Friday, March 16, 2012

Good interview

Three Sheets has a good interview with Captain Fatty. See the whole interview here.



Can you give us a few tips for cruising on a budget?
Well, that’s a big subject. People — most westerners, most Americans — have this goofy concept that there’s only one way to do things. They think you live in a house and a house costs money, so you have to have a job and in order to get that job you need a car, and a car costs money so you have to have a job. They think of things in that simplistic way of work, buy, et cetera. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But the amazing thing is, if you go to Madagascar or Borneo or all these other places, people don’t have money or jobs and you think they have nothing. Yet they have all kinds of things. They have a high quality of life and their children play and they have a place to live and they have food.
What I’m saying is that you can look at a New Yorker’s lifestyle in Manhattan one way, and in terms of material possessions, they’re doing great. But maybe in terms of quality of life, they’re not doing so great. People think money equates to safety, money equates to happiness, money equates to all these things. And it doesn’t.
The main thing of cruising cheaply is just to get out of this mindset that you’re going to buy it. I don’t even consider buying anything. I don’t go into marine supply stores. I don’t go to sailmakers. You just don’t have to deal with the money thing. It doesn’t always have to be money. Trade stuff instead of doing it the way that everyone else does.
When I needed a diesel engine, I didn’t want a crap diesel engine. I wanted a brand new diesel engine. So I went to the biggest distributor of diesel engines in the Caribbean and said, ‘Look, I’m a writer. You need ads written, you need training manuals.’ I traded some writing and paid less than half the price for a new engine.
Not sure what I would trade for an engine discount. 'Look, I'm a manufacturing engineer. You need...um, to make a lot of something? Got any robots?'
Cheers!

1 comment:

  1. While I don't think we'll be lucky enough to get away without going into stores and spending money, we are lucky that Ken has some construction experience! Hopefully that'll help! I'm sure you'll be able to use your skills as well. We do plan on leaving cheap!

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