Around the cockpit table during a potluck among boats awaiting the start of the Sail Indonesia Rally in Darwin the topic of bedding came up. Robin of the American Voyage 44 cat Endangered Species was explaining to Michelle of the Aussie 53′ cat Thor how she’d solved her preference for a softer mattress when Rick preferred firm. “Ashore we had a waterbed, and when we moved aboard, we dismantled it for the surrounding collar and filled it with two replacement air mattresses that I finagled from the Sleep Number people.”

I was surprised. I had never heard of air mattresses on a boat. I’ve been to enough boat shows to know that there are plenty of entrepreneurs doing their best to market mattress upgrades and customized bedding to sailors, but I also remember when outfitting my first boat that mattress and sheet issues were way down the list of priorities.

But should they be? After all, a cruising boat is our full-time home. As I started asking around among Rally participants (who, having traveled this far, should have some opinions on the subject), I was a little apologetic about asking them about such an intimate and perhaps peripheral issue to the challenges of voyaging. But the reactions I got surprised me. After a moment’s hesitation while they gave it a thought, they’d laugh and bubble over with information. As Renata of the Hallberg Rassey Nuku’alofa exclaimed, “To Helmut, it is THE most important thing.”

Barbara & Tom of SV GOSI. Tom was into it!

In fact, when chatting up Barbara and Tom of the Valiant 40′ Gosi on the bow of an Indonesian dive boat, the importance of bed and bedding to the men was reinforced.

I asked Barbara what kind of mattress she had, she mused a moment and said, “Oh, I think whatever came with the boat.” “Oh, no,” said Tom, “Remember, we got a custom foam mattress from the vendor at the Annapolis boat show. It’s high density foam but wrapped so it looks like a regular mattress.” What about sheets? Barbara was similarly uncertain, but Tom jumped in again, “We bought the highest quality sheets that were on sale in the New Zealand department store and then had them customized for our mattress.”

Shortly after this I posed the question to Margaret of the Tayana 47 Peregrina, and she burst out laughing. “A while back, to pass time on passage, I asked Peter one of those questions a woman should never ask her husband, ‘If someone asked you to name something about me you really loved, what would you say?” and he thought carefully for several minutes and said, ‘She makes the bed every day!‘” Peter quickly jumped in to defend himself. “I’ve been on so many boats where you go below and the berth isn’t made, and I realized how pleasing it is to me to go into our cabin and have such a put- together, orderly space. It’s welcoming.”

Shipboard beds start with mattress choice. Many boats come with odd-sized mattresses shaped to the boat and not to standard sheet sizes, necessitating custom-tailoring. My “pre-owned” boat when I bought it came with the original four-inch thick foam fitted with removable covers. To upgrade to thicker mattresses I had get new covers, too. In both the fore and aft cabins, the mattresses (old and new) were split in half to facilitate moving them to access spaces below. In the v-berth, a much thinner piece fitted an insert to convert the two singles to a double, which required king-sized flat sheets. This is typical of older boats’ sleeping set-up whether berths are oriented fore-and-aft, athwartships or offset to one side. They are often a pain to make.

Our berth on TACKLESS II Classic!

In newer boats, berths are less traditional, marketed to give at least the illusion of more “walk-around” space and thicker, higher-class mattresses. But one should question how secure they will feel underway.

Most of the cruisers I queried had some variation of foam mattresses, usually described as firm, high-density foam, and most had toppers of some sort, either memory foam or egg crate. Most also, motivated by spending time in New Zealand (if not coming from northern climes to start with), had added underlayments to control condensation. The most mentioned foundation was a sort of fibrous material compared to a “loofah” or a “Scotch Brite scrubbie.”

Guest berth aboard QUANTUM LEAP

Bette Lee of Quantum Leap is a woman who does lots of research before making choices. She explained that firmness of foam is measured in durometers, or the amount of weight it takes to depress it, and how you sleep — side, back or stomach — dictates the thickness foam you need. For example, a side sleeper needs thicker foam to support the shoulder, but a back sleeper can get away with less. On her catamaran the forward two berths over the bridge deck are standard one-piece queens, six inches thick, while the aft berth mattresses over the engines are split. As a guest aboard, I find the one-piece mattress comfortable but heavy to lift for making the bed.

Shopping for sheets, I’m quickly bewildered by the panoply of thread-count, material and finishes available and clueless to the ramifications for them in tropical climates. Cruisers, it seems, are as seduced by thread count as landlubbers, but at the same time they are swayed by what’s on sale. They were divided by loyalty to 100% cotton or cotton-poly blends, which, believers say, don’t seem to absorb the humidity. The best boat sheets I ever bought were discounted cotton-poly sets I got at a discount center; they were light-weight, wrinkle-free, soft, durable and resisted humidity — problems I had with later choices.

I was surprised how many cruisers admitted to not changing their sheets weekly, going as long as three weeks! Bette Lee carries three sets of sheets per berth, with dryer sheets folded into the spares in gallon-sized Ziploc bags to keep them fresh. Other cruisers use Space Bags to contain spare bedding.

In the tropics, many cruisers use an untucked top sheet they simply fold up to make the bed. Others still make the bed up daily with a thin blanket or lightweight quilt or fitted cover. For some, decor is important (really, it only takes a little extra time and money to get the coordinated look!), while others exclaim, “Well, they matched once!‘

Like sheets, pillows run the gamut from fiberfill, to memory foam to down. Barbara of the Sparkman Stevens ’47 Contrails adores her down pillows for sleeping, using washable polyester ones for the second pillows. She says the down has done fine in the tropics. Bette and her husband Tom, both side-sleepers use king-sized second pillows as body pillows to support knees and shoulders and ease lower back issues. An ingenious way to store extra blankets and quilts in the off season is to stuff them into pillow covers.

