestyle.

From the weather’s impacts to route planning and provisioning – traveling on the water is different.

After two years of living on a boat full-time, here are a few things I wish I had known before moving aboard.

1. There will always be things to fix.

You hear this all the time when talking to anyone about life on a boat. No matter what type of boat you have, it will need constant upkeep. When one thing gets fixed, three more will break.

woman crew member on top of sailboat mast

Like many first-time boat owners, we heard this over and over. Of course, it doesn’t hit home until you see the survey that details every last inch of issues. Or when you start living aboard a boat and experience first-hand the deterioration in a marine environment.

The good news is you can become a master of prioritizing your boat project to-do list.

Consider essential things versus cosmetic projects.
Look at safety versus nice-to-have updates.
Weight the time it takes to fix something versus the maintenance costs of it hiring out to a contractor or boat yard.

You can learn to improvise and create workarounds when you need to, and most boat owners ultimately become handy out of necessity. Over time you’ll recognize the importance of having a safe, operational vessel.

Oh, and when you finally fix the broken igniter on the oven after two years, it will be that much more rewarding.

Some of the best advice you’ll receive is this – if you try and fix it all, you will never leave the boat dock.

So, find the strength to accept the five-page to-do list and get out there and enjoy your boat. That’s what all boat owners are out there trying to do!

3. You need to be diligent with cleaning.

Living in a marine environment requires a substantial commitment to cleaning.

Before living aboard, I remember thinking – cleaning will be a breeze in such a small living space.

person using a microfiber towel to clean a counter top

Well, not really. Yes, it’s smaller, so tidying is quicker. But putting things in their place can sometimes be a challenge. Storing items with the marine environment in mind requires extra steps. Sometimes getting into storage areas is also inconvenient.

The key to keeping your boat tidy is storing the most often used items in places that are accessible.

Where cleaning is concerned, the marine environment creates obstacles different from land living.

Mold grows fast – even faster when the temperature drops and condensation is an issue.

Dirt comes in from every hatch and door that’s open. If you’re on a catamaran, dirt enters through a dozen hatches and a large cockpit door that’s usually open.

There’s also a load of areas that need special attention to keep clean.

the boat bottom
ground tackle
outside of the boat and the gel coat
fresh water tanks and black tanks
stainless steel

These areas are continuously affected by everything from corrosion to marine bottom growth. They need specific cleaning products and techniques to keep them in ship shape.

Besides your own research, ask around for helpful tips from fellow boaters. This will save you extra work and help you avoid surprises in the future.

4. It takes time to learn the boating world.

Learning to sail, maintain a boat, and live on a boat is not something you learn in a week or even a few months.

Lines on winches run to the helm of a sailboat

Some cruisers say it takes around three years to find your groove within the liveaboard lifestyle.

When you move aboard your first boat, you are pretty much learning a new way to live. Especially if you are jumping in with little previous boating experience.

All the boating things take time to master. Besides learning how to operate your boat, you have to learn how to live on it. Including but not limited to the below.

navigating and route planning
anchoring and docking
radio communication
regular maintenance (diesel engines, plumbing, electrical, etc.)
resource management (water, power, fuel)
provisioning

In each of these areas, there are things we are still working on. It takes time to develop skills. And in some cases, it takes a lot of experience in many different locations.

Learning these new skills is both challenging and exciting. It can also be a little scary. You are pushing yourself out of your comfort zone at every turn.

When you make a mistake, consider it one of many future valuable cruising lessons.

When you succeed, celebrate! Even the smallest victories are worthy of a sundowner toast when you live on the water.

5. You don’t need a big wardrobe onboard.

When I was planning to live aboard, a big project was downsizing my wardrobe. I prepared to cut my wardrobe down to about 20% while being meticulous in choosing what to bring on the boat.

oman standing on bow of catamaran in sailing clothes

I got rid of tons of clothes and only brought a small fraction of my previous wardrobe aboard. But I didn’t need even half of it.

Seriously, you don’t need many clothes on a boat. You just need the right clothes.

Determine a few types of comfortable items appropriate for the climate you intend to live or cruise – then you’re set. Once you find your “boat uniform,” you’ll wear it every day.

Sure, you’ll want things for the occasional night out or shore excursion. But a couple of mix and match pieces will do. And very casual is usually sufficient for the average cruiser. I find I have way too many dressier items (which aren’t even that dressy.)

Here are a few clothing items that I kept that I shouldn’t have:

casual clothing (shorts and tops) that are 100% cotton
more than one dress or other formal clothing
any leather
more than one pair of jeans
more than 4 or 5 swimsuits (find a few you love and ditch the rest)
bulky sweatshirts
more than 1 or 2 quality sun hats

With any good minimalist wardrobe, layering is essential. Identify items that are flexible enough to wear alone or under other things.

The capsule wardrobe concept is also a good idea on a boat. Research strategies behind these wardrobes and apply them to your closet on the water.

7. You’ll cook differently in the boat galley.

Before boat living, I would follow recipes to the exact ingredient. I wasn’t much for deviating from the formula. Then I moved on a boat where you rarely have precisely what the recipe calls for.

ramen meal in bowl topped with green onion, sesame seeds, and poached egg

When you start cooking on a boat, you will begin to find replacements or substitutes out of necessity. Maybe you don’t have room for fresh bell pepper in the fridge, so you opt to keep roasted bell pepper in a jar. Or you learn that having dehydrated milk is more efficient for cooking.

The canned goods aisle will become an area you explore the most on your journey to master the boat galley.

I never purchased canned mushrooms in my land-living days. Now, I keep a stockpile. Also, canned potatoes, anyone?

The more you cook, the more experimental you’ll become. When you travel to new places, you can find items at the local farmers’ market and give them a try too.

You’ll also discover that certain types of food are more comfortable to cook on a boat. I never cooked much Asian food on land but started experimenting with stir fry, curries, and homemade ramen onboard. Carrots and onions keep well, and you can throw just about anything in a stir fry.

We enjoyed the process of learning what works for cooking onboard. It’s also fun to start mastering things from scratch, such as homemade bread, pizza dough, yogurt, and broth.

9. You need to be flexible.

A well-known sailing adage is, plans are written in the sand at low tide.

woman relaxing in kayak on water beside beach

If you don’t do well with last-minute changes, you might not love this lifestyle.

Your plans will frequently change living on the water. Then they’ll change again and switch back. Sometimes we’ll change our route two or three times on the morning of departure.

Everything fluctuates based on weather, routing issues, boat issues, and plain bad luck. You may need to avoid a storm, pick up a spare part, or dock in a liveaboard marina for the season to take care of a health issue.

Traveling on the water, you’ll get more familiar with the idea of having a plan A, B, C, and sometimes even D.

Having many options is a way of planning while acknowledging you are in a fluid situation on a boat.

As you gain more experience, it will become more natural to accept changes. You might even find you’re immediately onto the next step when you hit an obstacle in your current plan.

A positive spin to this aspect of the lifestyle is you often end up in unexpected places. And sometimes, that’s not a bad thing. If you can roll with the punches, you’ll find appreciation in even the most unlikely plans.

10. Full-time cruising is a full-time job.

When you start cruising, friends and family might ask what you do all day. You’ll find this amusing. Because when you’re actively cruising, moving the boat regularly to new locations, THAT is what you are doing.

Sailboat jib line with captain at helm in background

Cruising on a boat is a full-time job and hard work. It includes route planning, watching the weather, performing maintenance, provisioning, managing resources, and more. Not to mention taking your shift at the helm. You are never without things to do, especially if you are living primarily on the anchor or a mooring ball.

You’ll often find you have to tell yourself to put boat chores on hold and enjoy the benefits of the lifestyle.

Although cruising is a lot of work, the good news is you are the boss. So when you find yourself worn out or short-tempered, consider giving yourself a break.

Slow down, and throw the timeline out the window. The best thing about this lifestyle is about the journey as much as the destination.

11. The cost of living can be high.

Even on a small boat, cruising and boat expenses can get out of control quickly if you don’t stick to a budget.

Boatyards and maintenance costs, liveaboard slip fees, boat insurance, and more will empty your bank account or boat cruising kitty. If you work from your boat, you may also need to spring for high-speed internet access so you can work from remote locations (Starlink has recently become more popular in the boating community).

Depending on where you’re cruising, food costs and other everyday items can also be very expensive.

If you’re thinking about living on a boat, do your research on the location you’ll be cruising in, whether it’s the east coast of the United States or the south pacific, and find the average costs of liveaboard marinas and boat insurance to cruise in that area.

Also, be aware that the insurance premium may cost more in certain areas, especially during the official hurricane or cyclone season (if the insurance policy even allows you to stay in the area).

Living on a Boat Full-Time: Is it Worth it?

If you are transitioning from a modern way of life, living on a boat will shake up your lifestyle. It’s an adventure that is entirely different from living on land.

boats in marina with pastel sky in background

My vision of what it would be like living on a boat and actually living on a boat are a far cry from each other. But nothing is ever as you imagine it.

If you’re up for the challenges, living on the water can be a unique and fulfilling lifestyle. From the skills you acquire to the places you visit and the people you meet – there’s no doubt cruising on a boat is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Want to learn more about cruising full-time on a boat?

For more on finding the right boat, the cost of cruising, and learning how to live on the water, view our complete guide.

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5 Things No One Tells You About Living on a Boat

Morgan, the founder of The Home That Roams, has been living nomadically for over five years. She began her journey traveling across the U.S. in a motorhome and cruising on a liveaboard sailing catamaran. Currently, she lives full-time in a travel trailer, sharing resources on RV living and boat life to help others downsize their lives and thrive in an alternative lifestyle.

