Moorage? Living The Life Aquatic In SL.

OK – here’s the question. I’m probably going to upgrade within the next month for no reason other than the fun of owning my own place. If I do the annual membership, I figure I get a little better than 75% of my money back in stipend (300/week =~ 4.50/month vs $6/month for annual premium membership), so for about $1.50 to $2.00 per month, it’s not much of a burden.

I don’t want 512 and a cookie cutter house, though. What I’d really like is moorage and a big ol’ yacht. A couple of large staterooms I can furnish, a nice big deck for entertaining, dancing, etc. I also want to be able to sail it around – maybe take some cruises with my friends. I’ve always wanted to live on a ship for a while in RL, but it’s a pipe dream, so why not do it in SL.

The question is, is this even possible? I’ve seen pirate ships and the like, but they have all been pretty much static props – they aren’t so much ships as they are stationary homes that look like ships. I guess the other question is who owns the oceans? Are those even sims? Can I sail on them? What happens when I cross from one sim to another in my ship full of furnishings? I guess if it really comes down to it, I can live without sailing it around – then the question is, where can I get a live-aboard boat?

Lastly, does anybody know where I can get moorage or if it even exists in SL?

You can have a boat to sail in or you can have a static yacht. you can't have it both ways. It has nothing to do with who owns the waterways, but has to do with the size of the item. Above a certain size and an item can't be free moving, as I understand it. Someone that knows the more technical side will probably come along and answer that later. Simply, live in yachts are too large to sail.

Oceans are owned by LL and individuals. An individual can get four Sims for the price of one if they're going to be for low use only (such as parkland or ocean sailing). Can't have peope living and shopping on them. Many developers will do this attached to their builds to offer a premium to their tenants.

Crossing sims shouldn't make you lose anything. If you have a hair attachment it usually stays on. This is SL, however, and sometimes the hair ends up literally on your ass.

If you want a yacht to live in just do a search. There's several options out there. As for moorings, when I was looking I wasn't able to find any in search but have stumbled on some here and there. You can always buy a small island and dock it there.

I had planned to originally have a yacht, but changed my mind. I found when I was on them that the confined space would get in the way. Rooms were too small and ceilings too low and it was a pain to have to maneuver for a good view and was visually poor when I moved about. I'm sure there's some out there that happily live on boats who will respond but that was my experience. Instead I've chosen to live in a house and have a small boat for sailing.

Indeed, I think a live aboard yacht will be too large to sail due the the prim limits on individual vehicles.

There is a pretty fair amount of Linden owned open ocean and several open water sims and protected canals up in the new Corsica sims in addition to the waterfront available in older regions. If you parcel directly adjoins linden ocean you can set sail from there. NEVER rely on a neighbor to continue to allow free passage through thier water to get to the ocean, that is a recipe for heartache.

I've seen a houseboat (not moveable) and the owner payed for mooring but I can't remember where it was. I would love to live in a houseboat but most I've seen have not been good.

If I can find the place again, will send you the LM.

Alternatively just sail the seven seas and don't bother with moorage. Just make sure you are on Linden Land as I don't think it has autoreturn on it.

slightly off topic / but good point on yearly membership being a good deal.

weekly to yearly, you dont take (week * 4) * 12 cuz thats only 11 months

weekly * 52 gives you a more accurate number

300 * 52 = 15,600L yearly <--correct

300*4 = 1200 * 12 = 14,400L yearly <- [X] wrong


15,600 @ 291 = 53.60 - 72 = 18.39 / 12 = 1.53USD a month

14,400 @ 291 = 49.48 - 72 = 22.51 / 12 = 1.87USD a month

Bradley and Nimue are right...but there are some limited exceptions.

Check out the "Karma" yacht...actually a mini ocean liner. I'm told that, huge as it is, it's "driveable", although I haven't experienced it myself.

Yachts require a place to put them. If you want a permanent spot, you'll have to own land ("water" is just "sunken land". The land must be large enough to accomodate your yacht's length, and its prim limit must support your yacht's "prim displacement". There are a few "marinas" out there with slips to rent, but most yacht owners buy land and create their own dock and yacht basin.

Second, Brad is right on about the limited headroom on most yachts. You CAN learn to get around on them, by zooming your camera closer and by using Mouselook...but all but the very largest yachts (50M and up) do have a cramped feeling about them.

