Note we do not have any financial arrangements or other interests in any the products mentioned here!
For just about every question, there are almost as many different opinions as there are sailors. And, most of these different opinions are in fact valid for the specific individual with their particular boat and their unique mission. That said, below are our opinions based on our experiences to date. We reserve the right to change them, or even admit they are wrong, at any later date :)
4. What is the longest time you have been continuously away from land?
14. How do you keep in shape while cruising?
44. Why give up comfortable lives and successful careers for life at sea?
49. Any tips on provisioning for our first offshore passage?
55. How safe is offshore sailing?
76. Are there places where it is still possible to cruise very inexpensively?
79. How much am I going to spend on boat maintenance?
We made a 9000-mile, 59 1/2-day, non-stop passage from Cape Horn, east, to Fremantle Australia. We can carry food and water for about twice that long, and we can catch rain water along the way to top up our tanks. We have made two other 29-day non-stop passages.
We read a lot when on board. I put together the following list of 'the 100 best novels', to try and help me read 'good stuff' rather than just trash. I prefer reading trash on passage, but 'good stuff' at anchor. Many of these I had already read in school, but many I had not. While I am on lists, we actually don't listen to all that much music - preferring to hear the sounds of nature and the boat, but I have occasionally referred to this list of the 100 best singles when adding music. Top of Page
Beth is very resistant to seasickness and will get sick only if we are trying to sail close-hauled into a big nasty sea for several days - something we try hard to avoid. However, if we anticipate this sort of situation, she can take any of several different medicines to avoid being sick (Stugeron [cinnazarine] is the best for her). Evans is seasick for the first 3-5 nights on passage almost every passage, but only when he is captain. When he crews on other boats he is never seasick, so it's obviously a 'loneliness of command' stress-related thing for him. He does not like feeling drugged and would rather be sick than take any medications.
When taking any sort of seasickness medicine, we have found the critical element is to start taking it 12 hours before we go to sea. Taking it right before we leave harbor does almost no good for either of us. Top of Page
This is difficult. We tend to develop good upper body strength while cruising but our legs and aerobic capability waste away unless we work hard at maintaining them. Swimming and walking are the natural ways to get extra exercise while at anchor, but just as when ashore, we have to specifically set time aside for them. In addition, Beth has a set of simple exercises she does on relatively calm passage-making days, using elastic bands and hand weights. Evans does a set of sit-ups and push-ups every night when at anchor/in harbor. Top of Page
The classic mountaineering explanation is ‘because it’s there’, and that may explain the motivation of sailors who try to get the farthest south or north, or the first through a passage or into a difficult harbor. However, I have always found this explanation to be unsatisfactory and it does not explain my motivation.
We repeatedly leave the safety and comforts of shore life for four reasons:
1. The cruising community. This is a collaborative and generous group. Almost any of us would drop what we are doing, bring tools and parts and help out any other boat with its difficulty even if we had never met/seen them before. ‘Giving’ people are much more successful than ‘taking’ sorts in this community. It’s a non-monetary community, where people help others in the complete expectation they will be helped when they need it, even by a completely different group of cruisers. Experiences and skills are respected – wealth and previous titles/class are irrelevant. This is quite refreshing after the status conscious ‘taking’ & greed driven culture prevalent ashore. In my working life ashore I did not even know my neighbors much less help them fix roof leaks.
Deep seamen pull together the way humans should but rarely do ashore. Each skipper is entirely and completely responsible for his vessel's fate, but if assistance is needed, we help each other with no questions asked and no compensation expected. Ashore I would not be likely to drop everything and help fix a complete stranger’s roof or rebuild his car brakes, but that’s exactly what seamen do. Status is gained in the community by how much knowledge and assistance you contribute to others rather than how much stuff you own. This combination of complete individual responsibility with unstinting community assistance feels right. It’s clearly how humans should interact. It creates a challenge for all of us who have experienced it to be role models and also act this way ashore. Its the sort of community that FDR's inaugural address hoped for American society after the great depression, but did not accomplish.
