Hi, first post on the forum although I've been lurking for a while.
We are looking into having a boat built to use as a liveaboard.
We've been round quite a few brokers to get the general feel of things. After seeing what your money gets you, we've opted to go down the sailaway route on a new build rather than refit an existing boat.
The boat will have to accomodate myself and partner, two young children (4yrs and 12 months by the time I complete the fit), and three cats.
After visiting numerous builders we have pretty much decided on canaltime at Shardlow, the boat we planned to go for was a 70 foot wide hatched trad Mike Christian with a yanmar 43hp.
This will be supplied as an unlined sailaway and I am intending on fitting out the boat myself. The yard owner is happy to supply a fit out mooring for 12 months.
We are just waiting to sell our house and we can go ahead and book a slot.
However the plans have changed slightly with regards to the style of boat. The darkness at the top of the stairs has spotted a tug style boat in one of the many books I have acquired. This tug had a double bed under the tug deck and looks like quite a good solution to our needs.
The problem is I don't know a huge amount about tugs and am having a little trouble finding any info on them, so if anyone can help i'd be hugely grateful.
Is the bed under deck idea a practical solution?
How long would the deck need to be( as i'm going to have to adjust the accomodation plans accordingly)?
And finally where does the water tank go if we're going to put a bed under there? We're going to need about 200 gallons.
Many thanks in advance.
Oh and any other liveaboard advice you can throw our way would be much welcomed!