When I finally caught up with Michelle of Thor who was having that initial conversation with Robin at the potluck, she surprised me by saying she also had an air mattress. But it turned out it was new! “We had an innerspring mattress and I hated it. After talking with Robin I hunted all over Darwin and found one. We love it.”

Ah, the power of the potluck!

This article was published in the October 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Perhaps the most important – yet under-appreciated – space on your boat is the cockpit.

Our favorite moments take place here: greeting the sunrise with coffee and a good book, partying at happy hour with friends, enjoying dinner in the open air, sitting snug while a squall blows through, or snoozing in cool night breezes.

On a cruising boat, of course, the cockpit is also the action station, the place where we spend hours keeping watch and guiding our boat safely through reefs, channels, or over open sea.

Thus, cruising cockpits serve two very different purposes: a high-seas action station and a living room.

A good cruising cockpit should be ready to do both.

For passage-making, a cockpit should have good ergonomics for bracing yourself on either tack and a stout padeye or two to hook harness tethers into. The helm seat should be comfortable enough for hours of wrestling with rough seas but also allow you to (as many of us do!) kick back and drive with your feet. Then again, since most cruisers rely on the autopilot to do the bulk of the steering, a comfortable spot out of the weather from which to maintain our watch ranks highly.

Especially important are good sight lines forward and all around (uncluttered by stuff stored on deck), plus the ability to see the sails and masthead indicators. Ready access to winches and running rigging without climbing over anything or having to steer winch handles around bimini supports or stanchions is preferable, and while protection from wind and weather is good, it’s as important to be able to get out on deck quickly without feeling precarious. More and more boats are being designed and older boats retrofitted, to bring all the sail control lines back to the cockpit. Very nice where feasible.

Furthermore, since the development of waterproof electronics, good underway strategy has moved to the cockpit gauges, chart plotter, radar, and most particularly the VHF RAM mike from below-decks as was traditional. Although many outfitting cruisers rush to mount instruments in pods at the helm, several Admirals point out that such info might be handier at the front of the cockpit where we hunker while the autopilot drives.

In principle, as small a cockpit volume as possible is best, to minimize the weight impact of breaking seas coming aboard, plus, of course, enough drains to evacuate water ASAP plus a high threshold into the cabin closed with a stout hatch board so that water cannot easily get below….

On the other hand, we also want our cockpit to double as a family room – a friendly place with plenty of room where everyone hangs out, with easy access below, especially to the galley!

We want more than comfortable seating, we want comfortable lounging, reading, even sleeping.

We need a set-up for eating and entertaining, and we want that mess of lines out of the way and electronics not to be intrusive. We want the space shaded and well ventilated, but also dry in rain, but we also want a 360° view of the scenery.

Is it possible to have all this and more in one cockpit?

I say yes, because I believe we had it in ours. So did many Admirals. But I’ve been aboard plenty of boats that didn’t. It starts with luck: Did the boat you picked for other reasons happen to come with a nice cockpit? Did you give cockpit efficiency and comfort any thought at the time you were boat buying? Have you made an effort to improve things since you’ve owned your boat?

Judging from the response from the Admirals, bigger-boat owners tend to appreciate their bigger cockpits, valuing roominess for living over the passage-making advantages of small volume. Center-cockpit owners liked their higher freeboards and therefore drier ride, while aft cockpit owners were smug about their capacious storage lockers and access to the water. One definite advantage of an aft cockpit is that fishing doesn’t require you to leave the cockpit; then again, when you catch the big one, the mess is right there in your living room!

But the Admirals agree on many things.

First is long bench seats.

Bench seats are important not only for entertaining, but for siestas at anchor and being able to rest while underway without going below. The deeper the seat backs, the more secure people feel underway, but also the more comfortable the cockpit is for lounging. When a boat doesn’t have these, however, seats with self-supporting backs like the ingenious Sport-A -Seats™ are a good compromise.

What’s under your butt is also important.

Ideally choose seat cushions that stay in place at anchor and underway, take a splash and dry out quickly, and are easy on the posterior in hot temperatures and cold not to mention the grinding motion of confused seas.

Coated closed-cell cushions are very popular (even customizable with your boat logo!), but you can also make custom covers to your own taste in décor, using Textilene™ mesh or Sunbrella™ patio fabrics.

You can even coordinate covered throw pillows to enhance the attractiveness and comfort of your cockpit as living space (easy to throw below when underway!). While you’re sewing, something as simple as mesh bags that snap to a bulkhead can tidy up coils of line.

A cockpit table is essential for daily dining and for entertaining. Where possible, a table that folds down leaving you room to move when not in use is preferable, along with binnacle holders that accommodate glasses, coffee mugs, and even binoculars! Pleasant 12v lighting for eating and reading by is essential.

The most important modification you will make to your cockpit is its weather protection. Cruisers often start with a purist idea of sailing open to sun, wind and weather, but exposure without shelter becomes tiring and UV is a real issue, so a spray dodger often soon expands to a full bimini top which expands further to a complete enclosure.

When possible, aim at conceiving a solution that works both underway and at anchor, not something you have to take down, stow and put back up.

A good enclosure protects the cockpit from wind, rain and boarding seas, and, with integrated shades or perhaps with movable mesh panels, it also protects from the sun.

