Report: How a couple realised their dream of a permanent life on board

Mid-September 2023 in Bremen-Vegesack. It's cold, it's raining - but how could it be any different up here at this time of year? We are standing in front of the closed gate of the Roland water sports club harbour and waiting for Frank. It's a big day for us because, if all goes well, we're about to see our new home for the first time. We are both in our early thirties, born in Hamburg and about to realise the crazy idea of living on the water.

Frank drives up in his car, shakes our hands and takes his bunch of keys out of his trouser pocket. We walk along the wet jetty and see her immediately: the reason we have come all the way from our home in Berlin so early in the morning lies proudly in the creamy white water. The mast seems to nod slightly towards us as we step over the sea fence onto her deck for the first time.

The time in which Frank shows us everything that can be shown during such a boat tour, including a short test drive out on the Weser, passes quickly. In the end, we look at each other and are certain: this will be our boat, our new home.

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We have been working towards this day for almost two years. Initially with little idea of what to expect, we informed ourselves, learnt, spoke to people and more than once revealed ourselves to be bloody, ignorant beginners.

Our journey probably started with far too many hours spent in front of YouTube, which were perfect for distracting us from the necessary studying for university. Sailing La Vagabonde and Sampson Boat Co - to mention just two of our favourite time-wasters. You could dream away from cold northern Germany and lecture theatres to a life on board, surrounded by water and sun. But steering or even owning a boat yourself - it's absolute madness to even consider it!

From Berlin to the sea

A few years pass, and at the end of our studies we are still fascinated by sailing. By chance, we heard about sites like HandGegenKoje.de, where skippers are looking for crew members. We get active and finally find what we are looking for. We set off as guests on our first big trip on the "Brass Monkey" with skipper Rob from England through the Bay of Biscay with a short stopover in Portugal and on down to the Canary Islands.

Sailing fever has completely taken hold of us. We look at each other and both think that having our own boat would be a dream come true. But that was still a long way off at the time. Instead, we started our careers, a real nine-to-five life. Because after university, you first have to earn money, maintain your CV and get a regular job.

We are living in Berlin at the time, far away from the sea and life on the water. But the idea is born and our plan is slowly taking shape. One day, we too will be skippers and drink our morning coffee to the sound of the waves! But how do you go about it? Put some money aside first. Because we've already learnt one thing: we'll need a lot of it to implement our plan. So we set up a savings plan. Every month, we put some of our salaries aside and our boat account fills up a little bit at a time.

The dream of life on board grows

What else do we need? First of all, we need to learn how to sail. Even though we now have a bit of experience, we want to start things off right. We choose a boating school and start small. The first thing we do is get our sailing licence. We teach ourselves the theory because every euro we can put into our boat fund counts. Tuesday evening is declared "Boat Night". We sit at our kitchen table with compasses and course triangles over nautical charts and ask each other questions from the exam sheets. We even screw an old cleat onto our coffee table so that we can practise knots while watching a film in the evening. After a few sailing lessons on one of Berlin's many lakes, we pass the first hurdle - our pleasure craft licence is in the bag.

Then we continue with the sport coaster licence. It's summer and we use our holiday to sail around Rügen on a training cruise. We pass the practical exam, albeit by a hair's breadth. Lukas almost makes a patent jibe in his test and Antonia just misses the buoy during the buoy overboard manoeuvre - but only just. In winter, it's back to learning theory. This time much more extensive and intensive. Tuesday evenings are spent with tide tables and navigation exercises.

In addition to all the licences we are completing, there is of course one important detail missing: We also need the right boat. But how do you find one? And what is suitable anyway?

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We talk to a lot of experts during this time. Experts in our eyes, mainly because they have owned a boat before. We watch YouTube videos explaining what to look out for when buying a boat and send each other hundreds of different used boat adverts.

Slow approach

And at some point, the time has come for us to just go and have a look at a boat. We take advantage of a family visit in the north and drive on towards Flensburg to have a look at an old wooden boat. On the way, we google various boat vocabulary so as not to look like total bunglers. What are shrouds? Where are the spreaders again? And a skeg is not part of the mast, is it? What is difficult to imagine for all those who have been sailing since childhood: for us as newcomers, these are exactly the questions that arise when entering this new world.

And so we get closer to our goal bit by bit. Sometimes we plan a camping holiday in the Netherlands to look at two boats there, sometimes we simply hop on the S-Bahn in Berlin and go to Wannsee to view a boat. We don't have a firm intention to buy on these dates, nor do we have enough money, but there's simply no other way to approach the matter at the time. And so we are very grateful that we are able to take a close look at eight or nine boats over the course of two years.

In this way, we are constantly learning, and more and more we know what we want and, above all, what is within our capabilities. A checklist is drawn up for our dream boat: definitely headroom for Lukas, an aft cabin for guests and as storage space, under ten metres would be good, because more size also means higher costs.

