• @gaael
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    3617 days ago

    I love orcas and the idea that some of them are doing something because we pissed them off is really sexy.

    But a 15-ish meters sailboat is not a yacht, far from there, and in Europe a lot of people who sail are working class (more teachers and engineers than uber drivers or cleaning crews, but still far from rich).
    In this case, the crew consisted of two members of the Ocean Care NGO. The crew members and the NGO stated that they didn’t blame the orcas and didn’t see there an agression from them but believed more in a kind of game because the orcas noticed boats can be rocked and find it fun.

    Let’s eat the rich ourselves, they are much more our responsability than the orca’s.

      • @gaael
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        216 days ago

        You’re right, thanks!
        In my language there is a bug difference between a yacht and a 15 meters sailboat, but it seems it’s not the case in english. Anyway, my mistake.

        200k is a nice, quite recent boat with nothing to be done before you can go and sail.
        Where I live, lots of people buy older boats which need a bit of work before they can use them. You can find nice older 15 meters sailboats for 60-70k if you’re willing to have them in dry dock for a year while you do repairs and look for used parts to do the repairs.
        It’s still fucking expensive (and you have easily 5k/year of anchorage and upkeep), and lots of workers can definitely not afford that, but it’s still possible without being really rich (I meet teachers teachers, nurses, engineers… who own their boats when I go sailing).

    • @Zron
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      616 days ago

      In what world do you live in where teachers and engineers are buying 15 meter open ocean rated sailboats?

      That’s a big boat. Storage fees alone would be crippling for most people.

      • @gaael
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        516 days ago

        I live in France, and my parents (both teachers in highschool) bought one 10 years ago. It is an old one (built in the 1980s), lots of work to had to be done but they could afford it on a 10 years mortgage.
        Harbour is about 4k/year, wich is definitely not nothing and lots of people can’t afford it, but they manage.

        Idk how it is where you live, but from what I’ve seen, on most of Northern Europe coasts (France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden) it’s far from impossible to own a nice sailboat even when you’re not really rich.
        Sailboats from the 80s-90s with some work to do would range from the 30-35k for 10-11 meters to 60-70k for up to 15 meters. Of course, if you want to have the most recent one and if you can’t/don’t want to do most of the repairs yourself, it’s another story.
        It may have something to do with our sailing culture from the 70s-80s, where lots of people actually built their sailboats to go and travel the world.

        And just to be clear, I’m not saying it’s easy and everyone can do it. Lots of working class people can barely make ends meet, so owning a boat wouldn’t be possible. But in Europe, it’s not reserved for the super rich either.

        • @John_McMurray
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          516 days ago

          Canadian here. big boats are cheap as hell, it’s the maintenance that gets you if you can’t do it yourself, and it’s not insubstantial either way. If youve a boat with some old marine GM motor, ain’t so bad, but a lot of people buy a cheap boat not realizing it’s a Detroit in there, 40,000 dollar rebuild.

      • @John_McMurray
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        4
        edit-2
        16 days ago

        BC comes to mind…oh wait. We’re doing that thing where posters unwittingly reveal they’re broke as fuck and 5 thousand is a huge amount of money.

      • @problematicPanther
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        116 days ago

        I’m working as a power BI guy in Europe and my colleagues sail. They don’t own the boats, they rent them and go out for an afternoon. They’re planning to get together with some friends and rent a 15 meter boat for a week over the summer to sail around the islands in the adriatic. The prices don’t sound too outrageous, as long as you’re going with a group and sharing the expenses, and getting a boat that’s not exactly “new”.

        you can live a decent life in europe as a working class person.