2. It’s an environment where the problems and solutions are very ‘real’. Dragging anchors, tropical storms and ripped sails, are very real problems and they have to be solved. There is no buck passing, no spin, no negotiation and no $300 branded shoes or watch that will solve them. So there is stress and difficulty but it's not as frustrating as many difficulties ashore because you know its real and not created by artificial marketing deadlines or other people trying to scam you.
You simply have to go out and sail the miles and deal with conditions as they are and you either do it or you don’t. This is an environment where seeing the clear, cold, unvarnished truth is essential. Fabrications and delusions and misconceptions will kill you. Offshore it’s very simple and very real, and the colors are more vivid and the feelings more intense. Life ashore feels pale and washed out afterwards.
3. We are our own boss and self motivated and driven and reliant in a way we can’t be ashore (even working for ourselves ashore). Everything is just so much more interconnected and complex ashore. There are office and industry politics, and banks and creditors,. We leave all that behind. Even as we run two small businesses from the boat, we just do them in a straightforward fashion and say ‘get lost’ to BS and politics. We can always walk/sail away from anything we don’t like.
4. The high moments are really high and there are a lot of them. We have experiences and go places and see things which very few people are lucky enough to experience. And after a particularly low moment, simply relaxing in the sun in the cockpit is the biggest possible thrill – you survived, you lived thru it! Everything is more vivid and alive.
However, the cruising life is no vacation and certainly not all roses and champagne . It’s a lot of work, a lot of stress (more than any job ashore I have had) with many very difficult & uncomfortable and unpleasant moments. Good essay here on the cruising life
Trying to understand what’s it’s really like if you have not been there is very very difficult. You can’t get it from any book or magazine. The closest parallel is to combat – an experience which is ‘real’ in the ultimate way and which combat vets simply can’t explain to others. Top of Page
(1) Water issues. Each crew should have their own 1 quart (1 liter) water bottle with their name on it, and they need to drink it empty twice every day. The separate water bottles minimize the spread of germs and drinking two liters a day minimizes the risk of dehydration.
Do flush out the water tanks (a chlorine or food grade (37%) hydrogen peroxide flush to kill the bugs and then several fresh water flushes to remove the chlorine taste). Even if you have a watermaker, using seawater for dishwashing, with a fresh water rinse, will greatly reduce the amount of time you have to run the watermaker/generator. Check the o-ring on the deck inlet cap to make sure it is still sound and will keep saltwater out of the water tanks.
(2) Meal planning. Precooking meals for at least the first five dinners will minimize galley time while still providing good hot meals until the cook finds his/her sea legs. There are three options for ‘pre-cooking: (a) frozen, if you have the freezer capacity, (b) pressure cooking in jars, and (c) freeze dried - expensive and probably the least tasty. Bring spicy sauces if going this route. Again, for the first five days its best to pack food in "one-day packages" as much as possible to avoid time digging around in the galley lockers.
Also, plan some bland menu options, and bring saltines or pilot biscuits, for rough weather.
A daily 'surprise' that people will look forward to is a big moral builder – anything that will wake up the taste buds – everything from pickles to ginger cookies to ice cream bars are good.
(3) Crews differ dramatically on how much they will want to eat. Some will want three big meals and others will just have a bagel for breakfast, snacks for lunch and a real dinner. You can get accurate input from experienced offshore crew how much they think they will eat but those new to offshore usually don’t have a clue about their preferences. In the mid & higher latitudes you need to be prepared to keep everyone full of hot food, but in the tropics you can usually plan on light breakfasts and snack lunches (with lots of liquids) unless you know you have big eaters.