Additionally, an enclosure reduces stress by making the cockpit feel more contained and by cutting down wind noise. Purists may feel deprived of being wet and salty for days at a time, but the rest of us long-termers? Not so much!

Typically bimini tops have been made from Sunbrella™ canvas stretched over a frame of stainless-steel tubes, but increasingly popular are hard tops made from fiberglass. Canvas biminis can be removed and/or folded down, but hard tops are relatively permanent. The hardtop we built was fiberglass over a honeycomb foam core, shaped on a mold to look like a canvas bimini. The hard top, however, had no leaks, no awkward supports, had awesome handholds, and brought the bonus of insulation from baking sun! We even built in our cockpit light and two reading lights.

Either way, an enclosure of isinglass windows can be attached by zippers or by tracks. If sailing to the tropics, avoid the temptation of a fixed dodger, because more than anything else you’ll want to maximize natural airflow by being able to roll up key sections. Always keep visibility, egress, and your winch-handle turning radius in mind as you design!

Now you have a cockpit that effectively doubles as your action station and your favorite living space. Take care, however, not to let things get too comfy. A cruising cockpit needs to stay ready to convert back to action at a moment’s notice.

This article was published in the July/August 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Contributing Admirals: Ellen Sanpere, CAYENNE III; Sheri Schneider, PROCYON; Daria Blackwell, ALERIA; Dottie Wright, HAHALUA; Colleen Wilson, MOKISHA; Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI; Pam Wall, KANDARIK.

Photos: Thanks to Ellen Sanpere, CAYENNE III; Lisa Schofield Lady Galadriel.

Thus, as easy and wonderful as the making of friendships is with other cruisers, it’s a sad thing if it begins to edge out the inclination and opportunity to build friendships with local people.

Unfortunately, many cruisers do opt to hang back in the comfort zone of cruiser circles. They rationalize such self-limiting behavior as not wanting to be intrusive or as wariness about the security of their floating personal space. I know because I myself struggled with these feelings.

But when you see other cruisers invited on spearfishing trips with local fisherman, on long guided hikes to secret waterfalls, or included in unique family celebrations like Sunday dinner, holidays, festivals and weddings, you have to ask yourself, do these folks have some special knack for bridging those invisible boundaries between strangers, or do I need to change my thinking?

After surveying the Admirals – several of whom particularly seem fall into that special-knack category – what it really comes down to is a combination of opportunity, attitude, openness, and effort.

Cruisers successful at forging bonds with locals spend less time traveling in a pack and more time exploring out-of-the-way anchorages on their own.

Instead of a string of touch-and-go stops, they also invest more time in one place or make a point to return. This gives locals the chance to view cruisers less as tourists and more as real people.

These cruisers also seek out common ground, whether that’s a shared interest or a complementary one, where one party has the curiosity and the other party the information. For example, local foodstuffs and the recipes and cooking techniques for them make a simple common ground for conversation; likewise problems to be solved and broken equipment, whether it’s yours aboard the boat or their’s ashore.

Cruisers successful at forging bonds with locals give, rather than ask; listen rather than tell, respect rather than judge.

Yvonne of AUSTRALIA 31 watching dominoes on a street corner

Two of my Admirals stand out as such have-the-knack people: Judy of URSA MINOR, whom I’ve known for years, and Aussie Yvonne of AUSTRALIA 31, the avid birdwatcher, who was one of my original Admirals.

When Judy and I worked together in the Virgin Islands years ago, I thought her a model of international relations. Not only did she have exotic stories from her years doing legal aid in Micronesia or adventuring in the South Pacific as pickup crew on a tiny sailboat, but even in the Virgins, with its dual Anglo and West Indian cultures, Judy moved between cultures unselfconsciously. Her secret, as I determined it, was that she paid attention to what was going on, whether it was the news, local politics, or community dynamics, and plunged right in.

Recently, Judy and Bryan passed through a Fijian village in which she’d spent two weeks over 30 years ago. On that occasion she’d met, while scrubbing clothes in the river with the local women, a precocious 12-year-old named Esita who shared Judy’s passion for world news and politics. In the same stop, Judy befriended the chief’s teenage son who’d taken her hiking to a waterfall.

Both these individuals were still there, remembered her well, and were thrilled to reunite. “Had our time in that village been the usual 1-3 days cruisers typically devote to small places, I doubt either would’ve remembered me, but the combination of the time we spent and our eagerness to share life as they lived it, made us memorable among the yachts that have visited since.”

30 years later: Bryan with Esita and her family onboard. Judy with Tevita (David) the chief’s son.

Yvonne also has the knack. “What Yvonne does is very un-North American,” her husband Bernie relates.

“She invites locals aboard first thing – even the canoes that come alongside. If we cannot speak the language, she shows them photos instead, shares a few raisins or something sweet they have never seen, and ends up with mates for life. Her greatest invite was 35 pygmies from Guyana down below to watch a movie; then we spent a month with them!”

Yvonne and Bernie’s approach demonstrates that they consider themselves equals, are prepared to enjoy what the locals enjoy and “don’t pretend to be superior or on a boat locals shouldn’t see.”

Daria Blackwell, a new Admiral currently cruising Ireland aboard their Bowman 57 ALERIA, says in Ireland, “When you walk in the door of a pub, conversation stops while people size you up. But if you say hello, shake hands and look them in the eye, they’ll stare deep into your soul to quickly size you up, and, if they like what they see, they’ll take you in in a flash.”