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Yachting World

Digital Edition

How to live aboard a yacht for years at a time

Helen Fretter
April 24, 2023

What if one or two years of adventure just isn’t enough? Meet the cruisers who’ve been on board for a decade or more, and find out how to make long-haul cruising work for you

“I probably wouldn’t even recognise the person that I was when I first started,” admits Brian Trautman, skipper of the Amel Super Maramu Delos (and eponymous YouTube channel ). In 2009 Trautman cast off his life in corporate America, hustling to make his own tech business a success, and set off on what he thought would be an 18-month-long cruising adventure. Fourteen years later he’s still sailing the world on Delos , now with his wife and young daughter. But if you have no idea where the future will take you, how can you plan to keep your cruising options open?

We spoke to cruisers who have spent between eight and 40-plus years cruising and living aboard. Some set out with a rough deadline, others had no stopping point in mind, but the common theme is that all were able to keep their plans flexible and had made the life changes necessary to stay afloat.

“When Jill and I moved aboard our 1984 Grand Soleil 39 Yahtzee in Seattle in 2012, we had no time frame,” explains Andy Cross. “It was, and still is, open ended with the caveat that if the lifestyle isn’t working for one of us we’d reassess and make changes. We always intended for the boat to be our home, not just for cruising, and it wasn’t a ‘one, two or three years and we’re done’ plan.

“We both had jobs, but we weren’t tied down to the trappings of a house and cars, so it was relatively straightforward moving aboard, beginning to learn the boat, and starting a family. Our goal was to take it slow, not sail to a schedule too often, and hopefully share the dream with our children. I’m happy to say, we’re still doing that over 10 years later.”

Brian Trautman’s 14-year sailing adventure aboard SV Delos has grown to include a family and a livelihood

Trautman initially thought his cruising adventure would be for less than two years, having sold all his possessions and taken out a mortgage to pay for the boat.

“When I left, the time frame was 18 months. The reason is when I ran my budget and my monthly expenditures, I only had enough money for 18 months. So my plan was to just go, get somewhere cool – my intention was to try and make it to New Zealand – and then figure something else out.

“I didn’t know if I was going to stop and work when I got there, or if I was going to leave the boat and fly home. Or if I was going to sell the boat and go back to work. All I knew was that I was going to go now and figure out the rest at some later point.

“I ended up stretching that 18-month budget to about two and a half years getting from Seattle to Australia. When I stopped in Australia, we hauled Delos out of the water for about a year. I actually did remote consulting while living in Melbourne to make money for the next cruising season because after having had that taste, I knew there was no way I could stop then.”

Like Trautman, Ginger and Peter Niemann dipped back into ‘real life’ after their first major adventure – a four-year, 50,000-mile circumnavigation west-about from Seattle aboard their 47ft sloop Marcy , including rounding both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn .

The SV Devos family onboard

“When we moved aboard we had the idea to live aboard ‘as long as it was fun’, to quote Lin and Larry Pardey,” explains Peter. “It was certainly fun for a circumnavigation , but when we returned to home port four years after departure we were out of cruising funds. We rejoined the working world while living aboard.

“I assumed that was the end of our life afloat, and asked Ginger if we should put the boat up for sale upon our autumn return or wait until spring when the market might be better? ‘Heck no, we are just getting good at this!’ she answered, ‘But maybe we should get a boat you can stand up in!’ And so we lived aboard, swapped boats and worked until the cruising budget was restored a couple of years later, and set off again.”

Ages and stages

Long-term cruising looks different at different life stages. The Cross family always planned to sail through their boys’ childhoods, but are flexible as to how long they spend afloat at any one time.

“Every year is different. Some years, we’ve been on Yahtzee almost exclusively, other years we’ve taken off a few months at a time. This has worked well for us because we’ve planned the time away around northern winters or hurricane seasons in the south – times when we might not be cruising much anyway.

“We want our boys to know and be a part of their grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends’ lives, which has meant taking breaks off the boat to spend time with everyone. Then, we return to Yahtzee excited, rejuvenated and ready to continue the adventure. Our ability to balance life ashore and cruising is one of the main reasons I think we’re still happy with the lifestyle of living on a boat.”

In the 14 years since he first sailed away with Delos , Trautman’s life has gone through huge changes. “I’ve found the love of my life, gotten married, sailed with my family, sailed with tons of friends, we’ve had a child on board,” he reflects.

SV Devos under sail

“When I first started cruising, I was absolutely in the frame of mind that I would spend 100% of my time on the boat. And as time has gone on, I’ve actually seen the value in taking time off the boat, because you don’t really understand how good something is until you take yourself away from it. So when we start to get a little edgy or a little like, ‘Oh man it’s another beach, but I don’t want to go to the beach today!’ then we know that it’s time to take a break.

“So at least once a year now, we’ll put the boat in a marina or yard, and we go back and visit our family for a few months. It’s even more important now that we have Sierra, because she’s three and a half, and I want her to know her Swedish heritage.

“But obviously, we fund our lifestyle through sailing and making YouTube videos. So if we’re not sailing and making videos, then we’re not making money.”

Some cruisers report that as they get older they find themselves spending more time ashore. After a second demanding circumnavigation, the Niemanns are shifting their sailing style. “We are just now entering a new phase of cruising plans,” says Peter, “We aren’t getting any younger, and recognise that at some point in time the stresses of voyaging will be more than we can easily handle. So for now we plan to enjoy exploring a smaller area in more detail.”

“The major life change was: cruising,” says Janneke Kuysters, who has been cruising with her husband Wietze on their steel-hulled Bruce Roberts design Anna Caroline for eight years. “After that, we haven’t had any major changes in our lives, apart from growing older and the repercussions of that re. strength and agility. In our minds we’re still 25, but the bones say different!”

Andy and Jill Cross try not to sail to a schedule but still spend a lot of time aboard Yahtzee 12 years after first setting out on their adventure

Both the Niemanns and Janneke and Wietze admit, however, that they don’t necessarily find being ashore more restful. “We have always needed to get back to the boat to regroup. Afloat is our comfort zone,” says Peter Niemann.

“We would typically fly to the Netherlands every two years for about three weeks, but the boat is our home, so that is where we feel happy and comfortable,” says Janneke.

For Janneke and Wietze, time ashore is instead spent exploring new countries. “For instance: we left the boat in Valdivia, Chile, for five months to go backpacking all over South America. In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa we have rented or bought a campervan to travel inland for weeks or months on end.”

Power of knowledge

‘To cruise is to learn,’ wrote Lin Pardey in The Self Sufficient Sailor , and with experience comes confidence. Many cruisers who have sustained their adventures for decades began their adventures relatively cautiously, building the skills that would then enable them to take on longer passages or explore more remote areas.

“When we were in our mid-30s, we sailed the Atlantic circuit with our 31-footer. This was a test year, meant to find out what it was all about and to gather information,” recalls Janneke. They then bought Anna Caroline “with all the knowledge we had gathered in mind”, and began an eight year circumnavigation – first sailing around Scotland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain before completing a transatlantic, then heading south to Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Antarctica and Patagonian Chile. They rounded Cape Horn, visited remote areas of the Pacific including Robinson Crusoe Island, Easter Island and French Polynesia, then headed north to Alaska and British Columbia.

The Cross family moored up

Cruisers often report that ocean crossings become progressively easier, and both faster and with less damage sustained, over the years. Much of that is down to the added knowledge they’ve gained, which feeds into making better decisions when it comes to sail selection, interpreting weather forecasts and predicting sea state, and knowing how their boat – and each other – fares in different conditions.

Also key is confidence in your own ability to handle any problems or fix any breakages when cruising more remote areas or for extended periods. Lin and Larry Pardey famously inspired many cruisers to cast off the lines with their advice to ‘Go small, go simple, go now’.

“I honestly feel that setting off cruising was a lot easier when we went because there was much less equipment that you added to your boat. So they were simpler machines, easier to take care of,” Lin Pardey says.

“I think that more people are put off cruising by the sheer hassle of fixing and having other people fix your boat, feeling like the budget is just being blown by mechanics and electricians.

“But it isn’t just keeping your boat simpler that matters, it’s being able to say, ‘Okay, I really don’t need that, so we’re not going to worry about fixing it right now’. It’s the ability to just do without it, if you can’t fix it. That’s a really important aspect of enjoying what you’re doing. I’ve seen people dream of sailing to the Tuamotus, but they get to the Marquesas with something broken and realise the only place they can fix it is Tahiti, so they just skip right through and miss the whole Tuamotus.

Ginger and Peter Niemann’s first circumnavigation was a four year trip aboard their 47ft sloop Marcy

“For example, the watermaker: if you make sure you have enough water tankage and learn to be quite happy with just limited water for a period, you can fix it later.”

Over years of living aboard, most cruisers we spoke to have made substantial upgrades or modifications to their boats to enable them to take on more adventurous cruising. “We try not to anthropomorphise, but we really have the feeling that ‘we take care of her, and she takes care of us,” says Peter Niemann.

“Our boats evolve continuously: equipment is upgraded, worn items replaced, dodgers added. Specialised Arctic (ice poles, redundant heaters) or tropical/desert (awnings, fans) items are acquired, stowed and put into service as needed. The essential major change we made to both our boats was the addition of cockpit shelter.”

“Pretty much every system has been upgraded over time. We have new instruments, a new chartplotter , a lot of solar and wind. One of the huge improvements was the lithium batteries because that allowed us to get rid of propane. And so we can really extend our range because it’s a lot easier to get diesel fuel in any part of the world,” explains Brian Trautman.

“We’ve also really upped our game with the dinghy. Our dinghy now is aluminium, it’s a little bit heavier, but we love it. It has a big engine, so it’s our SUV, our family car, and we need that.”

The Niemanns heading ashore

Pace yourself

When you have no fixed deadline, how do you plan? Most cruisers we spoke to sketch out ‘big picture’ plans determined by the seasons, but leave themselves the freedom to vary their route along the way.

“We typically plan about one season in advance, but we don’t plan in detail,” explains Trautman. “So right now, we’re planning our South Pacific season. And all we know is that we’re going to try and get to French Polynesia or the Marquesas from Mexico. We’re going to arrive sometime during April and then we have the next six or seven months to figure out what we’re going to do.

If it means we’re going to stay in French Polynesia for the cyclone season, or end up sailing west towards New Zealand for the cyclone season, we just don’t know.

“We just know we’re travelling generally westward best we can, and that’s often worked out for us. We pay attention to the big picture things: the hurricane season, cyclone season, when the good weather is, and we kind of make broad strokes to travel in that general direction.”

“Seasonally, we’ve set our plans to cruise more miles during summers in northern climates and then stopping or slowing down during the colder months of winter. It’s the exact opposite now in the tropics,” explains Andy Cross.

“Here we have hurricane seasons to contend with in the summer and fall, and insurance parameters dictate where the boat can be to continue coverage during named storms.”

The Cross family making great cruising memories

Maintaining momentum is a tricky balance, and will be different for everyone. “What made it work for us is we went without serious plans and kept ourselves highly flexible, we went cruising to just really enjoy sailing,” explains Lin Pardey. “But the thing that really kept us from getting tired of it or frustrated by it was taking advantage whenever we met somebody who said ‘Our family is on this little island, you should go visit them.’ So instead of heading south with other cruisers, we’d turn and head to some island or other, and ended up with wonderful friends who introduced us to other friends. So it was that real unscheduled-ness that kept letting us have new adventures and go in different directions.”

Lin and Larry Pardey broke up their cruising routine, which saw them voyaging for some 47 years, with periods spent working and also treating themselves to short ‘holidays’ on land.

“What people don’t quite expect is that if you set off on a voyage around the world, the seasons push you on and it can leave you feeling tired,” says Lin.

“I’ve watched people sail from England to New Zealand over a year and a half period, because that works nicely with the seasons. But when they get here, they’re just tired of moving on. The fact that we had to work meant we didn’t feel we always had to keep moving on. Every year we’d stop for at least three or four months, to let us catch up with ourselves.”

Equally, long-distance cruising can be exhausting, and without a broad-brush plan it can be tempting to linger, cautions Janneke. “It takes (a lot of) effort to keep yourself and your boat going. You are in a strange environment all the time, change is a constant in this lifestyle. It’s easy to arrive somewhere and make it your home. Especially when you have an open-ended plan, it can be attractive to stay somewhere a little longer.

“But that has an impact on everything that follows: you can manoeuvre yourself in a situation where you have to stay somewhere much longer than expected, because of the weather. Beaten paths are there for a reason, and often this reason is the weather. If you decide to leave the beaten path, you need to be independent in making your own plans and time schedule.”

And, sometimes, it’s about knowing when to stop. “When it came to planning our voyage, we sat with a lot of people that had returned from a long trip. We found that there is a tipping point after about 8-10 years. When people stay out for more than that, it becomes less of a voyage and more of a way of life. We are project-minded people, so we needed the voyage to have a beginning and an end. So we left with a plan to stay out somewhere between six and nine years. It worked out to eight years.”

Go slow, stay loose

So how do you know which pace is right for you? “My advice would be go slow and keep it loose,” says Trautman. “Write your plans in the sand at low tide, and be okay with changing them.

“And just take time. You’re not out there to check items off of a list, in my opinion. There are some places where you’ll be okay with leaving after a couple of days, and there are some places you’ll really want a few more weeks just to enjoy. That could be a factor of the place, or it could also be a factor of your frame of mind after moving for so long. That’s all part of the lifestyle.”

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Candice Miller, in a white summer dress, poses for a portrait with her husband, Brandon Miller, in a light blue shirt. Both are holding wine glasses.

How an Instagram-Perfect Life in the Hamptons Ended in Tragedy

Candice and Brandon Miller showed the public a world of glittering parties and vacations. The money to sustain it did not exist.

Candice and Brandon Miller. In photographs shared online, their lives were full of parties and luxurious vacations. Credit... Joe Schildhorn/BFA.com, via Shutterstock

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By Katherine Rosman

Published Aug. 8, 2024 Updated Aug. 9, 2024

In the modern Gilded Age of New York, where Instagram is awash in unrestrained displays of wealth, Brandon and Candice Miller were royalty.

At their 10th wedding anniversary “Midsummer Night’s Dream” party, they celebrated with a few dozen friends in the backyard of their 5,500-square-foot vacation home in the Hamptons.

Beautiful women in gowns watched with their handsome husbands as the couple renewed their vows near a swimming pool strewn with peonies and rose petals beneath a canopy of lights.

It was a grand public display of their perfect life and marriage. Ms. Miller told a lifestyle blogger who wrote about the party that her husband’s speech “made me cry by the end with his authentic, raw emotion and romantic words.”

It all culminated in the kind of envy-inducing images anticipated by the roughly 80,000 followers of “Mama and Tata,” Ms. Miller’s popular Instagram feed, which featured a near-constant stream of photographs and videos of her glittering life.

The Midsummer Night party was in 2019. Five years later, the glamorous image that Ms. Miller cultivated and promoted has disappeared, replaced with heartbreak, anger and a mountain of once-secret debt.

Her husband is gone. The home they so ostentatiously lived in, saddled by several mortgages, is not truly their own. Lawsuits from creditors, business bankruptcies, botched investments and even a repossessed boat — the “Miller Time” — indicate that the wealth needed to maintain their lifestyle had evaporated, if it ever truly existed.

Mr. Miller, 43, died on July 3 at a Southampton hospital. A suicide note indicated he had killed himself while his wife and children were on vacation on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, according to a Suffolk County law enforcement official. He said Mr. Miller wrote that a business deal he had hoped would ease the family’s financial strain had collapsed.

His family was stunned. When Ms. Miller was contacted for comment, a family spokesman said she and the children were overwhelmed by grief. “Candice is devastated by the loss of her soul mate, and her two young daughters’ lives are forever impacted by the loss of their beloved daddy,” he said.

The Millers’ downfall has become the focus of obsessive talk in the Hamptons and among internet sleuths who have scoured Ms. Miller’s social media presence for clues to what went wrong.

This account of the family’s rise and fall is drawn from property records, legal filings and interviews with those who knew and worked with Mr. Miller. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, few agreed to be cited by name.

That Mr. Miller’s death occurred in the Hamptons during the height of the social season almost certainly has added to the intrigue, said Neil J. Young, a historian who is writing a book about the Hamptons. Here, the only thing as fascinating as opulent wealth is its sudden disintegration.

“This place is predicated, for a certain set, on showing off,” Dr. Young said. “It’s the homes one has, the things one does out here — from the restaurants to the workouts to the parties. But it’s a place where one can get overextended really quickly, where a house of cards can suddenly collapse .”

A chasm separated the Millers’ shimmering public lives and painful private reality. But their fall is also a source of very real grief — a story about trying to have it all, and what happens when you cannot.

“What people aren’t discussing in all of this is the loss of my little brother, someone I have loved unconditionally,” Mr. Miller’s sister, Maurley Miller, said in a statement after being contacted by The New York Times. “I have a hole in my heart that will never be filled. I am completely devastated.”

‘Mama and Tata’

Candice Miller, in a shimmery blue dress and gold jewelry, at a summertime party.

Perhaps no place in America is as perfectly Instagram-ready as the Hamptons, where striking natural beauty and extravagant wealth are juxtaposed in abundance. Lifestyle and fashion influencers spend their summers at the eastern end of Long Island, documenting their sumptuous lives.

Ms. Miller, 42, added to that canon when she and her sister, Jenna Crespi, started the “Mama and Tata” website and Instagram account in 2016 to provide fashion, shopping and decorating tips for wealthy women.

The account highlighted people in Ms. Miller’s orbit, like Ivanka Trump and Ms. Miller’s cousin-by-marriage, Arielle Charnas , an Instagram personality who influenced her influencer aspirations. The fitness impresario Tracy Anderson and the fashion designer Rachel Zoe made regular appearances.

But it mostly showcased Ms. Miller’s personal life and tastes. “Mama and Tata” became an alter ego and self-promotional marketing machine. Ms. Miller and some friends even started a fashion label that she celebrated with a launch party at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Her followers got regular glimpses of her active social life against the backdrop of grand homes in Manhattan and Southampton, European resorts, private planes, classic sports cars and speedboats.

She was known for her vintage designer gowns and for private fitness sessions (about $250 per hour on top of $900 monthly studio membership fees) that she filmed and shared online.

The Miller children’s birthdays were also an opportunity for Ms. Miller to entertain on a grand scale — for friends and for online fans. A Coachella -themed party for one daughter spawned a torrent of Instagram posts tagging the vendors Ms. Miller hired: a party planner, a florist and a DJ. Helping to keep it all afloat were nannies, housekeepers, drivers, boat captains and personal chefs.

But while “Mama and Tata” reveled in luxury, it spent no time delving into how the splendor was being paid for.

Though Ms. Miller poured time into her Instagram feed, it did not generate much revenue. Instead, “Mama and Tata” enhanced her profile in other ways.

In a 2019 article for an online magazine about the Millers’ Manhattan home — “our townhouse in the sky,” she called it — she posed for photographs with her two young daughters. The living room was decorated in all white, down to the white-spined books on the shelves. “It is so beautiful to sit in, as long as you aren’t wearing anything that bleeds, and exclusively drinking water,” she said.

Mr. Miller, on the other hand, eschewed social media — he primarily used a flip phone. Friends described him as a movie buff, basketball fan and car aficionado.

But when it came to his wife’s devotion to sharing their life online, she said he was all in. “I have the most supportive husband who encourages me to do whatever I love,” she told a lifestyle blog.

Off camera, they maintained traditional separations of duties, said a person familiar with their family dynamics. Ms. Miller oversaw the daily care of the children, and Mr. Miller focused on his business, which they rarely discussed.

