Re: Potemtial Great Loopers!
[...]We also decided to become liveaboard and get rid of all our crap! So, we're looking generally for either Albin 36 Double Cabin or Marine Trader 34 Double Cabin.
I went aboard a 34' Marine Trader at an in-the-water boat show in Alameda, CA several years ago. It was a nice boat, apparently well constructed, at least to the casual eye. I remember thinking that it would be great as a "starter" trawler -- providing an opportunity to become familiar with diesel engines, trawler systems, and so forth. And fun to sleep aboard for a weekend.
But as a live-aboard vessel? No way. It was just too small.
I can visualize living aboard such a small boat in the short term -- for a few weeks in the summertime, when nice weather provided an opportunity to hang out on the flying bridge or elsewhere on the topsides.
But in the wintertime, I and whoever I lived aboard with would get on each others' nerves and be at each others' throats in a metric heartbeat. Not my idea of a good time.
The boat I went aboard, and most if not all of the examples I've seen photos of on Yachtworld.com, had duel single berths in the aft cabin rather than a double berth.
Besides, on a boat that size, stowage space -- for clothes, pots and pans, reading material, and so forth-- would be at a considerable premium.
And if you're into video entertainment, where would you put the TV and DVR where they wouldn't be in the way? Or where they wouldn't have to be moved when you sat down at the table to eat?
A 34-foot trawler would be fun in its own way. But a Nordhavn, it ain't.
Personally, having attended any number of boat shows since 1966, the smallest boat I'd consider living aboard would be in the neighborhood of 50 feet.
Somebody else made a slightly-extended version of the Marine Trader 34: a 35-footer, with a portside salon door and twin engines, but otherwise nearly identical. You can find examples on Yachtworld.com. But I urge you to reconsider the size of the boat you're thinking of living aboard.