Love at first sight with a Malö 40

At some point, we find a type that we like straight away: it's the Malö 40, a Swedish boat that fulfils all our wishes. Unfortunately, the Malö we found first was in too poor a condition. Even though we are keen to take on all the technical challenges that a boat like this entails, we imagine ourselves living on a boat and not on an eternal building site. From now on, however, we will keep our eyes open for more Malös.

Eventually the time comes and we find the advert for the right one, and the rainy day in Bremen draws closer. It's love at first sight - and as luck would have it, our boat account fills up to the right amount that very month.

So it really happens: we sign a purchase contract with Frank and spend more money than ever before in our lives. It's an unreal moment - a moment that we've been working towards for so long and that means so much for our future. Everything before was still a dream and there were points at which we could have pulled the ripcord, but these signatures under the contract mark the start of a whole new life.

First steps as a new owner

In mid-October, a day that is as nerve-wracking as it is exhausting follows: we lift our future home out of the water to prepare it well packed for the winter. The club in Bremen kindly allows us to use their premises as a storage area for the winter. We drive the boat to the slipway as owners for the first time. On this very first day, we learn so much about our boat that no YouTube video in the world could have explained to us: How do you lift a mast off the boat properly? How do you winterise your boat, from the engine to the batteries? Well packed under tarpaulins, our "Eleanor" will be waiting in Bremen this winter until next spring, when her - and our - big adventure can finally begin!

So now we have our own boat and our sailing licences in the bag. But the to-do list is not getting any shorter and the many questions are not getting any fewer. What do we actually need for a life on the water? What are we going to do with our flat? And how will we actually earn our money during our time on board? One thing is clear: after buying the boat, our savings will be just enough to go out for an ice cream.

The flat is the least of our problems; flats in Berlin are even more in demand than permanent moorings on the Baltic Sea. So we let our flat to good friends for the time being, because what should we do if the boating life isn't for us after all - or we put the boat on the first rock we find after leaving the Weser?

Office on board?

The question of our workplaces is more difficult. But we are also developing a plan for this. We imagine working from home and part-time. We prepare for talks with our superiors and tell them our good news. And although their enthusiasm is limited, they are thankfully quite open to our idea of alternative working models based on their experiences during the coronavirus period. We are also lucky and privileged to have jobs that we can continue online and superiors who, after initial considerations, are not putting a stop to this. A Starlink antenna will ensure stable internet on board. Just a few years ago, we probably wouldn't have been able to realise our project in this form.

We spend the winter doing the typical boat work and are actively supported by Lukas' father and our friends Andreas and Kalle. We polish the hull, sew new covers for the cushions, research what equipment we still need on board and buy it. On 1 April, the time has finally come and the things in our Berlin flat are packed. We sort out what can go. We take everything that needs to go on the boat with us, and everything that needs to be kept we put in our parents' cellar, who are less than thrilled. We book train tickets to Bremen, this time without a return journey. The maiden journey is about to begin. Together with Lukas' father and Klaus, an experienced sailor, as support, we set off from Bremen with our destination Rendsburg. After more than forty years in Bremen, our "Eleanor" leaves her traditional berth for the last time on the way to new adventures.

We are doing everything for the first time on this trip: casting off for the first time, setting sail for the first time, using the tide table for the first time, as we learnt in the sailing licence theory, and mooring for the first time. So after all this time of planning, saving and headaches, we have finally arrived at the destination of our dreams. Homeless, but proud boat owners.

The start on board is bumpy - even as a couple

When asked how it feels to start this new life we've been dreaming of for so long, we have to answer honestly: it's pretty bumpy. And we're still miles away from long voyages, turquoise waters and drinks on the sun deck. The summer of 2024 in northern Germany is rainy. We are confronted with all the realities that come with life on board - and which are not covered in any YouTube video. Starting with constantly leaking hatches, the never-ending search for the right spare part and bruises and dents everywhere due to the space conditions that require familiarisation.

And we also face new challenges as a couple. Living together in a space that is smaller than some utility rooms requires us to adjust to each other in a completely new way. We are irritable, and sometimes tears even flow.

When we leave Rendsburg for the Baltic Sea after six weeks of renovation work - it is the first time that the two of us have travelled alone - we experience the next shock directly behind the lock at Holtenau: the genoa tears, the mainsheet breaks, and 100 other small construction sites open up that a 40-year-old boat like this brings with it. And so another lengthy repair stay in Flensburg follows. So we have really come to terms with life on board.

At some point, however, we finally get underway and set off on a long training cruise that takes us across Denmark, Sweden and Poland. Because, as our sailing instructor once said, an SKS licence is really just a licence to practise.

A year and a half later, we are now writing about our transition from life on land to life on board. We alternate between sitting in a café and on deck in the sun - because we have now arrived in Greece, have 3,500 nautical miles in our wake, have been to eight countries and have experienced many wonderful and a few dicey situations. Many things have become easier, we have grown on the journey and are still learning more every day. And even if there are moments when we curse the boat, we have never once regretted making our dream of a life on the water come true.