Alternative housing: have you considered living on a boat?

Post By:
Carl Palme
MS-MBA Candidate, 2012

Life on a boat is fantastic! You get to live next to the ocean (literally) and are rocked to sleep every night. There is a great community in the marina and Charlestown is a great town. Even if you live on a small sailboat, the marina has showers, bathrooms, a mailroom, washers, dryers, grills, and even a covered pool for the winter months. The following is a satellite picture of the marina, and the map shows the distance (only three miles) from the marina to the Boston University Graduate School of Management.


There are several ways of getting to BU from the marina. On a nice day you can walk or take a bike, and on other days you can ride the subway. The closest “T” station is North Station on the Green Line. During the summer, life on a boat is a breeze. You come home to friendly people, and the smell of a sizzling grill. During the fall, the excitement winds down a little, but the Boston Bruins start the season and are just 10 minutes away. Here is a picture of me holding a faux Stanley Cup with the marina and the TD Garden behind me.
During the fall, the summer boats pack up and leave, and only the live-aboards stick around. There are approximately 100 of us that live on boats yearlong. The fall is beautiful in Charlestown. The leaves start changing colors, the days are shorter, and the breeze that you get from the ocean is always refreshing. Also, the sunsets are amazing as you can see from this picture. As the winter approaches, people start winterizing their boats. This includes shrink-wrapping it, adding antifreeze, and tying your boat well so you can brave the Nor’easter storms. The shrink-wrap is placed over the boat for several reasons. For starters, it keeps the snow off the surface of the boats. It also creates additional space on the top deck. And lastly, it creates a sort of Green House effect where the sun shines in during the day and the heat is trapped inside the shrink-wrap so your boat is nice and warm for the evening.
The winter isn’t so bad. Contrary to what people think, it is actually warmer than the mainland. The friendly staff at the marina keeps the snow and ice off the docks and your neighbors will invite you for a winter warmer. This picture shows what the marina looks like during the winter. All of the boats look like tents from the shrink-wrapping. As spring approaches, people like me tend to get overly eager and remove the shrink-wrap way too soon. I usually set up the grill on the top deck and start grilling during the first weeks of March. Finally, the warm months return and life is beautiful once again. It is definitely an interesting life, and one worth having and talking about. There are many housing alternatives in Boston, but few so interesting. The MBA Experience is so much fun, and I never thought I could make it even more interesting until I jumped on the opportunity of living on a boat.

Carl Palme is a 2^nd Year MS-MBA with experience in Entrepreneurship, Operations, Marketing, and Boat Living. Most recently, he has been sighted sporting a mustache for Movember.
Follow @carlpalme on Twitter.