Tired of expensive housing, couple buys a boat for US$ 1, refurbishes the sailboat at low cost, and sails over 1,600 kilometers to the Florida Keys.

Written by Romário Pereira de Carvalho

Published on 22/06/2026 at 15:44

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After facing expensive housing, Lara and Simon bought an old sailboat for $1, refurbished the vessel spending little, and sailed more than 1,600 kilometers between North Carolina and Florida

A couple bought a 12-meter sailboat for just $1, made basic repairs, and traveled more than 1,600 kilometers between North Carolina and the Florida Keys. The journey lasted more than four months and confirmed that the boat, manufactured in 1970, could also become their new home.

Tired of expensive housing, couple buys boat for $1, transforms 1970 vessel into new home and spends four months sailing from North Carolina to Florida — Lara Manetta on her 12-meter boat. Photo provided by Lara Manetta.

Sailboat for $1 had already been sold for the same price

The opportunity arose when Lara and her husband, Simon, met a bartender who knew a couple willing to part with a 40-foot Morgan yacht. The owners no longer sailed and needed to find a new caretaker for the vessel.

The $1 sailboat was not unfamiliar with this type of transaction. Lara discovered she was at least the third person to buy it for the same symbolic value.

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Renovation required cleaning, painting, and basic maintenance

Despite the worn surfaces and the old interior, the structure met what the couple was looking for. The boat also had a small cast iron wood stove, an item desired by Lara.

The work began with the removal of dust and dirt accumulated over the years. The interior was repainted in shades of gold and orange, maintaining the 1970s-inspired appearance.

In the mechanical part, the couple changed the oil and replaced some filters. According to the report, it was not necessary to spend much on repairs. The main cost was concentrated in a few cans of paint.

Three months after the purchase, Lara and Simon left the port of Oriental, in North Carolina. The town has about 800 inhabitants and is known as the state’s sailing capital.

Four-month trip reached the Florida Keys

Among the first stops was Georgetown, in South Carolina. Weeks later, the couple was already in the Florida Keys, where they tried lionfish sushi and spent days watching nurse sharks and parrotfish in Marathon.

During an unusual snowstorm in winter, the wood stove helped keep the interior warm.

The possibility of anchoring for free or paying just a few dollars in most places also reduced travel expenses.

In total, the $1 sailboat traveled more than 1,600 kilometers over a period of more than four months.

The low cost of staying allowed the couple to travel without needing to work intensively to support the journey.

Tired of expensive housing, couple buys boat for $1, transforms 1970s vessel into new home and spends four months sailing from North Carolina to Florida — Cast iron wood stove on Manetta’s boat. Photo provided by Lara Manetta.

Expensive housing led couple to choose life on boats

The move to the sea began before the purchase of the 40-foot Morgan. After getting married, Lara and Simon looked for a house in Dunedin, Florida, but did not find suitable properties within the available budget.

One of the houses visited had fleas. Another had a greenhouse built in the garage, taken over by mold. With the pre-approval of the mortgage nearing expiration, Simon found a 25-foot sailboat on Craigslist.

The couple bought this first boat for $3,000. Then, they started acquiring larger and cheaper vessels. Before the $1 yacht, the two lived on a 9-meter boat purchased for $1,000.

The 1,600-kilometer journey served as a test for the new vessel. After the trip, Lara considered that the boat was sturdy and comfortable enough to become a permanent home. The couple’s next plan is to head to the Caribbean during the winter.

This article was prepared based on the first-person account provided in the source material, with data, numbers, and statements preserved as per the consulted content.

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Tired of expensive housing, couple buys a boat for US$ 1, refurbishes the sailboat at low cost, and sails over 1,600 kilometers to the Florida Keys.

After facing expensive housing, Lara and Simon bought an old sailboat for $1, refurbished the vessel spending little, and sailed more than 1,600 kilometers between North Carolina and Florida

Sailboat for $1 had already been sold for the same price

Renovation required cleaning, painting, and basic maintenance

Four-month trip reached the Florida Keys

Expensive housing led couple to choose life on boats

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Tired of expensive housing, couple buys a boat for US$ 1, refurbishes the sailboat at low cost, and sails over 1,600 kilometers to the Florida Keys.

After facing expensive housing, Lara and Simon bought an old sailboat for $1, refurbished the vessel spending little, and sailed more than 1,600 kilometers between North Carolina and Florida

Sailboat for $1 had already been sold for the same price

Renovation required cleaning, painting, and basic maintenance

Four-month trip reached the Florida Keys

Expensive housing led couple to choose life on boats

In the cold desert of Ladakh, where it hardly rains, engineer Sonam Wangchuk created the ice stupa, a tower that freezes winter water and stores it for irrigating crops in the spring, a simple engineering feat that mimics nature.

Almost 6,000 residents live concentrated along a single street nearly 9 km long in the interior of Poland. Houses form a continuous row, and behind them, narrow agricultural strips emerge, creating one of the most unusual rural patterns in Europe.

Chinese woman planted trees for decades while sand buried part of her house, received $5,000 from an American in 1999, and helped transform the desert into a forest of 8 million trees in China.

Desert sand, previously discarded for being too smooth for concrete, becomes an ecological brick in the United Arab Emirates, dispensing with Portland cement, curing at room temperature, and attempting to transform dunes useless for construction into raw material for a new arid engineering.

They planted a sea of eucalyptus to produce cellulose, but the monoculture turned into a green desert, dried up springs and rivers, and pushed families out of regions in Minas Gerais and Bahia.

Júlia Pimentel, an 11-year-old from Minas Gerais, independently invented a new formula to calculate the square root using simple addition and multiplication, and her method was published in one of the most important mathematical scientific journals in Brazil.

Hidden beneath a small entrance in Namibia’s underground, the largest underground lake in the world is the size of 2 football fields, 264 meters deep, and even has rare animals that survive without sunlight.

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