Why?

To learn from others. But this place has a tendency to get overly dramatic at times.

Fletcher500 said:

To learn from others. But this place has a tendency to get overly dramatic at times.

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Oh that's just those drag queens that promises to perform at the up and coming gathering.

I came here 10 years ago to help me learn how to maintain my newly purchased boat. I found a group of folks as passionate about all things trawlering as I was. I e-met some wise folks and a few wiseguys and many of them became real friends after we met in person. We've even got a SF Bay and California Delta Social Group on this site for our discussion of local issues or boating trips together.

I continue visiting for learning, camaraderie and sharing info I had gleaned through the years. I agreed to volunteer as a moderator with a great group of folks on the Site Team who are true professionals in their own right and willing to help others as a way to pay back for all we've been helped.

I find the demographics of this group to run pretty close to that which I find comfortable and rewarding in my own real life. It's amazing how much you can learn about others when you listen (or read) their words for 10 years!

Next week I'm traveling across the country to meet many in our community for the first time...even though we've been posting, emailing, texting and in some cases, calling for up to 10 years. To be honest, it feels kind of strange yet very comfortable at the same time. It should be a week to remember!

I sure hope I don't regret this!!

Lou_tribal said:

I am sure the that title looks enigmatic but here is the question, not really related to trawlers but a bit in a way.
A lot of people (me included) posting here are recurrent, daily or almost, user, poster or whatever I can call them.
So the philosophical question.
Why?
Why are you involved in this forum?
Is it only for informative purpose?
Is it because you feel part of a community or "family"?
Is it only by curiosity?
Is it only because you have nothing else to do?

I will answer for myself. I am here to learn from you. To get support from more experienced people. Because I am interested in knowing what people loving trawlers think and do. And because I think this " community" is really cool and fun.

What about you?

L

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Wifey B: We're also on other forums but the people there don't cruise or talk about doing so on one and on the other the sail boaters take over the conversations and go to living on a dollar a day conversations or telling someone who has never boated to just buy a sailboat and start their circumnavigation.

Here, we learn about cruising areas. Then we also try to share our experiences of those areas.

This, to us, is a forum where powerboat cruising experiences are shared.

Then there are other topics. For instance, hubby loves talking about and learning about all different brands of boats, even those we have no desire to own.

There's just a lot of conversation between active boaters and you can choose what you enjoy. We might read but we never discuss anchors. On the other hand, hubby will discuss single vs twin objectively even though we choose twins, but he'll never say twins is the only way.

This is also generally a pleasant forum as those who would make it otherwise don't seem to thrive. Plus the moderators do a good job of moving certain topics to OTDE. You guys are really pleasant people to talk to.

Still hoping to connect with other DeFever 34 owners.

Helen Marie said:

Still hoping to connect with other DeFever 34 owners.

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Sorry cannot help you with this but glad you gave your answer

L

We have, well Sechelt has, one 34 DeFever at the Lighthouse Pub Marina there. Yes, they also have pretty darn good food there.

C lectric said:

We have, well Sechelt has, one 34 DeFever at the Lighthouse Pub Marina there. Yes, they also have pretty darn good food there.

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Thanks, good to know.
We were in Egmont last year, if we had known about the boat in Sechelt we would have been tempted to visit.
This is why we like T F.

Sometimes learning what NOT to do is as equally valuable as learning what TO do. There have been many a vicarious lesson learned on this forum!

(We know who we are...)

RT Firefly said:

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What he said. I’ve gotten a lot out of frequenting this forum, and hope from time to time I can help somebody else out. The entertaining part is separating the wheat from the chaff.

Love the great links and blogs I get turned on to.

Why Not?

I came looking for info on trawlers before buying, now spend more time learning, upgrading and keeping this one going from the knowledge gained here.

I post here to see what experiences others have and to share fixes I have done.

Info on repair and maintenance of an old Chinese made boat with all red wiring...

This is a support group for trawler owners.

OldDan1943 said:

This is a support group for trawler owners.

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Kind of like group therapy?