(4) Use regular silverware and plastic dishes. Wide mouth cups with lids are good both for drinks and soup/stews. If you have one for each member of the crew, each person can be responsible for washing his own mug. Get a large pump thermos and fill it with hot water before the night watches for coffee, hot chocolate, etc. Top of Page
| Injuries per million hours | |
| Himalayan Mountain Climbing | 120000 |
| Skydiving | 24752 |
| Skiing | 4225 |
| Football | 1900 |
| Motorcycling | 1692 |
| Squash | 1300 |
| Basketball | 1100 |
| Rugby | 844 |
| Soccer | 600 |
| Scuba Diving | 381 |
| Swimming | 206 |
| Water Skiing | 54 |
| Cricket | 52 |
| Bicycling | 50 |
| Offshore Sailing | 42 |
| Golf | 37 |
| Flying (scheduled domestic airline) | 29 |
| Home living (awake) | 5 |
| Home living (awake + asleep) | 3 |
When we were on our Silk trip in the early '90's, the world was opening up, and it was becoming easier and less expensive to clear into countries; but GPS created a whole fleet of new cruisers and the main harbours were becoming more crowded and expensive. Since about 911 (but it really started a few years before 911 so that was not the root cause only an accelerating factor) the clearance process has been getting more complex and more expensive as countries tried to control all the boats entering their waters; and the main harbours have started focusing on serving the superyachts and the cruise ships which has drive the costs to astronomical levels. But if you get even 60 miles off the normal routes you can still find almost empty harbours and inexpensive costs.
The very simplest and least expensive (except for food) place today is probably Greenland, and if you don't want to go that far, Newfoundland and BC are almost as good. Mexico is can still be pretty cheap if you avoid the harbours with dinghy landing fees (like La Paz). Brazil has an enormously complex clearance system, but the fees are not so bad, and once cleared in, its pretty cheap if you avoid the big cities (like Rio). We actually had two very inexpensive trips thru Polynesia recently by transiting thru in a way that avoided the Society group (Tahiti) - we visited the Gambier, Tuamotu's and Austral group and I believed paid no costs at all. Scotland and Ireland were very simple and inexpensive when we were there, but the US dollar has lost about 40% vs the Euro since then; and that's a problem for Americans worldwide. The most expensive places we have been recently were the British S Atlantic islands (Falklands, S Georgia & St Helena). They have put fees and regulations in place for teh cruise ships and then apply them to the cruisers. They required us to buy local health insurance, and pay daily landing fees, etc.
The big message is #1 yes the world has gotten more expensive, especially for those with American dollars, but #2 if you go even a little way off the main routes you can still cruise cheaply. (Top of Page)
The normal answer is 5-10% of the value of the boat. This is really just the simple accounting principle of depreciation. Things have a life span, and they wear out and break down. If you spend less on maintenance than the depreciation number you are in theory degrading the condition of the boat and if you spend more you are increasing the condition. The 5-10% number is simply saying that boat stuff has on average a 10-20 year life before it wears out and breaks down and needs to be replaced. For a used boat this generally works pretty well. You can take the 5-10% either of your purchase price (adjusted for inflation) or of current replacement/resale value, depending if your aim is to keep the boat in the condition as it was when you purchased or as it is now.
This rule does break down at the extremes. For a brand new boat, you loose quite a lot of value as you walk out the door, and you should use the week 1 resale value rather than the purchase price. At the other end, you can get a real beater boat for almost nothing. You may have to put some real money into it just to keep it sailing. In this case you need to base the 5-10% on your low beater purchase price plus an initial slug of refit money, enough to get the boat into 'steady state maintainable sailing' condition.
It's obviously a very general assumption, but is about as good a general answer as anyone can give. And over a long time frame its pretty accurate. It is really difficult to be more precise as it depends completely on the exact boat, and how and where you use it and what sort of condition you want to keep it in. You can spend essentially nothing and fix things yourself only when they break with toothpicks and bubblegum, or you can spend a gazillion dollars and hire professionals to replace things proactively with gold plated electrical terminals and titanium fittings (or of course anywhere in between). (Top of Page)
"Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent."