sailing the farm - come join our boatbuilding/sailing coop!

**zeyang** · 12-22-2009, 10:59 AM

hi, we are a bunch of people making a 12 meter sailboat with a great plan of sailing to the end of the world. sofar it have been mostly welding, but now it will be upholstry, woodworking and sewing sails.

Boat is being built on organic wwoof farm and there is enough places to sleep.

If you are interested in joining, please drop me a line. (zeyang(at)laowai.no). Thanks.

zeyang

**madhen** · 12-25-2009, 04:56 PM

Cool idea, although I am not sure how one defines "the end of the world". And how many woofs does it take to build a boat?

**Ceashels** · 12-25-2009, 07:59 PM

i'm thinking 1 spam = 3 wwoofs so one farm full of wwoofs is the equivalent of 8 cases of spam

hehehe

**zeyang** · 12-29-2009, 06:42 AM

hi,
its not a spam.
i think its totally a bit more than 3000 hours (around 1500 more to go)
there is bunks for 6 onboard.

zeyang

**Holding Pattern** · 12-30-2009, 06:47 PM

We've lived extensively on sailboats. Yes, it can be an inexpensive lifestyle. I cannot imagine living with more than my wife onboard (even the best of friends became too close after much time on a boat) Maintenance and supplies for said maintenance can be quite costly as well.
Remember, the end of the world loves money as much as everyone else. Even the smallest islands in the South Pacific have entry fees, visas, regulations, and hoops to jump through.
I truly wish the best of luck to you.

**zeyang** · 01-04-2010, 08:08 AM

Originally Posted by Holding Pattern

We've lived extensively on sailboats. Yes, it can be an inexpensive lifestyle. I cannot imagine living with more than my wife onboard (even the best of friends became too close after much time on a boat) Maintenance and supplies for said maintenance can be quite costly as well.
Remember, the end of the world loves money as much as everyone else. Even the smallest islands in the South Pacific have entry fees, visas, regulations, and hoops to jump through.
I truly wish the best of luck to you.

True, end of the world do hunger for money also, but building a boat means selfsufficiency (we have most of the tools to fix everything onboard - welders etc) and besides. when we have tools, we can swap peoples need to fix things for food and try to stay outside money swapping game.
I think there will be very little upkeep the first 3 years of the boats life since everything is newly build.
being more people means sharing the cost. (just like a house-coop on land) but ofcourse more mouths to feed.
at least no debt to pay on the boat!

zeyang
one life, live it.

**zeyang** · 02-26-2010, 05:39 AM

in stage of flipping the boat. its a little timeconsuming but slowly going in right direction.
zeyang

**NewLeaf** · 02-26-2010, 05:52 PM

Sounds fun but my husband and kids would be lost without me.

**zeyang** · 03-13-2010, 03:20 PM

Hi friends.
Here is a short update. we have been maybe 10-15 people totally during january and february and have made good progress. Thankfully the boat is now turned and the welding inside and framing up the boat is now in progress and will be for next 3-4 weeks.
if you are interested in joining this cool project, there are space available in both april and may. (at least partly)

here is a happy gang of hardworking boatbuilders after a long and productive day.

zeyang

**Holding Pattern** · 03-16-2010, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by zeyang

True, end of the world do hunger for money also, but building a boat means selfsufficiency (we have most of the tools to fix everything onboard - welders etc) and besides. when we have tools, we can swap peoples need to fix things for food and try to stay outside money swapping game.
I think there will be very little upkeep the first 3 years of the boats life since everything is newly build.
being more people means sharing the cost. (just like a house-coop on land) but ofcourse more mouths to feed.
at least no debt to pay on the boat!

zeyang
one life, live it.

I have a couple of questions/comments.

Rigging is quite expensive. One (even small) storm at sea can do significant damage and replacing rigging is not cheap... and you can't weld turnbuckles & such, it isn't safe.

Growing any kind of plants at sea is difficult - salt spray and constant motion tend to have a negative effect.