She had visited his office only once, and she met his business partner just three times — including, most recently, beside her husband’s grave.

‘People who can lose everything’

Brandon Miller developed commercial and residential projects in TriBeCa, Harlem and the Meatpacking District. He appeared to be a successful businessman in a city filled with them.

Yet by last fall, he was under so much pressure that when he attended a business meeting in a Midtown high rise, according to three people familiar with what happened, Mr. Miller sat at a conference table and began to weep.

He was in a financial free-fall that confidants are now struggling to piece together.

Mr. Miller began working in real estate a few years after graduating from Brown University, joining his father’s firm. Early in his marriage, the company developed a residential building in TriBeCa, and Mr. Miller acquired Unit 3 — the penthouse — for his family.

He and his father also bought two connecting lots in the Hamptons, one on the water and one behind it. They built homes on both, and sold one on the open market. Mr. Miller kept the other — a lavish home with expansive grounds that easily accommodated sit-down dinners for 60 friends.

The homes acquired from his father’s firm allowed the Millers to live as if they were mega-millionaires.

But Mr. Miller’s primary focus was commercial development. In a typical project, he raised money from investors to secure a long-term lease on a parcel of land before commissioning architects to plan a building. Once permits were in place, he sold the lease, the building plan and its permits to another developer for a profit, or took on more debt to cover construction costs.

Even when such projects go smoothly, the work can require developers to leverage many assets to secure loans that will carry them through the process.

“You’re dealing with people who can lose everything,” said Jay Neveloff, a real estate lawyer in New York.

Mr. Miller’s father, Michael Miller, managed that risk for many years, but his assets were highly leveraged when he died unexpectedly in 2016. His company and survivors were hit with lawsuits.

After his father’s death, Mr. Miller took over the company, alongside his father’s former partner. But soon, the pandemic made a challenging business even more difficult, as the city’s real estate market plunged. And while the residential market rebounded, the demand for office space did not return to prepandemic levels.

Mr. Miller found himself in a financial crunch. In 2021, near the bottom of the pandemic market, he sold the family’s TriBeCa home for just over $9 million, according to city records. The family set their sights on living uptown, in the type of co-op building that Mr. Miller had grown up in. But buying on the Upper East Side would have required significant cash.

Instead, they rented a 4,382-square-foot, five-bedroom apartment on the corner of Park Avenue and East 71st Street, according to court records — keeping up appearances for $47,000 per month. They decorated with rented furniture for which they paid $180,000 for one year, according to a lawsuit filed this spring, and $12,000 per month after the first year.

If this was downsizing, it wasn’t enough.

Mr. Miller stopped paying some of the family’s bills, including, according to a lawsuit, the maintenance and docking fees for their Van Dutch speedboat — a frequent backdrop for late-night parties shared on Instagram. Such models generally sell for more than $1 million.

And he leveraged the family’s prize asset, the Hamptons home, piling one mortgage atop another. He took out a $6.1 million loan from a conventional bank. Then, records show, he arranged another $2 million mortgage from a company that advertised cash loans that close in less than 24 hours.

The Millers continued to entertain in high style. In August 2022, they hosted a “Love Boat” party at Duryea’s , a beachfront restaurant in Montauk. Ms. Miller posed for photos with friends in a sleek white dress.

But Mr. Miller’s desperation was growing. A few weeks later, he borrowed yet more money against the house: a $2 million mortgage from a lender in Naples, Fla., facilitated by a family friend, Ryan Nivakoff , who contributed cash to the loan, according to public records and three people familiar with the Millers’ finances. Mr. Nivakoff declined to comment.

None of this was apparent to Ms. Miller’s online audience. In a video posted by Hamptons Magazine last July, Ms. Miller, in a strapless summer dress, answered questions about her preferred hot spots. Chicest shopping? “Chanel, East Hampton,” Ms. Miller answered.

A fateful meeting

By the fall of 2023, Mr. Miller could no longer hide the strain. His friends, aware of both his family’s expensive lifestyle and the sluggish real estate market, assumed he was struggling with debt.

Three of them arranged an intervention of sorts, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

The day before the meeting, the friends spoke by phone to discuss their approach. As they did, one of them searched the internet for a property that Mr. Miller was ostensibly developing in Brooklyn. The friend had invested $1 million in the project and had encouraged several colleagues to invest an additional $500,000 in all.

What he found online was alarming: The property had been purchased more than a month earlier by a developer with no connection to Mr. Miller.

Mr. Miller arrived at the meeting looking glum, according to three people familiar with what happened. He had just visited his father’s grave on the seventh anniversary of his death — an event from which those close to Brandon say he never fully recovered.

The friend who had given him money for the Brooklyn project told Mr. Miller that he felt misled and angry.

Mr. Miller broke down in tears. He insisted he had not done anything wrong but lamented that he had let his friend down.

The friend became teary-eyed and walked out. After a 15-year friendship, he and Mr. Miller never spoke again.

Reached for comment, the friend said their fractured relationship and Mr. Miller’s death have devastated him, and he otherwise asked for privacy. He has told others that he believed Mr. Miller had sincerely intended to use his money as a business investment before the deal went awry. Then, he believed, Mr. Miller let his financial burdens cloud his judgment.

Mr. Miller’s business troubles did not abate. He took over a land lease near the High Line in Manhattan that would require annual payments of more than $2 million, according to a person familiar with the transaction. He immediately borrowed $1.5 million against it, according to public filings and people familiar with the transaction.

Within months, Mr. Miller fell behind in making the lease payments, Benny Barmapov, the landowner, said in an interview.

The pressure intensified when a private equity firm that had lent Mr. Miller’s company $36 million to help finance a development tried to collect on the overdue repayment.

At home, creditors were demanding money too. The marina that serviced the Millers’ boat sued for $55,000. The furniture rental company claimed in a lawsuit that he owed $100,000 in fees and had refused to return $64,000 in borrowed furniture.

Although his friends could sense something was wrong, Ms. Miller has said she was unaware of the family’s financial crisis, according to two people familiar with her thinking.

In January she was quoted in The Times , extolling the benefits of an $800 facial over filler injections and plastic surgery. “This makes you feel like your face doesn’t need that stuff,” Ms. Miller said, “if you’re truly committing to going every week or every other week.”

A canceled vacation

Earlier this year, the Millers were invited to spend a few days in the Bahamas at the home of Mr. Nivakoff, the friend who had helped underwrite one of Mr. Miller’s mortgages. But as the trip approached, Mr. Nivakoff wanted Mr. Miller to tell his wife about the debt or forget about the trip, according to two people with knowledge of the discussion.

Mr. Miller canceled the trip, but Mr. Nivakoff did not relent.

In May, he called Ms. Miller directly, according to two people she told, and informed her that her husband owed him money. Her family, Mr. Nivakoff told her, was broke. Her house was carrying several mortgages, including one he had invested in.

Ms. Miller confronted her husband and asked to see their financial documents. He arranged a call with a lawyer to reassure her and eventually persuaded her that everything was under control.

Even then, their financial straits were growing more perilous. In early June, he borrowed $208,000 against the house from a company offering short-term loans. He never paid it back, according to the lender.

Later that month, the family had plans to travel to Europe, but Mr. Miller told his wife he had to stay home to close a deal that would help their financial situation, according to three people familiar with the discussion. He encouraged her and the children to go without him — after all, he told her, the trip was already paid for.

Ms. Miller took their daughters abroad and posted photographs from Spain and Italy. Only later did they learn the trip had not been paid for; after her credit card was declined, her travel agent had to guarantee the hotel bill would be paid.

On June 28, Mr. Miller texted his wife to tell her the deal intended to ease their money crisis had closed, according to two people familiar with the situation.

But he also reached out to at least one friend that week for a loan that should have been pocket change for someone like him: $1,000, according to two people aware of the request. On June 29, he attended a polo match and barbecue in the Hamptons.

On June 30, the police were notified that a carbon monoxide alarm had gone off at the Millers’ home. Emergency medical workers found Mr. Miller unconscious in a white Porsche Carrera that he had rigged to poison himself, a Suffolk County law enforcement official said. Rescue workers found a photo of him, his wife and their children in the car.

Mr. Miller was rushed to a hospital and placed on life support.

In an email left for his wife, Mr. Miller admitted he had lied. The business deal he hoped would save them had fallen apart, he said.

He expressed his love for his wife and children. He wrote that he believed he was doing what was best for them — the note mentioned two life insurance policies totaling about $15 million. He wrote that he had struggled against dark feelings for years.

In a graveside ceremony attended by family and a small circle of friends, he was laid to rest next to his father.

The dismantling of their dream life began almost immediately. A mortgage lender sued Ms. Miller for $800,000 in missed payments and interest. The Miller Time was repossessed. And the “Mama and Tata” Instagram account was pulled offline.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the United States, or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.

Lauren Hirsch contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Katherine Rosman covers newsmakers, power players and individuals making an imprint on New York City. More about Katherine Rosman

The Great Read

Here are more fascinating tales you can’t help reading all the way to the end..

Tragic End to an Instagram-Perfect Hamptons Life: A couple showed the public a world of glittering parties and vacations. The money to sustain it did not exist .

Bari Weiss Knows What She’s Doing: The founder of The Free Press has built a new media empire by persuading audiences that she is a teller of dangerous truths.

A Right-Wing Miracle Cure: On a far-right platform, one man in chronic pain was led to a “medbed,” a device that followers believed could cure any disease .

Guided by Hand-Drawn Maps: Nostalgic for a time before ubiquitous connectivity, a writer trekked across Switzerland using maps made by people he met along the way .

Betty Gordon Is Not Done: She danced naked at Woodstock. She dated Serpico. Now 93, she may be the world’s most unlikely children’s book author .

