We’ve all had the thought cross our mind. You’re back from a day on the water, the boat is tied up, the sun is setting over the harbor. The gentle rock of the waves against the hull begins to lull your senses, the air seems fresher, your drink colder, and life, well, better. And you start to think—why don’t I do this full time? Why don’t I live aboard?
For most of us, imagined issues and perceived logistical challenges shake us from the fantasy—we shut off the batteries, make sure the instrument covers are on, and return to our land-based life. But for others, the pull is simply too strong.
“My dad built a boat when I was three, and now I’m 56, so you could say boating has been a lifelong passion —it’s been 53 years,” Jackie Schmidt says with a laugh. “Mike [Schmidt] and I started dating towards the end of college, and that’s when I set my plan into action. And for much of our married life, I was trying to convince him to move onto a boat.” Like always, there were obstacles to Jackie’s lifelong pursuit of life on a boat—work, kids, school, a house—the trappings of a terrestrial (and good) life. But as soon as the timing was right, Jackie and Mike were headed for open water.
“We raised our kids in a land-based life, but as soon as our youngest was graduating high school, we basically sold our house out from underneath him,” Jackie says with a laugh. “We waited until our boys were both off to college, but with our youngest, the house was sold in May, he graduated in June, and we were moved out by July.”
It takes a lot to abandon life on land, logistically and philosophically. There’s work and research that needs to be done—what type of boat do you want? What is your budget? Are you sure you’re going to want to do this when it’s forty-degrees, raining sideways, and the wind is blowing the flags off? There are a lot of unknowns that, for many, prove simply too daunting. Life on land is, quite literally, more stable. But for Jackie and Mike, these were just items on their to-do list. And, when it comes to researching living onboard a boat, that research can be quite fun.
“For seven years we chartered different boats for two, three, even four weeks each year, and that was a big part of us learning what we wanted. And we went to a lot of boat shows, always with the idea of moving aboard in the background,” Mike says. “We did most of our chartering in the summer, but we knew as we planned to live aboard that it wouldn’t always be sunshine and warm weather, so we did our final charter over Christmas to see what it was like to live aboard in the winter, when it’s cold and raining and miserable. We did, and we loved it, it was a wonderful trip, and that sold us on the idea that we could live abord year-round.” Once they had tested the waters of a winter charter, and were fully committed to life onboard, they had a big decision to make—what boat would be their new home.
“It was pretty serendipitous that The Kadey-Krogen Group ended up buying American Tug, because for years Mike wanted the American Tug 435, and I wanted the Krogen 52,” Jackie says. “Mike really liked the open design of the American Tug, and I really liked the room and tankage and general livability of the Krogen. We were in touch with a bunch of brokers from our years at the boat shows. One day we got a call from the broker at Krogen we were working with, and he said ‘I think I’ve got your boat. I can’t tell you about it yet, but just stand by.’”
Jackie and Mike were intrigued. They loved the quality and craftsmanship of the Krogen, and Jackie loved the livability. They researched the company, poured over every piece of literature they could find, and waited. Then, they got the call.
“We were hull No. 2 of the Krogen 50 Open,” Jackie says. “We signed the contract pretty much sight unseen, the boat was only a blueprint at that point, but it was the right boat at the right time for us. Building the boat was a very detailed process, we had to make a lot of decisions, and we had to be really careful, because we wanted to make the right decisions. The whole process from signing the contract until we took delivery was about two years.” The decision had been made; the boat was being built. For Jackie and Mike, their dream was finally in sight. Life onboard was right over the horizon.
“The Krogen team was fantastic to work with. When we went to the factory in Taiwan, we were really blown away,” Mike says. “Seeing the folks who actually build the boat, the whole family there, getting to meet the workers, it was really eye-opening.” “Mike put himself through college working at a lumber yard, so he has a real appreciation for the joinery work and the lumber involved,” Jackie says. “When we went to the yard and saw, literally, the logs and cherry trees just lying there, and then being told ‘those are going to be your cabinets.’ It just blew our minds that there was all this talent right there at the yard.” With the build underway, Mike and Jackie shifted their focus to decoupling themselves from land. “The hardest part about moving aboard was convincing my husband to do it—once he agreed, it was just a matter of logistics, and making it happen,” Jackie says. “And then, of course, once we had agreed to the build, we had two months to move out of our 4,000-square-foot home, and that’s a lot of effort.” It was an effort, but it was worth it. As soon as they took delivery of their 50 Open, the couple knew they had made the right decision.
“Once we were onboard, we loved it,” Jackie says. “It’s a lot of work, you always have to pay attention to the weather, and there are a lot of aspects of life that are more complicated—getting groceries, getting the mail. But those challenges are minimized by everything that is so amazing about living onboard. Every day we wake up to a gorgeous view, there’s always something interesting.”
“It has never occurred to me that living onboard was a mistake, or that this lifestyle is too hard,” Mike continues. “None of that has ever happened. There are certainly challenges, maintenance being the biggest—there are a lot of systems you need to understand and maintain. But luckily anything we can’t figure out ourselves, the team at Krogen is there to help. And the boat itself has been everything we’d hoped and more. We’re very conservative when it comes to what weather we go out in, but it’s been pretty clear to us from the beginning that the boat can handle more than our stomachs can. We’ve been very impressed with how the boat handles in the swells and the chop. I’ve never had any concerns or worries about the stability of the boat or how it rides.”
Now six years into their new liveaboard life, and the Schmidts are right at home on the water. “We get asked a lot what it’s like to live aboard, and we say it’s just like a home—we have everything we need, we have a washer, a dryer, a dishwasher, a full-size fridge—everything you’d expect to have in a proper home,” Jackie says. “We have a slip in Seattle and a slip in Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands, and there we’re near the fuel docks, and we see people getting fuel all the time. And we get fuel like, once every two years, it’s really nice to have the tankage that the Krogen 50 has—we don’t have to worry about fueling or emptying the holding tanks all the time.”
“I really love the craftsmanship, the woodwork, it’s beautiful and I find it very relaxing,” Mike says of his beloved Alara. “And in the salon, you’re almost literally surrounded by glass, with 360-degree views. It’s light, it’s spacious, and it really allows you to connect to nature. And you know, of course, there will be times that we get frustrated with things, like anyone else, but then we take a moment and look around and think about how lucky we are to be able to have this boat and this lifestyle.” The goal of life on the water drove the Schmidts for nearly 50 years. Now, they’re driven by a deep appreciation for the opportunity they have. Driven, but at an ideal speed.
“We don’t plan very far ahead, we call ourselves lazy cruisers,” Jackie says, with a subdued sense of pride. “For instance, on this latest trip, we were going to circumnavigate Vancouver Island. But we were enjoying every place we stopped so much that we wanted to stay—for an extra day, five days, a week, or sometimes even longer. So, we haven’t gotten very far, we’re only about halfway up the Island on one side. And we’ll probably end up heading back to our home port from here. Sometimes, in cruising, there’s this idea that you have to keep moving, change ports, see something new, and it’s exhausting. You miss so much. We’ll cruise for four or five hours, find a place we like, and maybe hang out there for four or five days. We’re not getting very far, but we’re really seeing the surrounding areas in a deeper way. Maybe next year we’ll go farther around the island. Or maybe not. We’re taking it day by day.”