Mkeller said:

Kind of like group therapy?

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+1

Most days I don't look at TF. Today, I was telling my wife how much knowledge, the biography's of the people who post their thoughts & how to here. I've learned quite a bit from you folks - thank you. I'm here to get ideas & how other TF's come up with solutions for the same problem - no anchors!!

FF said:

Why Not?

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You win! I was wondering why nobody answered this yet lol

L

Russell Clifton said:

Even though I have been boating 50+ years, I can always learn something new here. Until a few weeks ago I had no idea my hot water tank had a anode in it. Now I have it on my schedule to check yearly. It's also fun to pass on what I have learned to the new guys.



I also need to check every day to see what's new in the anchor world.

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My daddy told me “everyone you’ll ever meet knows something you don’t”.

I'm just a boat nerd who likes being around other boat nerds. I'm in between boats at the moment, and might be for a while, so this is my marina community dock talk fix.

I've tried several other places, and this community is the friendliest and most cohesive I've found.

Thanks for having me!

Sugardog said:

My daddy told me “everyone you’ll ever meet knows something you don’t”.

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Copy that. Its the people who never ask questions, and think they have everything figured out, often don't. Learning shouldn't end at a certain age.

Fletcher500 said:

Copy that. Its the people who never ask questions, and think they have everything figured out, often don't. Learning shouldn't end at a certain age.

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How about simply a group of like minded people with a shared interest? An opportunity to discuss something important to us that is not off base like religion or politics, unless we discuss anchors, single vs twin, guns on board or oil vs natural teak decks.

Most of all it’s an information exchange, the opportunity to learn from other what worked and what didn’t. Keeps us from having to repeat mistakes, and move more quickly to finished projects. (Boy is wish someone had the source for the felt window tracks on our 40
Year old Grand Banks. For us, we watch ‘‘tis site, Grand Banks Owners, and America Great Loop site, as well as the Great Lakes grand bank group.

It’s all about what we love. Why do some people watch sports all weekend, and then follow the recap news all week? I’d rather know how to get my engine to last 5,000 hours The Who the next head coach of anything is...

Than again that’s me and boats are my life

I found this forum about this time last year when we started getting serious about buying a boat. This forum played a huge role in our search, purchase and then use of our boat. The answers to our questions have been very kind and helpful. We are at St. Augustine Marina tonight after an amazing 80 degree day and sitting on our boat having drinks and cigars so I feel a very special love and gratitude to all those who helped us here over the past year.

Boat Porn! Why else!!!

Hundreds of sexy boat photos and thousands of [occasionally salacious] posts.

Happy Boat-Chat Daze! - Art

I use the forum mostly as a group knowledge source. I’m still pretty much a novice even though I’ve owned this boat a few years. I’m constantly running into things I don’t know how to fix, and the good people here always come through with the correct answers— and fast!

I also enjoy many of the posters on the forum and now it seems more like a community. My wife calls y’all my “imaginary friends”. So it’s also for entertainment. I don’t do Facebook anymore so I guess TF is kind of my replacement for that.

I’ve actually met a few on the forum in person and hope to met a few more if I can make it to the TF get together. I’m trying to get Healhustler (Larry) to drive over from Longboat Key one day with me.

You and Larry should definitely do that! We're gonna need his Photoshop skills again this year!

I'm here mostly to share. It helps also to be entertained and informed.

Without folks from the wood boat era posting there would be a lot of concepts lost , a lot of reinventing the wheel.

Hubby and I found this site after we bought our first “big” boat a few years ago even though it wasn’t a trawler. We knew next to nothing about owning such a boat so we came looking for knowledge and advice and opinions. All of which have been freely given.
We’ve also enjoyed reading about how others use their boats.
We went into our first boat cheap so that we could make sure that this was something we really enjoyed and also so that we could learn what we did and didn’t like in a boat.
Now we’ve (hopefully) found our second and forever boat (funny right?).
Even though it’s also not a trawler, we still have sooooo much to learn so we’ll be stickin around! We haven’t found any other site that offers what this one does.