The Buzz on Florida Politics

DeSantis: Florida abortion Amendment 4 means ‘end of the pro-life movement’

Kirby Wilson Times staff

TAMPA — The opposition to Amendment 4 is getting organized, and Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading the resistance.

At an event at Jesuit High School on Thursday, DeSantis galvanized opposition to the amendment, which would end most abortion restrictions in Florida. In front of a packed auditorium crowd of a few hundred, Florida’s Republican governor laid out what he said are the stakes in November.

“If you care about building a culture of life in this state or this country, them winning in Florida I think really represents the end of the pro-life movement,” DeSantis said.

Amendment 4 would bar lawmakers from banning abortion before a fetus is viable — undoing the current six-week ban on the books. The amendment would also allow for abortions in cases when the mother’s health is threatened “as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” It needs 60% voter approval to pass.

While the group supporting abortion access has raised nearly $40 million, opposition to the amendment has struggled to gain traction. But the Tampa event Thursday showed how that could be changing.

At a minimum, anti-abortion opponents of the amendment have found their talking points. A brief video shown to the crowd before DeSantis’ appearance criticized Amendment 4 for leaving certain terms undefined. For example, it said the text does not say what a “healthcare provider” is. The video criticized the amendment for requiring parental “notification” for abortion and not parental consent.

“They didn’t have to write Amendment 4 this way. But they did. Why?” a voice-over told the crowd as the video played. “Because they want to deceive you — to make their extreme amendment seem reasonable.”

Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group opposed to abortion restrictions that is sponsoring the push for the amendment, declined to comment for this story. However, supporters of Amendment 4 have noted that, should it pass, health care providers would still be limited to their scope of practice. They’ve also said the amendment wouldn’t interfere with the parental notification requirement for abortion that’s already in Florida’s Constitution.

In making the case for a no vote on 4, DeSantis gave a stark assessment of the state’s politics.

“If you look at the state of Florida, we do not have a pro-life majority,” DeSantis said. “We’ve got a big chunk, but we don’t have a majority. If only people that are pro-life oppose it, it very well might pass.”

The opposition’s real work will be convincing Floridians who generally support abortion rights that the amendment is too extreme, DeSantis said.

To that end, DeSantis pointed to a financial impact statement that will accompany the summary of the amendment on the ballot. In part, the statement, written by a state panel with a DeSantis representative on it, warns that Amendment 4, if passed, would be the subject of litigation that would be funded by taxpayers.

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Supporters of Amendment 4 have called the impact statement “deceptive ” and said its aim is to politicize the amendment. The financial impact statement itself has been subject to lawsuits .

DeSantis also said he will work to tie Amendment 4 to figures that Republican voters perceive to be far-left, such as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and the billionaire financier George Soros. DeSantis noted that if every Republican voted against the abortion amendment, it would fail. He asked opponents of the amendment in the audience to consider donating to the Florida Freedom Fund, a group championing conservative causes led by DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier.

The governor also reserved some criticism for his fellow conservatives. He bashed the Florida Supreme Court — including two of his own appointees — for letting the amendment appear on the ballot in the first place.

“We’re here because the majority of the Florida Supreme Court was derelict in their duties. They did not have the courage to do what was right, because they would have been criticized for nixing this,” DeSantis said. “They caved.”

Kirby Wilson is a politics reporter, covering the leaders of Florida and explaining the political landscape. Reach him at [email protected].

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Saginaw/Bay City
All Michigan

Teen seriously injured when boat crashes into Lake Michigan pier

Updated: Aug. 15, 2024, 8:09 p.m.
| Published: Aug. 15, 2024, 7:42 a.m.

Rescuers treat a boat passenger who was injured Wednesday, Aug. 14, when the boat crashed into the south pier on Lake Michigan near Holland, Ottawa County sheriff's deputies said. (Photo provided by Scott Bosgraaf) Scott Bosgraaf

John Agar | [email protected]

OTTAWA COUNTY, MI – A woman suffered serious injuries late Wednesday, Aug. 14, when the boat she was riding in struck the south pier on Lake Michigan near Holland State Park.

The woman, 18, was thrown into the water and rocks on the channel side of the pier and was rescued by another boat passenger, Ottawa County sheriff’s deputies said.

The teen suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The crash happened around 10:15 p.m.

A 69-year-old Holland man was operating a 26-foot boat when it crashed into the south pier about 75 yards east of the navigational beacon at the end of the pier, police said.

The injured woman was thrown into the channel that leads to Lake Macatawa.

She and two other woman, ages 19 and 22, all from Holland, were on the boat.

Sheriff’s deputies and Park Township firefighters responded to a report of a boat crash with one person in the water. One of the passengers had already pulled the injured woman out of the water.

She was taken by AMR Ambulance to Holland Hospital. The crash remains under investigation, police said.

Stories by John Agar

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Kitchen & Household

How to Make the Best Baked Potato of Your Life in 12 Minutes

Stop wasting hours of time and electricity on a simple baked potato. This speedy method produces better results in a fraction of the time.

Air fryer baked potatoes get a head start in the microwave.

As the great Mitch Hedberg once said of making baked potatoes in an oven "Sometimes I'll just throw one in there even if I don't want one. By the time it's ready...who knows?"

Baked potatoes do take upwards of an hour to cook through in a conventional oven, but with a microwave and an air fryer, you can have the best baked potato of your life in under 15.

Baked potatoes make the perfect sidekick to summer BBQ favorites , but while steak , burgers and dogs are ready in no time, baked potatoes require a ton of time and untold amounts of gas or electricity to cook.

With this speedy method for baking potatoes, the microwave's nuclear rays blast the potato to soft and toothsome doneness in about 10 minutes, while an air fryer can crisp the outer skin in just two minutes or less. By my math, that's 12 minutes for a baked potato that's as good or better than anything you'll make in the oven.

The 14 Best Kitchen Buys $30 and Under

As a bonus, air fryers and microwaves use far less energy than a large oven and take almost no time to preheat. Here's how to make the best and fastest baked potato of your life in 12 minutes.

What you'll need:

1 russet potato
1 tsp olive oil or butter
A microwave
An air fryer

Directions:

Step 1 : Poke air holes in the potato using a fork
Step 2 : Microwave the potato on high for 10 minutes or until it's fork-tender and cooked through
Step 3 : Slice the potato halfway through and toss with melted butter or olive oil. You can also stuff the potato with cheese or bacon bits.
Step 4 : Air fry on high skin side up for 1 minute. Flip and cook another 1 or two minutes until desired crispiness is achieved. (If stuffing with cheese or bacon bits, cook skin side down only.)

For more tips, see my list of the seven foods I'll only air fry from now and on and learn the best way to r eheat every kind of leftovers .

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Jennifer Garner Proves She's Living Her Best Life on Ex Ben Affleck's Birthday

Ben affleck’s ex jennifer garner shared a recap of her recent “dream trip” to japan in a post on his 52nd birthday..

Jennifer Garner has a ramen-tic message to share with fans on Ben Affleck ’s birthday.

The 13 Going On 30 took to Instagram on Aug. 15 —which also happened to be her ex-husband’s 52nd birthday—to celebrate a different kind of milestone: her recent vacation to Asia.

Garner uploaded a gallery of photos showing her “dream trip to Japan,” as she called it, and provided a checklist of all the memories she made, including visits to the Tenryu-ji Temple and the Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavilion, both located in Kyoto.

In the pics, Garner—who shares kids Violet , 18, Seraphina , 15 and Samuel , 12, with Affleck—can be seen on a boat at sunset with windswept hair, sunglasses and a smile while holding a glass of champagne. In another photo, she posed in the middle of a busy walkway wearing a blue tee, shorts and tennis shoes while flashing two peace signs.

And despite being a “former picky eater,” the Alias actress embraced the local cuisine in Japan. One pic showed her with her hair pulled back and wearing a plastic bib, smiling while eating a bowl of ramen—but the soup wasn’t the only local delicacy she tried.

“This abalone was alive in front of us five minutes ago,” Garner said in one video while holding chopsticks and a piece of the prepared mollusk. Before taking a bite, she added, “We have to honor it by eating it."

While the recap of her trip to Japan coincided with Affleck’s 52nd birthday, Garner didn’t publicly shoutout the Batman star, who she met in 2000 on the set of the movie Pearl Harbor . However, she seemed to show support in other ways as she was photographed stopping by his Brentwood, Calif., home on his special day.

Affleck—who finalized his divorce from Garner in 2018—also rang in his birthday with a visit from now-wife Jennifer Lopez . The “Jenny from the Block” singer was seen stopping by Affleck’s house despite ongoing speculation of marital issues between the couple.

Although they may have celebrated in person, J.Lo didn’t publicly acknowledge his birthday on social media. Instead, she appeared to be in the mood to reminisce, sharing a few throwback photos from her own birthday celebration in July, in which she’s wearing a sheer Dior dress with silver floral designs and posing next to a silver convertible. The caption simply read, “Dior.”

My Cruiser Life Magazine

Living On a Boat Full Time — What to Consider Before Living Aboard

Let’s talk about real-life boat ownership and living on a boat full time. My wife and I have lived on our boat for nearly eight years, doing everything from full-time living on a boat in a marina to cruising The Islands of The Bahamas for months.

For starters, everything you’ve ever wondered about living on a boat probably doesn’t scratch the surface of everything you’ll learn. This lifestyle isn’t for everyone; for every wonderful day on the water, there’s a stressful situation or broken boat part.

So what does living on a boat full time look like? Here’s a glimpse into the world of the liveaboard.

Should i live on a boat absolutely yes, here’s why (pros of living on a boat), never, in a million years, should anyone ever live on a boat (cons of living on a boat), there’s more than one way to live on a boat, there’s a steep learning curve, it’s kind of like camping, constant maintenance and cleaning, weather drama, the legalities of the live aboard life, cost of living on a boat, paths to moving aboard, living on a boat full time faqs, what are the pros and cons of living on a boat.

