For the past three decades, your average live-aboard cruiser had retired from a career with the money and freedom to buy a boat, outfit It for cruising, and set sail into the sunset. It was, and still is, an absolutely beautiful thing that all of us at YCA respect and admire. Nobody is trying to define what is ‘young’ and what is not. Nobody cares, to be completely honest. But something has changed. Is changing. And fast. The anchorages are now filling up with pre-retirement sailors as well. They emerged by trickling into harbors with cheap boats the retirees had previously owned and sold. Now they are on all kinds of boats. From the small affordable pocket cruisers to the nicest catamaran at the dock. To figure out what created this tidal wave of pre-retirement live-aboards, let’s take a deeper dive into the four phases of the ‘birth of the young cruisers.’

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