On second thought, I'll let this drop. After many years living solely on sailboats and at sea, I can only attest to my experience...

It was much more expensive than we thought... it is more expensive than anyone thinks or says.

**zeyang** · 03-17-2010, 04:35 AM

Originally Posted by Holding Pattern

I have a couple of questions/comments.

Rigging is quite expensive. One (even small) storm at sea can do significant damage and replacing rigging is not cheap... and you can't weld turnbuckles & such, it isn't safe.

Growing any kind of plants at sea is difficult - salt spray and constant motion tend to have a negative effect.

On second thought, I'll let this drop. After many years living solely on sailboats and at sea, I can only attest to my experience...

It was much more expensive than we thought... it is more expensive than anyone thinks or says.

Hi,
Rigging will not be stainless. i use steel 3x9 strand wire instead. i can easilly replace myself and it will be heavy duty. rigging will be homemade (chinese junkrig)
Mast will be welded of alloy tubes.

Ive been sailing mostly solo before (extensivly for some years) i found sailing cheap if you manage to do all yourself. It not, its pretty expensive. I think people just think too complicated and then get depending on outside help. Keep it simple and you manage to keep the cost low.

agree about saltwater in the soil. I need a way to solve that somehow.

zeyang

**zeyang** · 03-17-2010, 04:36 AM

and a picture of the boat in upright position.

**zeyang** · 03-19-2010, 10:50 AM

spent last week working on welding up the boat inside. its a little tricky but goes forward slowly. Maybe manage to weld up 1/4 of the inside sofar. Im working alone now due to easter holiday coming up,so itts a little more slow.

by the way. that lamp is a optimus/petromax. Its hardly use any kerosene and gives light similar to 350 candles. Will be the future of lighting up the boat. Extremely clever system.

zeyang

**zeyang** · 06-24-2010, 10:52 AM

hi friends
here is a short update from sailing the farm collective in middle of june.

The summer is here now at last and bees are busy collecting delicious honey.
Plan with bees is to expand hives so we are spending some time doing queen
breeding. its a little more tricky than it seems at first glance, but cool to
do.

Then we have planted herbs in the garden and hopefully we will get a lot of
healthy vegetables by end of summer.

And then the most important news!! Boatbuilding goes happily forward. We are
working hard welding in frames into the hull. and after a lot of fiddeling we
are now down to bending one frame in 3 hours!! thats pretty fast when we spend
more than a day with the first one. Next step is deck and then interior and
sail-sewing. (mostly whole august on this step)

Then, we wish you all a happy summer. If you are interested in joining we have
space for august and onwards,

fair winds and happy summer.

regards
sailing-the-farm collective!

**zeyang** · 07-19-2010, 07:15 PM

Dear Friends.

Sailing the farm tribe - Mid July 2010.

At last, the frames are bend into the boat and soon finished welded
up. That was one long and tedious work but now we are soon moving on
to a much more exiting stuff - laying down the deck and start work on
the interior - then also start to sew up the sails for the boat.

There have been quite a response from last time and august is pretty
much filled up with people coming up to help on boatbuilding and
farming. Somehow the romantic touch of roaming the seven seas as a
wannabe seagypsy seems to attract much more people than we ever
dreamed of, so hopefully in future we will have more boats built and a
real seafaring community. At least that is my wet dream!

Then some farming stuff. The grey cat got 4 kittens some weeks ago,
some very adorable small kittens. One is looking curious at the
boatbuilding. Queen-breeding goes forward as planned. I think we will
manage to more than double amount of hives this year - that is pretty
good. It would not have been possible without help from a swedish
boatbuilding girl which seems to fall in love with queenbreeding
despite quite a few bee-stings during summer. :-)

We have some beds free for september and onwards, so if you are
interesting in joining this uber-cool sea-gypsy tribe project, feel
free to contact us!

Peace and love from
Sailing-the-farm

---
Navigare necesse est, vivere non est necesse