Top 7 tips to help boaters survive the coronavirus social isolation apocalypse

By now most of us are either working from home or doing the mandatory two weeks of prophylactic bench time due to the risk of potentially being exposed to someone carrying coronavirus.

The daily commute to work now starts at the side of the bed and ends at the kitchen table. Compared with travelling into the office, that’s a lot of time back in your pocket to do other things.

Why not dedicate some of that time to your boat? Heres our top seven tips to surviving the virus lock-up and getting a better boat as a result.

One of the ideas behind social isolation is that you only mix with other people when you absolutely have to.

While the idea of limiting human-to-human interaction can be tough, a not-so-obvious benefit is you’re no longer spending huge dollops of your hard-earned cash going out and having fun.

Instead, limiting spending to Jenny Craig home deliveries, a side-diet of Netflix and tap water should be plumping up the bank account to a healthy level.

Draw up a budget and look at how you spent your hard-earned before, and after going into social isolation. On the left side of the page write down all the things you’ve spent money on while isolated. On the right side, write down everything you haven’t had to spend money on since staying at home.

On top of the left side of the page write the title “Money I need to spend to survive”. On the right side of the page write “Wasted money I can tip back into the boat”.

Yeah, that big lump taking up all the space on one side of the shed/garage/driveway could always do with a few running improvements.

There’s always something that needs rewiring, replacing or repairing to make a good boat better. How about a hull polish to make it look like new again? Do the bungholes need a new layer of silicone sealant?

There are a number of online chandlery stores that deliver straight to your door, so you don’t even need to venture outdoors to get all the bits and pieces you’ll need.

An extended layup at home would also be an ideal time to organise any glasswork or other skilled maintenance chores that are normally beyond your 9am-to-5pm reach to tee up.

Bear in mind that the work you do now will not only benefit you the next time you’re out on the water, but it should also help get you a better price when it comes the time to sell.

Fishing in cyberspace isn’t a patch on doing the same thing in meatspace, but in desperate times we all have to adapt.

One of the finer parts of the gameplay on the Wild West-based game Red Dead Redemption is fishing.

Okay, it’s one of the many story arcs built into the game, but just one of the challenges is to snag a trophy fish from some of the lakes and river systems built into the virtual landscape.

You use the game controller to control the rod and wind in, but be prepared to lose plenty of fish off the hook as the game seems to deliberately deny you a clean cast and catch right off the bat.

Another one you might think about is Fishing Sim World. Its main appeal is that you can hold fishing competitions against your mates, aiming to pull in the biggest bag of fish within a set timeframe.

Like the real world, you and your mates jump on an outboard-engined bass boat, rip around a lake at high speed and find a sweet spot to fish. The graphics are a bit 16-bit and the controls a bit basic, but in no time you’ll be reeling them in.

As a bonus, because the game is played in realtime, you can also race your mates around the water to mix it up a bit.

Fish aren’t affected by the coronavirus. That means there’s no reason you can’t get out there and snarf a few without suffering any ill-effects.

Anyway, fishing is pretty much an individual pursuit. On a boat or down at the jetty, there are those long periods of comfortable silence where nothing needs to be said.

A haul of fish also helps as supermarket shelves clear themselves of fresh produce, decimated by hoarders who fill their pantries and freezers with enough calories to feed an army – backed up with enough bogroll to wipe all their arses, too.

We wouldn’t be doing our job at boatsales.com.au without plumping our own pillows. Boatsales.com.au is Australia’s leading place to buy and sell boats, so that’s where any smart start in the hunt for a new ride should jump off.

Besides, unless you’re at the helm of the latest Yellowfin Plate or Southern Formula bluewater flagship, boaters will be glancing enviously at whatever anyone else is driving that’s bigger, shinier and newer than what they have.

Best of all, looking isn’t the same as buying.

Looking over other boats can also give clues as to the simple improvements you can make to your ride. A new set of side pocket rod holders? It seems to work for this boat, so why not mine.

Keep an eye out for running specials you can swoop on if you see the right boat for the right price – there’s some good bargains around at the moment.

Boatsales.com.au fishing expert Glen Booth is pretty handy on the tools, and he’s been providing us with some DIY projects that everyone who is serious about boating and fishing can have a crack at.

You can see his most recent projects, a fishing rod storage rack and a backyard filleting bench.

These simple, low-cost solutions to common problems make arriving back from the boat ramp so much easier.

We live in an era of the internet of things, where even fridges are connected to the internet.

Mobile data services are so good these days that connection speeds are as good, if not better, than a wireless connection at home.

All you really need, then, to dump the drudgery of the home office and enjoy life on a boat is a bit of water with a nice jetty, and at least three bars of 4G data.

If you’re lucky, moorings in popular tourist destinations will have everything you need nearby such as shops, hot showers, toilets, mains electricity for recharging phones and laptops, and more.

Come 5pm, there’s nothing to stop you throwing the mooring lines and heading somewhere else for a slightly different vista from the world's best office hot desk.

Being a weekday, chances are you’ll be one of only a handful of people enjoying the no-crowds advantage to have just about everything to yourself.

If this is social isolation, give it to me every day.