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This is the real answer and the reason online bubbles are so sad.

There's so many different way to live your life and we are atrofied around a couple of equally bad options.

If there was a plague that had a 100% human infection rate and killed 87% of the people infected it would still only set back world populations to around the start of the 1900s

Homie how tf are you sailing with no boat?

We met someone like that and they were considered homeless by the city, lol. I think they were annoyed at that.

Seattle is full of people that live on boat as an affordable alternative. You can't be squeamish about insects or get seasick easily because of the storms. I couldn't do it myself, but I've known quite a few that have.

me writing “the ocean :)” as my permanent address on government documents

This is the right answer. It’s an RV on water but it doesn’t disintegrate (working as intended, that) like an RV or fifth wheel.

Buying a boat is cheap, owning one not so much. Between marina fees and maintenance it adds up really fast.

But 0.01% of 250,000 is 25.

(Sorry 🙁)

Meh, a boat is a hole in the water to dump money into, a car is a hole in the road, and a house is a hole in the ground. At least the boat combines the advantages of the other two.

How do you make a small fortune?

Start with a large fortune and buy a boat.

As the saying goes:

The two best days of a boat owner's life are the day they buy the boat, and the day they sell the boat

At the height of being poor in like '83 or so (mortgage rates to 17%; just ponder that) we panick-moved to a smaller town with a union job but found a fixer house with an attached shop.

Dad, ever the salesman and skilled labourer, would do work for people in exchange for wood-working tools: Old window Jenkins would part with Lester's Table Saw if Dad re-tiled the shower.

So we got tools. And he traded for plywood and plans. And suddenly we had a dory he could fit on top of this '75 econoline150 van. And fishing was great. But it was a lot of rowing this pig of a boat.

So he modded it with a dagger-board and a mast port. Took him 5 min to rig it and he was set for fishing.

Those summers camping because we couldn't afford to do anything else but at least gas was cheap, they were awesome.

I think these people just have shiny boats, which are too expensive. If you want to find them, they're finishing the Penske file so they can still afford exorbitant Slip fees and dream of Taking the Boat Out with the estranged family members who will then love Dad again and make up for all this toil. Dude needs a cheap ugly van and a wallowing pig of a dory to 'sail' around a lake in the woods; aim smaller and actually go make memories.

Some people would be so relieved.

Last year, my CEO said if we finish the project on time, he'll buy a new truck and bring it around the office for everyone to check it out.

This would be his 20th truck he bought.

My mom grew up in the '40s and '50s and she told me many times about the surplus PT boat her dad had bought at the end of WWII which the family would take out for boating trips. I was like holy shit a PT (Patrol Torpedo) boat! These things had three Packard engines and could make 45 knots. Later on as an adult I discovered that it was actually just a pontoon boat, one of the things the army would use to make temporary bridges over rivers and that could only go about 3 mph. My mom had just thought "PT" stood for "Pon Toon" so that's what she called it. It turns out she had always wondered what the hell John F. Kennedy had been doing in the Pacific fighting the Japanese in a pontoon boat.

Later on, I then learned that my mom's uncle had actually bought a surplus Air/Sea Rescue boat after the war. This boat was basically a PT boat, just with two of the Packard engines instead of three; since it was 15 feet longer than a PT boat it could also do 45 knots. So it turns out my mom did have this childhood experience of rocketing around the ocean at unbelievable speeds. Her uncle ended up selling the boat after the engine room caught fire for the third time (something these engines were notorious for) and we have no idea what happened to it after that. These boats cost about $190K new and he had somehow acquired it for $10K - I expect there was some shady dealing going on there.

Boats aren't even that expensive everywhere. In America they're priced as luxury objects for the richest of the rich from what I've heard. Sailing as a way of traveling is actually a kinda cheap and rough activity, like camper vans. Not very "rich" stuff at all. My grandparents had a 30 footer and it wasn't exactly luxurious, definitely camper van vibes. They'd sailed it all over around Europe though.