It is often said that there’s a wide gap between the romantic vision that many people have of the liveaboard lifestyle and the nitty-gritty reality.

Here are the pros and cons of living on a boat full time, taken from our personal experiences.

Living on a boat is sometimes even better than your most romantic vision. Dolphins frolicking while the sunsets, tropical drinks in your hands, and nothing but crystal clear water between you and the most spectacular island beach you’ve ever seen. Yes, that all happens, sometimes.

Freedom to go where you want, when you want
Travel as much or as little as you want
Take your house with you as you move
Changing scenery, waterfront property where ever you go
Wildlife visits—seals, whales, dolphins, birds
A friendly community of other boaters
Learn to live more simply, with only the necessities

Everyone has good days and bad days. We’ve often described boat life as having high highs but very low lows. The peaks and valleys of boat life (crests and troughs?) are just much farther from baseline-normal.

For every dolphin, there is a broken toilet joker valve leaking sewage onto the bathroom floor.

For every idyllic island beach, there is a fouled diesel filter that needs changing.

For every smooth downwind passage, there is a sloshy, windless mess of flapping sails making everyone on board seasick.

The list could go on and on and on.

Constant maintenance and cleaning
Difficulty finding skilled, professional labor
Small spaces, no storage, no privacy
No dishwashers, washing machines, dryers (usually)
Away from docks, you always have limited power and water
Constant exposure to the weather
Tax and insurance issues

Common Issues with Moving Onto a Boat

Here are some of the biggest issues we have noticed from our experiences and those around us. While everyone’s experience of living on a boat full time differs, everyone seems to have similar issues.

First, it has to be said that everyone’s experience is different. And that’s most obvious by looking at what sort of boat they choose and where they choose to live on it.

Many books have been written on the subject, and most like to divide boaters into three groups based on their budgets. There are the high-lifers who can afford to buy a new or newish boat that is large and comfortable. They can afford to live at a resort marina and likely hire professionals for most maintenance and cleaning tasks. They likely spend most of their time in marinas if they travel far.

Then there are the Goldilocks boaters—not too big, not too small—making up the “middle class” of boating. There’s a healthy mix of DIY projecting with some professional help on the big projects. They might liveaboard at a marina or travel full-time. They might live at docks, anchor, or a mix.

And then there are the budget boaters. Cheap boats are easy to come by if you’re willing to use DIY labor to fix them up. They are most likely to anchor out to minimize costs.

All these people live very different lives on their boats, but does it matter? The costs are astronomically different, but they could be visiting the same ports, seeing the same sights, and even sharing the same experiences.

What’s most amazing is how everyone perceives their liveaboard situation. I’ve been to dock parties where couples on 60′ catamarans complain that they have no personal space and must take a break from being on the boat together after a few months. Meanwhile, I know a family of five (plus two dogs) that live on a 40′ monohull with less than 1/3 the space of the catamaran. They have issues, but they’re pretty happy five years later.

(Speaking of catamarans, check out my recommendations for liveaboard catamaran options.)

Year one of boating is the worst. There’s so much to learn; it’s all new and different than anything you’ve done before. There are all the sailing terms you must learn, but there are also boat maintenance tasks and understanding how all the systems on your boat work. Then there are the basics of seamanship and how to operate your vessel safely. It is a lot to take in.

And the basics of living on a boat are different from land life. Your kitchen (galley) is much smaller. The toilet doesn’t flush like a regular land toilet. You’re always thinking about minimizing water use when showering or doing dishes. If you turn too many electrical items on, circuit breakers pop. The list goes on and on, and when you’re new, it’s stressful.

Once you’ve got the kinks worked out, learned your boat systems, and successfully traveled and lived on your boat for a while, things get much better. You know more, your boat is set up the way you need it, and you have the confidence to start enjoying yourself. Some people take a few months, some a year, and, unfortunately, some never get there.

Boats are small spaces, but the truth is that living on a boat is more like camping than most boaters like to admit. You get by with only a few items in your wardrobe. You skip showers since you don’t always have hot water. You don’t have space for all the luxuries of home. No dishwasher. No washing machine. Everyone is occasionally uncomfortable onboard, whether from the weather or the cramped quarters.

Boats are also hard on relationships. While there’s something romantic about being cozy and alone together at sea, it isn’t so romantic on day five, or thirty, or sixty. Personal space is non-existent on most boats. It’s inevitable that your significant other—or anyone else—will drive you nuts after some time. Boats have ended more than one marriage that we know of.

The cramped living space on a boat poses other problems, too. Downsizing is important because you simply can’t bring it all with you—there’s no storage space. What is important, what’s nice to have, and what will you use on a boat? Living on a boat forces you to live with the minimum and acknowledge what you need to survive.

Living on a sailboat is, of course, drastically different than living on a luxury yacht. But all these problems seem relative, and no matter what size your boat is, everyone has the same complaints.

Boats are always trying to sink and fall apart. The ocean helps them with its corrosive saltwater and constant motion. The only thing keeping it afloat? You, the lowly and unprepared new boat owner. Yikes!

Even if you have mechanics and boatyard workers do most of the big projects for you, there’s still a ton that you’ll wind up doing on your own. Just day-to-day cleaning on a boat is a big deal. Everything is more difficult and takes longer than it does on a house.

Somehow, boats seem to get dirtier faster than houses do. From polishing the hull, shining the stainless, varnishing the teak, and scrubbing the scum line to everyday things like dishes, sweeping the floors, and cleaning the bathroom, boats are dirty, and it takes time to keep them clean.

The weather plays a bigger part in your life than you’ll even imagine. Most of us pay remarkably little attention to the weather when we’re on land. If it’s hot, we might just minimize our time away from air conditioning. If it’s raining, it’s a minor inconvenience. We never think about the wind or tides.

But everything on a boat revolves around the weather. Every day we look at the weather for the upcoming week. Forecasts are often inaccurate, so we expect it to change. But what should we be ready for? When cruising, we often track weather systems over a week away and start planning.

This week, it says we might get gusts to 52 knots (!!!) from the southwest with heavy rain and thunderstorms. We’re anchored and away from the dock. Will our anchorage be protected from winds like that? Is the holding good here, or is there a safer place we should move to? Should we think about moving there early in case it fills up with boats?

We go through this exercise every week or two, no matter where we are. When approaching an anchorage, it’s all about the wind direction, tide level, and whatever else is happening. Are we okay with being stuck here for a few days if it’s foggy? A week? What if we need south winds to reach our next destination, but the forecast only has east winds? Do we wait or change our destination?

The amount of attention it takes and the flexibility of your schedule is mind-boggling to most landlubbers. When friends want to visit us, we tell them we can meet them in a specific place or at a specific time, but not both. If you want us to meet you, you’ve got to be flexible too!

What do you legally need to do to live on a boat full time? Most people’s home or apartment is their legal residence and domicile. It’s listed on their driver’s license, and it’s where they vote and pay taxes.

How will all these issues play out when you move onto a boat that moves around? There are mail forwarding services that allow you to set up residency. We use St. Brendan’s Isle in Florida since we were already Floridians, but there are also similar services in other states. This at least gives you the ability to have a driver’s license and vote.

Taxes are a little more complicated. You can register the boat at your address in Florida, but each US state collects its own use tax. If you use your boat in their state for over a few months, they want to tax it. It’s not a problem if you move around, but what if you want to leave your boat in New York for the summer? Then you might have to register it there and pay taxes.

Additionally, many counties in the US collect personal property tax on boats. We know of several places where if you are in the county on January 1 st , you’ll owe the county property tax. If you were one county away where the tax happens to be zero, you would owe nothing. Tricky!

Recreational boat insurance is another matter of concern. It used to be fairly easy to insure a boat, especially a cheap old boat. If you have a homeowner’s policy, you can easily add the boat. But if you’re a liveaboard with no real land address, getting insurance is becoming a problem. If the boat is too old, you’re traveling to distant ports, or the boat is very large, and you’re first time boat owners, it can be hard to find an underwriter.

Do you even need insurance? Many marinas and boatyards now require it. Gone are the days when you could sail the world and “self-insure.” But, honestly, those days never really existed. If your uninsured $5,000 sailboat drags anchor and puts a gash in a $5 million yacht, a serious legal headache will follow. Many owners of older vessels keep “liability-only” insurance, but even this is getting less affordable and hard to come by.

Many folks who want to try boat life are understandably curious about the average cost of owning and buying a liveaboard sailboat . Is it cheaper to live on a boat than a house? That’s a tough question to answer. For one thing, people’s expectations and their needs for comfort and security vary widely.

Both houses and boats can be found for about the same amount. If you’re in the market for a $250,000 house, you could find a nice boat for that amount. It would, of course, be much smaller and—unlike the house—be a terrible investment. So while you might be able to get a loan for a house (which makes excellent collateral for the bank), getting a loan for a boat would require a bigger risk on the part of the bank and therefore cost you a lot more.

On the cheaper end, you could find a fixer-upper boat on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for far less than a neglected house. A house will always have some value based on the land, whereas a boat can become valueless. It’s not uncommon to hear of people getting free boats abandoned in boatyards, making ridiculously low offers on neglected vessels, and getting large boats for a few thousand dollars. People are always wondering how to get rid of an old boat .

These fixer-uppers have their own stories, of course. Many YouTube channels are dedicated to the cheap boat fix-up scheme. Project boats can be wallet-shrinking and soul-sucking. Taking on a project is a good way to lose a lot of money, along with years of your life and any interest you ever had in boating. Project boats are not for most people.

Both boats and houses have taxes and insurance, so those costs are probably very similar. Tax laws vary by state and county. In some places, you won’t have to pay any tax on your boat except for the initial sales tax at the time of purchase. You will have to pay an annual personal property tax in other locales.