Personally, I think Daria’s strategy is appropriate for any place you might stop. Key is the respect the steady look conveys and also the ability – no, the effort you have made – to say that hello in the local language. Sure, it’s easiest if English is a common language, as it was for Daria in Ireland or Bev of CLOVERLEAF in Israel. But even when it’s not, dust off that school French or Spanish (with a little help from Kathy Parsons’ “For Cruisers” language books!) or script out some greetings in the local vernacular extracted from your cruising or travel guides. Such small efforts translate to a giant step forward.

And speaking of planning ahead, when Marcie of NINE OF CUPS and her husband David prepared to head for such out of the way places as Tristan da Cunha and St. Helena in the South Atlantic, and Juan Fernandez, Easter Island and Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific, Marcie searched the internet in advance to find contacts in each of those places. “I simply asked if we could bring any supplies or needed items with us. Establishing an email relationship in advance ensured that someone knew we were coming and would perhaps be our hosts when we arrived. In every case, we had a welcoming committee waiting for us and experienced some memorable hospitality and generosity.”

Although I personally believe that expecting the best from people will get you the best in return, obviously we cannot afford to be blithely naïve. “Places where there are lots of cruising boats and cruise ships are not the best places to expect a genuine relationship to come easily,” observes Kathleen of RENAISSANCE. There are exceptions, as Kathleen was quick to point out, like Trinidad, where cruisers clearly represent a revenue opportunity – indeed one deliberately cultivated by local businesses – yet where genuine warmth flourishes.

But unfortunately, in places where tourism has boomed in the face of local poverty, crime becomes more likely and the ground often too hard for the seeds of friendship . “We’ve shied away from locals in places where the people we came across were aggressive in attitude,” says Daria.

But all in all, friendships made with local people are as varied as those we make with other cruisers. Some may result in intense closeness and end when we move on, while others will stay alive indefinitely whether by mail, Christmas cards, or, in this new era, by email and Facebook!

“After 17 years, Yvonne collected 743 email addresses in her contact list,” says Bernie. “When word got around she was ill, 450 of these made contact, some after a nine year break.”

That tells us a lot about the power of such friendships, doesn’t it? …And of the people who master “the knack”!

Photos: Thanks to Bernie & Yvonne Katchnor, AUSTRALIA 31; Judy Knape, URSA MINOR; Daria Blackwell, ALERIA.

Contributing Admirals: Judy Knape, URSA MINOR; Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI; Bernie & Yvonne Katchnor, AUSTRALIA 31; Marcie Lynn, NINE OF CUPS; Kathleen Watt, RENAISSANCE; Daria Blackwell, ALERIA; Sylvie Branton, mv ALBATROS; Bev Feiges, mv CLOVERLEAF.

This article was published in the April 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles on this website

• Cruising Friendships, Part One (Admiral’s Angle column #55): Cruising friendships grow quickly from the lifestyle’s many meeting opportunities.
• Cruising Friendships, Part Two – Keeping Track! (Admiral’s Angle column #56): Strategies and incentives for keeping connected with cruising friends when way diverge.
• Language for Cruisers (Admiral’s Angle column #36): Small efforts in language reap big rewards in experience and open all kinds of doors in the places we want to visit.
• Cruisers Give Back (Admiral’s Angle column #26): Cruisers find ways to give back to the people and places they visit
• Traveler vs. Tourist, by Brittany Stephen-Meyers

On the one hand there is the memory game of sorting out and remembering all the folks you just met at a potluck, while on the other is the challenge of staying connected to the ones you’ve become close to when ways part.

Gone are the usual criteria by which we customarily organize acquaintances: their address, phone number, workplace,… their LAST NAME!

Instead we must learn to think of them by first names, boat names, boat type, homeport, radio call signs and – the most amorphous of criteria – their planned itinerary. Itinerary matters, because we cruisers do factor into the investment of attention we’re willing to give a new friendship the likelihood of our seeing them again.

The most important tool you have for remembering the people you meet (and being remembered by them!) is the boat card, promptly exchanged. You can have some fun in designing these, however, you need to give careful consideration to the information you want to put on it, depending on what you want to put out there for the world to see.

Commonly you will see any or all of the following: Boat name, crew names, hailing port, call sign(s), radio email address, DSC number (for digital selection calling via the VHF), land email address, mailing address, and boating associations belonged to. If you have a captain’s license and hope to do deliveries, you might put that on. Likewise if you have skill as a mechanic, seamstress, sailmaker, rigger or any cruising-related profession you want to market to other cruisers (don’t forget computer sorter-outer), you might want to include that! Finally, a picture of the boat or you is really helpful for people like me. Yes, all that on a 2”x3.5” card!

Some cruisers are private or cautious (or both) about sharing personal data, while others are more forward. One thing you want to be careful about spreading around is your radio email address, which you want to guard against getting on bulk mailing or spam lists.

On the other hand your email address is the best way for you to keep connected. A solution may be to have two cards, one with more info and with less. Either way, consider that you probably don’t want to print off a thousand glossy cards when first starting out, because information you want to share may change. Onboard printers and standard-size Avery card stock is a good compromise.

Other strategies for learning new names in an anchorage are to keep a list by the companionway that you add to daily or to enter names or paste boat cards into your log (or guest) book with pertinent notes about how you met. Many cruisers snap digital photos to aid their memories. The logbook option works well for Lisa of LADY GALADRIEL, because, like many people, “Associating where and what was happening when I met someone really helps me remember them.”

