A Sailboat VS. An Underground Bunker As The Ultimate Prepper Survival Plan

Although the likelihood of any of the dooms day scenarios that are within the realm of possibility to happen within your life time are indeed slim and it may seem a bit paranoid to prepare for something that may never happen, isn’t that just being smart? However small the possibility, everyone agrees that it is a possibility and when you consider the many ways in which one of these scenarios could unfold, you can increase the chances exponentially that one of these real emergency situations will play out during your life time.  As the saying goes, “There is nothing wrong with expecting the best but always prepare for the worst.”

We won’t go into the details or the causes of the many scenarios in which getting out of dodge is just what the doctor ordered but many people believe that it is not “if” but when something like a massive cyber-attack, a collapse of the U.S. dollar, a catastrophic natural disaster like a massive storm, a flood, an epidemic, a civil war, a big tsunami, an earthquake or even a big asteroid impact can bring society to its knees and create a very hostile environment in which survival is not guaranteed for everyone, especially for the unprepared.   
While many people spend quite a bit of time preparing for such an eventuality by building an underground bunker with plenty of food, water and ammunition as no doubt you would have to defend your provisions from all the unprepared and desperate people looking for food and water. There are, however, a few weaknesses with the underground bunker plan that makes a sailboat a much more logical choice. A sailboat may be the most effective way to get to safety and stay in a safe location for a long time in the unlikely event that one or several of these national catastrophes or other emergencies were to play out in the next few years. 

Problems to consider with an underground bunker are: 1) You are not able to change locations if the situation is such that it becomes unsafe to stay 2) Once you run out of food, you must go outside and become vulnerable to what might be a dangerous situation at that location and food may not be available for buying or even hunting 3) You might literally have to defend your food supply until you ran out of ammunition as many people may find out where you are hiding the food and try to take it 4) Cabin fever won’t take long to set in when you are staring at 4 walls for months at a time. 5) Producing electricity in a bunker might be limited to the amount of fuel you store to run the generator.

Contrast all these negatives with having a well-prepared sailboat as a survival plan. On a sailboat, you can literally move to where it’s safe anywhere in the world. Let the wind take you to safety until things settle down or stay off grid forever if need be.  You can store many months or even years of food on a sailboat and don’t forget you are surrounded by the most abundant food source on planet Earth which is the ocean by simply incorporating fishing to your activities. Water is also unlimited as you can make the purest water available anywhere by using an onboard water maker to desalinate water. Electricity is also unlimited on a well-equipped sailboat as you can use solar panels and a wind generator to produce all the power you’ll need besides also having the engine or a generator as a backup. The last but certainly not least reason to consider a sailboat is you wouldn’t be locked up like a trapped underground rodent but rather can hide out in one of the many thousands of uninhabited islands on planet earth, many of which are not so far away from the mainland with little or no risk of being discovered and always leaving yourself the option to move if the place becomes unsafe or come back if you confirm that it is safe again.  Considering the alternative, a sailboat just might be the most sensible survival plan ever.  When you talk to any cruiser sailor about this subject, they may not have bought the sailboat as a survival plan in case of an emergency but they certainly have considered that possibility and may even have thought about places to go in such an event.