I'm currently living aboard a 38M three-deck motor yacht, but will probably trade it in for a house and a sailboat in the near future.

If you're into boating, there are some threads around here regarding good places for boating in SL. You'll want to check out those places before you decide on where to "tie up".

Hi Trout.

First, search SLX for yachts so you can get a feel for what is out there.

I believe some of the larger ones are driveable, but using special scripts that make them sort of crawl in pieces like an inchworm. I also suspect that anything you've put down in the yacht (like your own furniture) that isn't linked would stay in its original location rather than coming along for the ride.

The larger yachts would probably be too large to run down the Linden waterways, so you should probably get land (well, water) directly bordering a Linden ocean... and on an older continent so you can be reasonably sure it will STAY a Linden ocean. Property like that is fairly expensive, especially for larger parcels.

Keep in mind that the Linden oceans on the Nautilus continent do not currently have scripts turned on, which inhibits some (but not all) boat functioning.

Also pay attention to the auto-return time in the Linden oceans. Many are set to only 5 minutes, and at that point your entire yacht and everything disappears and goes back into your inventory.

You also need to stay away from other people's properties (which is why I discourage using the Linden waterways in large boats). If you mis-steer and accidentally cross into a full parcel, the boat disappears and returns to your inventory.

... So as you can see, driving around your actual home is fraught with peril. Probably the best suggestion is to use the yacht as a stationary home, but have a smaller boat tied to it that you can cruise around in.

And if you don't want to pay the extra for a parcel bordering a Linden ocean, you can just get a water one anywhere, and then use a public boat launch. I have the Nautilus Harbor Public Boat Launch in the SW corner of Salerio (Nautilus continent, though, so some boats don't work properly on the oceans), and I have landmarks for a few others (IM me inworld if you'd like to see those). I believe the sim north of ANWR is buildable too, if you want a place to set out and sail a large yacht.


Bleh, that's a lot of information! Hope it helps.

This is all very helpful - thank you! It looks like my best bet is to get a static boat to live on and a smaller boat to zip around in. I looked at SLX and there are some good options there, but some of them seem to require pretty large parcels, and once I furnish it, the prim count may be too high, even if it fits. I wasn't looking to go overboard paying too much tier. I know the first 512 is free, but I guess I have to look up what this is going to cost for the remaining land I'll need.

Thanks for the heads-up on the ceiling heights (hah - made a joke there). That might be a problem. I have a normal sized Av, but still - I better see if I can check a model out before I buy it.

Buying an ocean sim would be cool, but my budget isn't unlimited, and I have no SL income, so the initial cost would probably be pretty high, and the tier would be out of my range.

Looks like I have a lot of research to do.

Come look at the sim where I am in Triumphal, my neighbour has a big boat that he lives on... he'll be happy to talk to you about it... we offer moorage as well as long as its not to primtastic

The waters in Nautilis are fully sailable, and we have a windsetter for takos and yachts

Thank you - I absolutely will.

Hi Toxic, I have a tako that i sail around Hollywood and the notion of a houseboat is WAY cool. (I sail RL). Could I drop by sometime?

I've got some water land that borders a huge linden waterway. Hmm It's Stoogle if I remember correctly. If interested just im me, Ill send ya a link

Hi Trout. My Partner, Cheewha Palen has some magnificent "live aboard" yachts for sale on SLX. The construction is very well done, the furniture is animated AND (drumroll please) the yachts sail with ease. He also does custom work, so if you are looking for "just the right size with just the right features" feel free to IM him in world.

You can find them here: http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&MerchantID=77482

Sibernicus has a whole houseboat community and open ocean nearby.

Did LL finally turn scripts on in the Linden oceans in Nautilus? That would be very cool.

Even with scripts off, I did not have any significant problems with my various speedboats. One of them had some floating text which wouldn't change while in a no-script area, but the controls and menus all worked normally.

I had never tried any of the takos and other realistic wind-based sailboats, but have been told by many that they do not work in the no-script areas. But if LL turned scripts back on, then all is well.

ETA: Just checked and the Linden oceans near Salerio (in Nautilus) are still no-script. Toxic, do your wind-based sailboats work properly in no-script areas?

Feel free to drop in

you will be made most welcome

We've managed to get about 6 or 7 sims from our home sim and haven't founf any problems apart from banlines...We can't all the way around Nautilus yet, but we havent had any probs...