When I first “discovered” Sam and Rev in September 2019, they were three months into their first Great Loop and just starting on their YouTube adventure. They had a whopping 613 subscribers hoping to reach 1000! Today? 10.9 THOUSAND subscribers. [Sam tells me they get ~8 subscribers a day, so that 10.9 will be 11 in short order.] I would say they definitely have reached “influencer” status.
Sailing the Great Loop for free? Now that’s an eye-catching idea! What? How?
Earlier this summer, some gorgeous photos started appearing on the Great Loop Facebook page, with very encouraging, emotive posts.
I thought I saw something about looping for free, but then thought I must have imagined it when I didn’t see any more about that on her posts. But no. It’s a real thing.
I’ve been mulling this post over in my head for a couple months now. In a previous post, I talked about how our buyer’s broker gave us some of the realities of the current boat buying market. I promised a separate post on that. Here it is.
A bonus with this post is a fun, useful, and on-point YouTube video by OnFireFamily a little further down the page.
There seem to be three industries that march hand-in-hand in the boat buying/selling world: boat insurance, boat financing and boat brokers. I think of them as a kind of triumvirate…or is it trinity?
You know how frustrating it is to read something that really resonates and then not be able to find it again? That happened to me recently.
I read a very inspiring blog post about the reduction of stress when the author lowered her expectations about finding the perfect Loop boat. At least, that is how I remembered it. But I COULD NOT find it to verify. I literally spent four hours of my Christmas vacation going through Facebook and various Looper blogs looking for it.
It was a timely article. We are just about at the point where if a perfect boat came along, we would consider pursuing it. They say it takes up to two years to find THE boat, so we are almost at the beginning of the serious search. I knew I needed to find that article!
What do the Great Loop, a professional folk musician and America’s Funniest Home Videos have in common? Dave Rowe and Stacey Guth, that’s what!
Stacey and Dave have created time lapse videos of the Great Loop accompanied by soundtracks of Dave’s folk music, which you can find on their Folk on the Water YouTube channel.
I’ve been following Our Adventures on Stinkpot on Facebook for a while. They’ve occasionally posted little snippets of their financial back story. I asked if they would be interested in adding to our collection of stories here…and they made a video! How fun is that! “How poor people can finance a long boat adventure!” I love it!
In fact, they’ve made a whole new YouTube channel about “How to Live on a Boat”.
Watch their video to hear how they were able to make their dream come to life from a financial perspective. It is pretty inspiring!
Oh, and what about the America’s Funniest Home Videos? Check out this video that landed them a spot in the finalists of the March 29, 2020 episode. Then check out their after-party live video.
I’ve seen a lot of interest lately in the concept of looping
in segments. That is, taking more than one year to do the loop. Why would
someone decide to do it that way? What
are the benefits?
Lance and I have discussed an itinerary which would include
storing the boat for a winter somewhere in northern New York after exploring
Lake Champlain, the Rideau Canal, and the Thousand Islands. This would give us
time to enjoy the area while putting us in a good position to enter the Trent
Severn as soon as it opens the next year and then take our time in North Channel
and Georgian Bay.
Naturally, I keep an eye out for mention of Loopers who winter their boats in New York.
AGLCA member Charles Williamson’s forum comments about where he stored his trawler for the winter(s) caught my attention: New York and Ontario over two consecutive winters.
One strategy to do America’s Great Loop is to use the boat you already own.
In 2009 I followed a blog of a couple who cast off their lines from their Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway home to do the loop on their 26 foot Glacier Bay Catamaran. I watched with fascination as it seemed like such a small boat to live on for the better part of the year. At one point, when someone asked them why they chose that boat, they answered, “It is the one we had.”
Sam and Rev Crouse created What Yacht To Do to show how you can be sitting in your living room one day and then living on the water the next.
(You have to say “What Yacht To Do” with a Texas accent to get the full effect…“What ya ought to do”.)
The Crouses are, at this writing, about three months into their loop. They have a series of entertaining blogs and YouTube videos to document the trip, both the ups and the downs.
I was so excited to see that one of their first posts is titled “How we can leave home for a year”. Yes! This is exactly the treasure I look for in blogs.
Is there any looper out there who has not read at least some of Captain John’s many Great Loop webpages?
He has had a website almost as long as there has been an internet!
His first loop was in 1971. He’s owned boats his entire adult life.
Captain John has been looping and living on a boat since he retired in 1995. With 10+ loops under his belt, he has plenty of opinions and views on various aspects of cruising the Great Loop, including the financial aspect.