No matter how strong the connection you’ve just made with someone, chances are you’ll go in opposite directions sooner or later. It’s important not to take this personally. Cruisers are an independent breed, and part of the joy of cruising is the ability to peel off on your own whenever you wish and rejoin the crowd somewhere else.

This is why, in the era of satellite phones, so many cruisers feel so strongly about the value of having an HF (SSB/Ham) radio on board. “A satellite phone can connect you to the outside world,” says Kathy of HALE KAI, “but an HF radio connects you to your community.” At $1 a minute, cruisers don’t sit around chatting with each other on their Iridium phones.

Given that, another good place to keep a list of names handy is with your radio log.

“The regional radio nets are a great way to stay connected to cruising friends,” adds Lisa, who has been an active net controller in several cruising grounds. “The morning check-in lets you track where people are and the contact section lets you arrange your next rendezvous. You even absorb information about people you haven’t yet met.”

The regional nets aren’t the only way to use radio. Often, especially on passages, friends wanting to keep in closer touch setup a regular radio schedule on an agreed upon frequency. As your friendship group expands, so does the mini-net.

When distances grow greater, email steps into the breach. When both boats have onboard email capability, this enables quick communication. If one boat or both rely on land internet, however, connecting by email contact becomes less spontaneous.

There comes a threshold of time and distance where even personal emails drop off, yet you still don’t want to lose touch. Newsletters, composed and sent to a list of friends (often at Christmas), are a common answer to this urge. Newsletters sum up the salient points of recent travels so that recipients can act on them if relevant to their own voyage. Websites and blogs really don’t do this as well between cruisers as they do between you and people back home for the simple reason that most cruisers don’t have enough Internet access to follow them.

Facebook, on the other hand, does it very well, and cruisers have quickly flocked to the social networking machine. Facebook’s brief posts and easy uploading for photographs work great at keeping the embers of friendship updated and glowing across gaps of time and distance, plus, of course, Facebook makes it easy to find lost friends wherever they may be in the world. “Through Facebook the last couple of years,” recounts Marcie of NINE OF CUPS, “I’ve reconnected with cruisers I met years ago that I’d lost contact with. It was such a gift to reconnect with those people that I share wonderful memories with.”

Likewise Skype was adopted by cruisers well before the mainstream, and it is the ultimate in keeping connected across great distances. Whether computer-to-computer (free) or computer-to-phone (a very small charge), Skype has returned the intimacy of a voice call (not to mention video face-to-face time) to cruisers’ lives. I am regularly in touch with friends in Bahamas, Mexico, Fiji and Australia.

Why go to all this trouble to sustain so seemingly intangible a network of connections? Lorraine of TWIST OF FATE spoke for all the Admirals when she said, “The thrill of running into cruising friends again, even years later, even ashore, is wonderful. We catch up and reestablish that same closeness again easily, as if no time at all has passed.”

And thank God for that! In the past year alone we have had no fewer than a dozen good cruising friends stop by here in Florida for a visit – from the Virgin Islands, New Zealand, Alabama, Washington State, Colombia, Fiji, and California, among others.

“I see my cruising connections as giving me a lifetime of places to visit and/or compatible people to travel with,” says Kathy of HALE KAI, who’s pretty much ready to travel anywhere, anytime, with or without the boat. “Even if I can’t always stay with friends, at least I always have people to meet up with and locals to advise me on the best things to do there. I don’t have to feel like a stranger in a strange land.”

I think, again, this is so, because cruising friends GET IT. They know and never forget all of those shared experiences – the shared destinations, activities, projects, weather and, of course, adversities so unique to cruising – as well as the urge for exploration that drove us to have those cruising experiences in the first place.

Photos: Thanks to Kathy Parsons, Hale Kai

Contributing Admirals: Lisa Schofield, LADY GALADRIEL; Mary Heckrotte, CAMRYKA; Marcie Lynn, NINE OF CUPS; Jane Kilburn, LIONHEART; Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI; Debbie Leisure, ILLUSIONS; Ellen Sanpere, CAYENNE III; Lorraine Bramble, TWIST OF FATE; Sylvie Branton, ALBATROS.

This article was published in the March 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles on this website

• Cruising Friendships, Part One (Admiral’s Angle column #55): Cruising friendships grow quickly from the lifestyle’s many meeting opportunities.
• The Knack of Befriending Locals (Admiral’s Angle column #57): What’s behind the knack of forging successful bonds with local peoples in the places we visit.
• Logs and Blogs (Admiral’s Angle column #37):The tradition of recording voyage experiences doesn’t just preserve memories but encourages others to follow.
• Staying in Touch (Admiral’s Angle column #14): Out of sight of land no longer means out of touch: the ways and means cruisers stay in touch with each other and back home.

There’s a camp song that goes, “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” If there’s treasure to be found in cruising, most would agree it’s the friendships we make.

To someone still dockside, about to desert land-based friendships built over many years, the finding, making, and maintaining of worthwhile friendships while wandering the world’s oceans must seem a bewildering prospect.

Not only does it happen, but many of us might reverse the rhyme. In the cruising world, it’s the new friendships that have both the sparkle and durability of gold, while old ones risk tarnish.

But let’s be fair to old friends. Unless they’re sailors, or at least travelers, themselves, they won’t get it. Not right off. You’re putting on hold or giving up entirely the very stuff by which they define their lives, and that’s shocking to them.

Email updates and blog posts are ways to tune them in to your new lifestyle, and friends may even feel that they’re riding along! You can even look ahead to destinations and plan a rendezvous, perhaps based at a resort. Fun visits bring the experience alive so much better than pictures … though they’re likely to forever view cruising as extended vacation!