You’ll also have to pay for boat parking . Marina, mooring ball, or in the boatyard—all will come with a monthly bill. The house or apartment will not have storage fees, so there’s no equivalent here. But, if you bought a cheap boat for cash and are only paying monthly liveaboard slip fees, this might be less than a mortgage payment would be.

If you’re traveling and anchoring, you can generally do that for free. However, most cruisers spend a few nights a month at marinas. That averages about the same amount they’d pay for monthly dockage since nightly transient rates are high.

Both boats and houses have maintenance and upkeep expenses, but boats generally have more. It’s generally estimated that you should budget ten percent of the boat’s purchase price for annual maintenance. If you bought a $50,000 boat, this would be $5,000 yearly. That holds for most boats, but year one will be higher as you fix neglected items and make your upgrades.

From our experience, we’ve seen people take two paths towards the liveaboard life.

Some folks own their boat and use it for weekends or a week’s vacation here and there. They move aboard full-time as they transition to retirement, a work sabbatical, or remote work. Since it’s a gradual transition, these folks generally know what to expect.
Then there are the folks who go all in—they know nothing about sailing or boats and sell it all and move aboard. For them, it’s a jump into icy cold water or learning a new language by moving abroad.

Which group is more successful? Group One generally knows what to expect, has worked out the kinks in their boat, and has already tackled the learning curve. There’s still a lot to take in, but they’re generally less stressed by it. If you can spend some time on your boat enjoying boating before moving onboard, it’s generally a good thing.

But, either way, being a full-time liveaboard is not a long-term lifestyle for most people. People who start from both groups seem to last an average of about one and a half to three years. After that, they’re ready to either sell the boat and move on or buy an RV or vacation land home that allows them to divide their time between boating and something else. People who last more than three years with only a boat are a very small minority.

One parting thought: Living on a boat full time and traveling is like having three or four full-time jobs. Each requires 30-40 hours per week when you include labor, research, and thinking and planning.

Boat ownership — basic maintenance and cleaning
Cruising full-time — destination and route planning, weather study
Living aboard — cooking, cleaning, shopping, and everything else takes so much longer on a boat than in a house
Your actual job — if you work aboard

How much does it cost to live full time on a yacht?

A lot depends on the size of the yacht. A small sailboat can be found fairly cheaply. For around $50,000US, you can get an older 35-foot sailboat in decent condition and move aboard with few problems. The biggest issue is finding a marina that allows live-aboard boaters. Slip fees will be your biggest expense and can be as high as $1,500 monthly in some areas. However, you can get monthly slips for as little as $300 in other places.

How to stay organized on a sailboat?

Sailboats have small spaces and not much storage, so keeping organized is key. The first step is to downsize your possessions to the bare minimum—only take what you absolutely need. The less you have, the easier your life aboard will be.

After that, it’s a matter of packing the boat so that everything has its place. Some boaters like to keep a spreadsheet of where they’ve packed everything away so they can find it quickly.

Is it cheaper to live in an RV or a boat?

Both of these activities are very dependent on location. Purchasing either one is very similar in cost. RV parks and marinas charge similar prices, but the cost varies depending on the location and services. In the end, however, moving an RV somewhere cheaper is easier and quicker, so you can live somewhere cheaply more easily.

Matt has been boating around Florida for over 25 years in everything from small powerboats to large cruising catamarans. He currently lives aboard a 38-foot Cabo Rico sailboat with his wife Lucy and adventure dog Chelsea. Together, they cruise between winters in The Bahamas and summers in the Chesapeake Bay.

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Email	Subscriber Count	Video Views	Video Count
406K	120M	2.7K	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC36zuZp1uUU1NMdmjLD--wg/videos
269K	134.1M	785	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAwniUYYxhjOGhM86x0h0Bg/videos
252K	68.3M	576	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfytmQqrYjlu5FZ7nnYBpYg/videos
162K	35.4M	235	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2xzTYMmUyn7C0tSgGz_9RQ/videos
217K	45.8M	466	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCGiwH3UwI52fKr7P8kkJIQ/videos
21.9K	35.3M	22.6K	https://www.youtube.com/anclhne/CpOOBpU0QRkHCc9_PRsUBUCx/ioevds
236K	16.7M	48	https://www.youtube.com/lechnna/lPjtF4W2yUQaSgS0qpcHHhrC/oeivsd
135K	20.2M	187	https://www.youtube.com/nlchena/CLSQjdU6xEY1EEGCPksxCmM-/dveosi
66.4K	19.1M	410	https://www.youtube.com/lannehc/aDLAEdBpSlwhQONWCUoxe6qU/voesdi
69.6K	22.1M	526	https://www.youtube.com/ehanlnc/HRxvmaQw8O3UUPCyQJ057ldh
88.9K	28.9M	167	https://www.youtube.com/lhencna/V9EASwsIoGKyfgT68SWCgcUw/voedsi
31.2K	10.4M	500	https://www.youtube.com/ncelnha/qh1LA4bBaoUf4-iT6ZQTChgG
39.6K	11.6M	296	https://www.youtube.com/achlenn/YCab8QyWDdFNymmx-lpU1YkK/disove
46.6K	11.5M	171	https://www.youtube.com/naelhnc/NPArgGgUXH6YhCOrY9ePBf0p/eosvid
25.6K	17.4M	1.9K	https://www.youtube.com/ealnhcn/C0HyvevwUx2g2B92YA8METl0
17.2K	9.2M	1.7K	https://www.youtube.com/nlaecnh/RDuURj4udJCjy6QuK3Hls_pU
34K	8.6M	318	https://www.youtube.com/laencnh/d1d1-GUBCluqHs4ZrEfCAUB0/vdoesi
37.8K	9.5M	130	https://www.youtube.com/hanclne/qK_codHCLz8RTiwivM0bkAUq/ovseid
13.8K	6.7M	516	https://www.youtube.com/lnhcane/CMaF6A8CLnC45UM6_Sy1kVVF/oisevd
11.7K	7.4M	494	https://www.youtube.com/nnelach/eCoRnGPszoS8AaxErV8V53tU
10.4K	3.1M	395	https://www.youtube.com/ahcnnle/XRvow15YFuvFrMCrUhtjFZXw/vdieso
16K	11.4M	487	https://www.youtube.com/chlenna/e8pIiUeWFXX2yEvg4CoKMS96/sideov
14K	4.5M	578	https://www.youtube.com/nncelha/9s-UaSQaMHOM50nBq9wVCUrR/eiosvd
20.2K	11.5M	410	https://www.youtube.com/chenaln/HxBVwCWCxwjhMzgyUU2ocRh8
20.1K	7.4M	215	https://www.youtube.com/enaclnh/U-r0chhMUvkhLf0ge4yCBebD/sidove

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Help! I’m Watching My Best Friend’s Life Crash and Burn. I Need to Put a Stop to It.

In we’re prudence, prudence asks readers for their thoughts on a question that has her stumped. the answer is available only for slate plus members..

Each week in the Tuesday column, Prudence asks readers for their thoughts on a question that has her stumped. She’ll post her final thoughts on the matter on Fridays.

Here’s this week’s dilemma and answer; thanks to Cut Your Losses, Elaine, Sage, Cori M., Sober LMFT, Sober Today By Grace Alone, and Pat H for their ideas!

Dear Prudence,

My husband and I’s best friend is now a DEEPLY alcoholic NEET bouncing from place to place while we financially fund him to keep a roof over his head. This arrangement continually blows up in our faces—he’s gotten kicked out of a generous offer from my father-in-law because he trashed the place, he’s being denied other housing now due to his past actions, and we have him safe with a brother-in-law for now since he has no one/nowhere else to go (his family connections are blown up as well). He is states away and refuses to room with us. He tends to spend some of the rent money on alcohol and frequently closes us out of his life.

We would like visibility into his job search, we want him to go to AA (he stopped after two weeks because it was “too religious” and rejected the non-religious alternatives), and we want him to be able to thrive—but we aren’t his parents, and we don’t have the jurisdiction to demand these things (asking with “I” statements didn’t work). We gave him notice that we’ll cover the next three months of rent/food and then stop in hopes he can find his footing on a generous time limit… but now he’s angry at us. We are trying so hard to have compassion for him and struggling to get him the resources he needs, but when we hand them over, he tends to drop the ball and then spit misery and vitriol at us. For example, he consented to letting me help him find jobs to apply to and after I spent a week finding 100-plus eligible jobs tailor-fit to his resume, he applied to three and gave up, citing the job market is too hard and nothing matters. I gave him an easy lay-up recommendation for a job at the company I work for and he was “too nervous” and never applied.

We have begged for (and been willing to pay for!) therapy, rehab, medication—anything that can help him feel stable and sane. He rejects all of it and then sinks lower. He’s wrapped deeply in our friend group, so if we wrote him off, we would still hear from him and be in the same virtual room with him every day! I know this is selfish, but I feel miserable watching him sink. I don’t know how to help anymore and my compassion is starting to hiccup now that he’s moved to actively rejecting any help we try to give (or wasting the money we give—we aren’t rich). How can we help? Should we extricate ourselves? Should I contact someone on his behalf? Normally I would live and let live, but he is no longer functioning (dead mice in the house! Maggots! Not eating for days in order to buy more vodka!) and I’m genuinely scared for his health and safety.

—We Love You, Please Stop

Dear Please Stop,

I shared this letter with Slate readers and asked for help because I really felt for you and desperately hoped to be able to provide you with advice other than, “Yes, extricate yourselves. Now!” Sadly, there were no alternatives in the inbox. And I mean none. I’m sharing a pretty random selection of responses below, because they were actually all very similar. The key words were: “Stop,” “Enabling” and “Al-Anon,” and they were repeated over and over by about 35 different people:

Cut Your Losses: I know this might be hard to see written down, but you NEED to stop rescuing/enabling your friend. I get that you care for him, I really do, but he doesn’t even seem to be in a position where he can care for himself. And why does he need to? You’re always there to rescue him. Stop rescuing him and prioritize your needs. What (if anything) are you two getting out of this relationship? He doesn’t even seem to care about it enough to maintain anything. He’s burning the bridges of your relationships with other people (in-laws, etc.) and he doesn’t even have bridges left of his own. You gave him three months’ notice (good for you!) but you need to stick with it and give him the numbers of the local substance abuse treatment, community mental health center, and whatever other social supports might be in his area and let him know the door to your home is always open when he’s ready to walk through it. (And I would make that offer conditional on him being sober and actively job searching).

Elaine: Full stop. This person is an alcoholic. You are continuing to enable this behavior. You are not bailing this person out. You are actively preventing this person from learning that actions have consequences. This is codependent enabling. It makes you feel better in the moment but does NOTHING productive to help the raging alcoholic. No consequences. No pain for them. But pain for everyone associated. Let go. You are not letting him find his bottom. The longer this goes on, the deeper he will sink when he finally is cut off. If you really want to help him, go to an Al-Anon, CODA, or ACA meeting and learn about codependency, boundaries, enabling, and dysfunctional families. You are NOT HELPING HIM. You are enabling his destruction. Full stop. Signed: an alcoholic/drug addict 13 years sober and a 59-year-old daughter of an enabled abusive alcoholic.

Sage: The poster needs to go to some Al-Anon meetings for themself. Al-Anon helps families and loved ones of addicts learn how to cope with the addict. They have already gone above and beyond what most people would do and yet they still are expecting the addict to “do better.” Addiction is a DISEASE and addicts cannot always “do better” until ALL the people “helping” them learn that they are in fact NOT helping, but ENABLING the person to continue in their addiction. All that rescuing someone time after time after time does is make your bank account smaller and your frustration greater. They WILL have to CUT HIM OFF completely and go no contact. At some point, he will either come to grips with the truth of his addiction and SEEK HELP HIMSELF, or he will drink himself to death. I had to cut my own mother out of my life when her alcoholism endangered my children because she drove drunk with my kids in the car one time. It isn’t easy to watch someone you love continue in their addiction, and it is not helpful to continue to rescue them. Once he gets the message that his friends and family are not going to support his addiction anymore, he will probably fade away from that friend/family group and try to find others who will take on the task of footing his bills. He will find someone else to manipulate who feels sorry for him and will give him money or provide him with drink. At some point, they reach “rock bottom.” The thing is EVERY addict’s “rock bottom” is different. Nobody can know when any particular addict will hit that and decide that they must change or they will die that way. I am sorry to be so blunt and negative, but I have lived through this and there is no way to save them until he wants to save himself… Unfortunately, some addicts NEVER desire to save themselves and that is also something the LW needs to understand. Al-Anon will give them the tools and the knowledge to REMOVE themself from the equation or the ability to disengage to where the addict’s behavior no longer affects their life. It hurts. A LOT. But unless they stop, he is not going to change because what they are doing is enabling his addiction by being his rescuers. This is their portion of his illness. Until they disengage and stop providing help, they will be codependents in his addiction. Good luck.

Cori M.: This will sound harsh because it IS harsh: For the love of dog, STOP GIVING HIM MONEY. He will continue using it to buy booze. He doesn’t want to stop drinking. He doesn’t want a job. He doesn’t care about a roof over his head. He doesn’t seem to care about a friendship with you, other than your enabling his drinking. You say he’s your best friend, but what kind of friendship are you getting from him? Please go to Al-Anon. You do not need to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

Sober LMFT: As a licensed mental health professional with 25 years of sobriety, these folks need to stop enabling their friend’s behavior. If they want to help their friend, going to Al-anon meetings is a good place to start so they can get support on how to set healthy boundaries. Yes, he is struggling, but giving him money and helping him find a job is not the help he needs. There is help available when he is ready to accept that help (AA meetings are one example). Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for an alcoholic is to let them “hit their bottom” and experience the consequences of their actions. Pain is a powerful teacher—don’t rob him of the opportunity to learn from it.

Sober Today By Grace Alone: I am so sorry you are on the sidelines of this train wreck. All your good intentions cannot save your friend from himself or detour him from the path of self-destruction he is on. Most recovering addicts and loved ones of addicts will recommend Al-Anon or its faith-based counterpart Celebrate Recovery. It works. Attending a meeting will be your next best first step. You will find others who made the same journey you are currently facing. If you are truly seeking advice, the next best step is to STOP. Stop helping. Stop providing support. Stop being disappointed in his choice to be an addict. In my personal experience, I only sought recovery when I “hit bottom” and had to face what my life had become because of my addiction. Every time you send him support, you are funding his drinking. You are not saving him. He is not accepting it as you intend it to be a way out. You are contributing to his demise. It is truly a horrible thing to watch someone in so much anguish, but he is the only one who can intercept the otherwise inevitable consequences. No one I have ever met in my 29 years, 6 months, and 3 days of sobriety has ever stopped drinking any other way.

Pat H: This is a difficult situation all around, no doubt about it. To be in the position that you are in can feel so helpless. What you are doing in the name of compassion is enabling your friend, and while it may feel productive to find resources, jobs, and shelter for him, you are not doing him any favors. No amount of begging, pleading, or wishing will help your friend. Only he can determine whether or not he is ready to accept help and work to make changes in his life. You don’t have to give up on him, you can assure him that you will continue to support him emotionally, but the money, the job searching, the arranging lodging should stop right away. Perhaps take some time to consider why you’re so invested in saving him and why you think it is your responsibility to do so. You can love someone and want the best for them without letting it consume you. And certainly, this is all far easier said than done. Hopefully, your friend finds his way to help, and you all find your way to healing.

Again, I was really hoping to offer you a less “tough love”-inspired way forward because I know you’re thinking: “What if we stop helping him and things get even worse and we have to watch him sink lower and lower?” I can only imagine how scary that is. But these messages from professionals, people who have been in your shoes, and people who have dealt with addiction themselves clarified something for me: Things are going to get worse and you’re going to watch your friend sink even if you do keep helping him. It’s hard to accept (and that’s why everyone urges you to attend some twelve-step meetings) but you actually, really and truly, cannot fix his life. So take some of the energy you’ve been putting toward that effort and redirect it to taking back your own. You deserve it.

Entertainment
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Family urges boater safety after South Florida snorkeler critically injured during lobster season

Ryan Mackey , Digital Journalist

Trent Kelly , Reporter

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The family of Sean Bender, who was critically injured while snorkeling during South Florida’s lobster season , held a press conference at Jackson South Medical Center on Friday afternoon to raise awareness about boating safety.

Bender’s family claims he was struck by a speeding boat on July 24 while snorkeling with his father under the Boca Chica Bridge in the Florida Keys on the first day of mini lobster season.

Newly released video obtained by Local 10 captures Bender’s remarkable progress as he takes his first steps since being critically injured in a boating accident in the Florida Keys.

The 20-year-old was struck by a speeding boat’s propeller while snorkeling for lobster near the Boca Chica Bridge last month, leaving him with life-threatening injuries.

Bender’s parents, who spoke publicly for the first time from Jackson South Medical Center, provided an update on their son’s condition.

“Sean, probably more than anyone, has given us the support we need. He’s the one that’s inspiring us,” said Steve Bender, Sean’s father.

“We didn’t know if our son was going to survive,” said Sean’s mother Jill Bender when speaking about the incident.

Sean Bender’s family says the boat’s propeller fractured Bender’s skull and nearly severed his right shoulder. Doctors were forced to remove a portion of his skull to alleviate swelling in his brain.

“He came in with a skull fracture that was in many pieces,” said Dr. Michael Monterey. “He also suffered a traumatic brain injury.”

In the days following the accident, Bender’s family shared videos showing him beginning to communicate again, first by moving his feet and later by singing along to his favorite music.

“I was playing some CCR because he loved classic rock,” said Jill Bender. “And he was singing to it—it was so special... I knew then that Sean was there.”

Steve Bender, who was with him at the time of the accident, confirmed that a dive flag was out when the boat struck.

Although the operator of the boat has not yet been held accountable, Bender’s parents said that their priority is Sean’s recovery. “In all fairness, that’s not a concern of mine right now,” Steve Bender said. “However, I will speak to the fact that there’s a lot of opportunity to make boaters more aware.”

“We still have a long road to recovery, but I feel in my heart that the most significant parts of him are going to be there,” said Jill Bender.

Nancy Fitzgerald, a close friend of the family, also spoke about the incident.

Fitzgerald said a man who was allegedly speeding under the Boca Chica Bridge collided with Bender while two children without life jackets were on his boat.

She compared the incident to a semi-truck driving through a Walmart parking lot at 70 mph.

“There’s a reality he’s going to be in the news for a couple of days, but he’s going to be with us with these injuries for the rest of his life,” said Steve Bender, Sean Bender’s father.

“What was so urgent at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning that you tore this family’s life apart?” Fitzgerald asked.

Fitzgerald also urged those in attendance to focus on praying for Sean’s recovery rather than worrying about the release of body camera footage.

Steve and Jill Bender also thanked the staff at JSMC and the first responders for saving their son’s life.

The operator of the boat involved in the incident has not been publicly identified at this time.

Local 10 viewers will be able to watch the press conference in the video below.

For more information on boating safety tips, click here.

About the Authors

Ryan mackey.

Ryan Mackey is a Digital Journalist at WPLG. He was born in Long Island, New York, and has lived in Sunrise, Florida since 1994.

Trent Kelly

Trent Kelly is an award-winning multimedia journalist who joined the Local 10 News team in June 2018. Trent is no stranger to Florida. Born in Tampa, he attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he graduated with honors from the UF College of Journalism and Communications.

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