The thing about new cruising friends is that they do GET IT, and they GET IT instantly. Shared destinations, shared activities, shared projects, shared weather and, of course, shared adversity lay immediate foundations. You always have something to talk about, and you have it before you even exchange names or homeports!

“On land, you take time and warm up to relationships,” says Marcie of NINE OF CUPS. “When cruising we tend to evaluate people quickly. We either like them or we don’t after a first meeting. If you like them, you pursue the relationship, because you never know when one boat or the other will leave.”

Mary of CAMRYKA calls it “meeting mode.” “Cruising women in particular are eager to make new friends, so it’s easy to encounter a total stranger and within minutes bypass all the normal game-playing and zoom right in. We watch for that ‘click’ – that something – that lets us know we like this person or we don’t. If we don’t, nothing lost. If we do, everything gained.”

That said, not all encounters result in the same kind of friendships. Some are intense closeness for a single event and gone, seemingly with the wind, the next day when courses diverge. Oddly, others are like seeds that grow and bear fruit later.

“Some people we met cruising we didn’t really get to know too well at the time,” says Jane of LIONHEART. “Lots of reasons. Usually too many other people around. Now those people are visiting as they pass through our homeport (Mooloolaba, Australia), and we’re finding we have so much more in common and didn’t know it! Cruising friendships just keep giving.”

The meeting opportunities

I asked the Admirals to get specific about some of the “meeting opportunities” that have worked best for them. They flooded me with terrific stories of friendships made: the how, the where, and the why.

Sometimes it’s chance happenstance, an opportune encounter to explore the same place at the same time, like the car and hotel overnight in Fiji we shared with Kathy and Dave of SUNFLOWER, before they sailed on.

Traveling the same route – like the ICW – or buddy boating (traveling in tandem) almost always builds a strong connection, whether it lasts for one leg only or stretches into months. Other times it’s as simple as flying the same flag in a foreign land or celebrating abroad a holiday like Thanksgiving or Super Bowl Sunday.

Adversity is another catalyst. Be it a serious emergency or merely a mechanical puzzler, cruisers stand ready to help cruisers. “It doesn’t matter if they know you or not,” attests Debbie of ILLUSIONS, “if you have a need, cruisers are there to help. I’ve regularly seen cruisers work hours on others’ boats, provide parts and advice, boat sit, provide transportation, or deliver parts. I once had a guy take a sail down off his boat and loan it to me when I destroyed mine and had engine failure. I had total strangers provide medical assistance in an emergency. Those people all became friends.”

Everyone loves to share what they know, and everyone out there has something to learn, as when Dennis & Lisa of LADY GALADRIEL taught us about underwater hunting (and cribbage!) in the Sea of Cortez, or I coached Lynn of WIND PONY on her scuba diving, or Kathy Parsons set me on the path to learning Spanish.

There’s an equal inclination to combine resources toward a shared outcome: like filling tanks to enable a group dive, merging copious watermaker output and a washing machine for a joint laundry day, or ransacking lockers to flesh out a spontaneous dinner party.

And all that never-ending talk about pumps, filters, batteries and refrigeration by the men? It also brings their women together to talk about provisioning options, destination recommendations, radio nets, and fish recipes.

“Even weeks stuck in a marina or boat yard become special because of the social aspect,” points out Lorraine of TWIST OF FATE.

Opportunities abound, from as coincidental an encounter as being docked side-by-side and chatting over lifelines to sharing laundry rooms. (“I’ve encountered women in a marina laundry and before the spin cycle learned all about their hopes, fears and dreams and likes, skills and relationships,” says Mary of CAMRYKA.)

A shared excursion into town by bus, taxi or rental car can be very bonding whether for provisioning, hunting for parts, or sightseeing. And marinas, boatyards and those special cruiser nodes (like the Bahamas’ Georgetown, Trinidad or Fiji’s Musket Cove) create spaces for yachtie gatherings like cocktail parties, game nights, swap meets, and potlucks.

Still, it’s hard to beat friendships launched in a shared anchorage.

“In an anchorage,” says Kathy of HALE KAI, “it’s perfectly appropriate to dinghy up to a boat to introduce yourself, ask questions about the area or offer info to new arrivals. Perhaps you have fish to share, books to swap, or hot news from the radio to impart. There’s no end to simple rationales for stopping by.”

When someone does dinghy by, “Invite them aboard for tea or coffee in the cockpit,” says Sylvie of ALBATROS, remembering how she and Kathy first met in Trinidad’s Scotland Bay. “It’s an easy, low-cost no-strings-attached way to give friendship a start.”

Sundowners, of course, are the most traditional of cruiser gatherings, usually between two or three boats. (In different areas you’ll find different protocols for whether the host provides the drinks and hors d’oeuvres or whether it’s BYO. Feel your way!) Be prepared to make an evening of it as intense connections can spontaneously combust!

For larger groups, dinghy raft-ups make great impromptu sundowner platforms. In the Caribbean, we used to host “noodle parties,” allowing us to invite everybody in an anchorage to BYOB and bob behind the boat on flotation aids of choice – a great way to cool down for the evening.

But it doesn’t take a crowd. For making lasting friendships, one-on-one is often best.

My favorite tale comes from Jane. “One lovely couple we met in the remote Lau Group had a brew kit on board but little water. With our watermaker we had tons to spare. So we had a brewing day! A team keg and a wonderful friendship flourished. We spent two weeks exploring together whilst our beer baby brewed. Frankly, the more crowded an anchorage was, the more we stayed to ourselves or hung out with people we already knew.”

Next month, we’ll examine how cruisers keep track of so many roving friends……

Photos: Thanks to Kathy Parsons, Hale Kai

Contributing Admirals:  Mary Heckrotte, Camryka; Marcie Lynn, Nine of Cups; Jane Kilburn, Lionheart; Kathy Parsons, Hale Kai; Debbie Leisure, Illusions; Ellen Sanpere, Cayenne III; Lorraine Bramble, Twist of Fate; Sylvie Branton, Albatros

This article was published in the February 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles on this website

• Cruising Friendships, Part Two – Keeping Track! (Admiral’s Angle column #56): Strategies and incentives for keeping connected with cruising friends when way diverge.
• The Knack of Befriending Locals (Admiral’s Angle column #57):
  What’s behind the knack of forging successful bonds with local peoples in the places we visit.
• Guests Aboard (Admiral’s Angle column #40): Some counsel about managing visits and visitors to enhance their experience and maintain crew sanity.
• Staying in Touch (Admiral’s Angle column #14): Out of sight of land no longer means out of touch: the ways and means cruisers stay in touch with each other and back home.

They welcome us home; they watch out for intruders; they calm us with a wag, a purr or a squawk. They turn us outward when we are feeling inward, warm our hearts with their devotion, and make us laugh with entertaining foolishnesses. They do all this – and they will do it all whether on land or afloat – in simple exchange for our commitment to take care of them.

Taking care of pets is a responsibility that comes with many obligations. We must provide food and water, exercise, and pooping opportunities. We must maintain check-ups, grooming, and flea and heart worm treatments, and get licenses, ID chips, and vaccinations. For pet-lovers, these obligations are a fair trade for all we receive in return.

Taking pets cruising, however, can seriously complicate the equation, and, whether you’re a pet person or not, the topic is controversial. Is it fair to the animal? Can they get enough exercise? Are they exposed to exotic diseases or parasites, and how will they fare in rough weather? What will you do with your pet if you want to travel inland or fly home? Are you willing to give up going to certain countries altogether, or will you be so restricted in what you can do that it may not be worth going?

• Quite a few cruisers set out with family pets, unable to imagine leaving them behind. Others adopt pets along the way, often rescued animals.

Success depends on finding ways to adapt to the complications: training dogs to relieve themselves on the foredeck or on a pad, keeping to countries whose rules are less strict, making friends with other animal lovers – on boats or ashore—who will pet-sit while owners travel away from the boat.

For these cruisers the company of their loved pet is worth the restrictions and hassles.

• Other cruisers try it before concluding that things aren’t working out – sometimes from the pet’s point of view, sometimes from the owner’s. If a dog, for example, doesn’t like being left behind on the boat when its owners go ashore – and barks and howls, or jumps overboard to follow – then it’s not working out for the dog. If the red tape from less pet-friendly countries becomes too burdensome or expensive, then it’s not working out for the owners. In either case, there often comes a point when pets are sent home to family members.

• In the most successful stories pets came aboard at a young age and are trained to boat behavior and manners right from the start.

Mature pets, previously used to a house and back yard, have a harder adjustment.

Cats, my cat-owning Admirals report, are relatively easy to accommodate. Kathy M of Po Oino Roa has two, who came aboard as kittens and have traveled with them from Mexico to Thailand, “Most of the work involved is vacuuming hair and cleaning the litter box.”

But cats also don’t always love motion, and may, like Cayenne III’s condo cat Shade, hide themselves away when they anticipate the boat moving, making it hard to be sure they’re onboard.

Ellen’s other cat, Ebony, was prone to seasickness until Ellen learned to restrain him in the cockpit for the first hours. Both cats wore lightweight harnesses to aid in “Cat Overboard” drills. “It was a big event whenever Tony had to fish one of them out of the water with a boathook to the harness.”

It’s hard, too, to persuade cats of the need to stay aboard in marinas, particularly an issue in countries strict about keeping pets onboard (most notably, currently or formerly British territories.) At anchor, though, cats are nearly ideal boat pets…provided a braided rope or strip of carpet is left hanging off the stern for self-rescue.

Dogs, on the other hand, are usually up for any adventure that includes wind in their faces, people to meet, and going anywhere you go.

“Our 10-year-old black lab Pepper was aboard when we first left,” recalls Sheri of Procyon. “As soon as we arrived in a new anchorage, Pepper started making friends. She was a wonderful way for us to meet children in a village as she attracted them the moment we landed. You’d think they’d be afraid of this big black dog, but, no, she just put off this happy wave, so everyone knew she wanted to make friends.”

Unfortunately, dogs’ toilet habits are harder to accommodate than cats’. Some dogs can be persuaded to go on deck, often with a piece of Astroturf or carpet that can then be dragged over the side to clean. However, it’s not unusual for mature, reliably house-trained dogs to resist assimilating the new routine… even when the captain demonstrates its acceptability!

“Pepper never did feel comfortable relieving herself on the boat,” says Sheri. “On one trip to the Bahamas she held it for over 60 hours. I was a wreck worrying about her.”

This relegates dog owners to making two to three trips a day to shore and limits passage lengths. In the early days of her cruising, Kathy Parsons and her then husband tried sailing the coast of Maine with Rasta, their rather large dog.

“Sometimes it wasn’t safe getting ashore with him. I remember hanging to slippery rocks on a rainy, choppy night only to have him bound back to the dinghy bearing a decaying seagull in his mouth.”

Of course, in addition to calls of nature, dogs like going ashore for exercise. In countries where pets are supposed to be confined aboard, a dog’s desire to go ashore means shore trips are illegal as well as inconvenient!

There’s more red tape, too, when you sail to other countries. Some require a bond on your animal, restrict you from coming into a marina, and charge hefty fees for onboard inspections.

“There are also the issues of buying and stowing pet food and cat litter, which is not so easily available out there,” reports Marcie of Nine of Cups who sailed for nine years to South America with ship’s cat Jelly. “Finding a local vet for shots, check-ups and obtaining the annual International Health Certificate is a challenge in places where pets aren’t so cherished.”

“Are you informed enough to treat your pet if you’re in an area where there’s no vet?” asks Sheri. “Are you willing to put your pet down if need be? It is an awful thought but one you must consider if you’re by yourselves and something horrible happens.”

All these are heavy issues indeed, and owners come to different conclusions.

Ellen lost her cat Ebony to a couple of marina pit bulls. Sheri laid Pepper to rest in Belize. Kathy P flew to a mainland vet from Roatan with a sick cat, but he died during the flight. And Marcie eventually shipped Jelly home to her mother when she and David turned their course toward the red tape-strewn Pacific.

Still, for some the rewards can be worth all the hassle. “Yes it is more work having them but worth it to us,” says Kathy M.

“Perhaps because we were with her all the time and not off working, we developed a relationship with Jelly we’d never had with any of our other animals,” sighs Marcie.

And six years after saying goodbye to Pepper, Sheri shares, “We really miss having a dog. It’s one of the reasons we’re planning to stop cruising next year.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++Lucy! Get your paw off my keyboard!

Photos: Thanks to Marcie Lynn, Nine of Cups; Suzanne Giesemann, Liberty; Ellen Sanpere, Cayenne III;

Contributing Admirals: Marcie Lynn, Nine of Cups; Sheri Schneider, PROCYON; Kathy Parsons, Hale Kai; Debbie Leisure, Illusions; Ellen Sanpere, Cayenne III; Lorraine Bramble, Twist of Fate;  Kathy McGraw, PO OINO ROA;

This article was published in the January 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Some resources to help you decide about cruising with pets:

• Cruising With Your Four-Footed Friends: The Basics of Travel with Your Cat or Dogby Diana Jessie;
• Captain Doctor Dave’s Wilderness Veterinary Companion for Cruisers and Other Outbackers by Captain Dr. Dave LaVigne;
• On Suzanne Giesemann’s website: Rudy the Sailing Weiner Dog.

It’s hard not to ask yourself in such a moment if chartering those major destinations might be an easier way. In Raiatea we met a couple doing just that.  Having bought a boat in the Moorings ownership program, they were entitled to twelve charter weeks a year at nearly thirty destinations!  And so they had been jumping from the Caribbean, to the Med, to the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific!

If sailing popular island groups is your sole goal, then by all means, consider this option. But it is not the same as cruising. Instead of those twelve weeks, we’d had 52, and while they’d had a week or two to enjoy the lovely Society Islands, we’d had four months plus time in the Tuamotus and the Marquesas. Then, instead of leapfrogging from there to Tonga (another Moorings base), we’d had the wonderful experience of remote Suwarrow atoll and the Samoas as well.

Yes, we’d had long passages in between, but that’s a proud part of sailing the Pacific.  Yes, we’d had maintenance to do ourselves, but that’s the proud part of being self-sufficient.  And yes, our boat was older and more worn than the shiny look-alikes from the charter companies, but she also was better equipped, had more character and comfort, and for sure had a more complete larder and galley than any rental! In short, she was home.

Debbie of Illusions puts it succinctly, “Chartering is a vacation, cruising is a lifestyle.”

Still, chartering plays a role in the careers of many a cruiser.

In 1989, Shelly & Randy Tucker chartered with Gwen Hamlin on s/v WHISPER. 8 years later, they bought their own charterboat, THREE MOONS, and …they are still in the yacht charter business! .

It was a charter in the Virgin Islands that revealed to me a whole world and lifestyle I’d never imagined from a New York City apartment!  That charter quite simply changed my life.

Chartering is also often a step for sailors who’ve made the decision to go cruising but are trying to choose a boat.  Do they prefer the handling of a fin-, three-quarter or full-keeled monohull? Do they want a center or aft cockpit? Do they want to check out the plusses and minuses of a catamaran?  Chartering can be a great way to experience different kinds of boats in real conditions before you spend the big bucks.

Some cruisers use chartering as a means of finding out where they want to go with their own boat.  “Bareboating has definitely had a place in our lives even since we bought our IP35 in 2000,” says Lorraine of  Twist of Fate.  “It was a bareboat trip in Greece in 2002 that convinced us we wanted to take our boat to the Med.”

Of course, a charter can also tell you where you don’t want to go and save you much time, money and/or sea miles.

Ellen Sanpere cruising France’s canals on a charter boat.

“We’d been giving some thought to buying a canal boat to spend 4-5 years doing Europe’s canals,” says Ellen of Cayenne III, who recently shared a charter in France with two friends. “It was a great trip … so many priceless experiences,  but because I also realized the time, money and energy I would have to invest plus the frustrations of France one would have to put up with, I don’t see us pursuing the idea after all.”

The unlikelihood of doing certain areas in your own boat motivates a lot of active cruisers to plan charters away from their own boats.  For example the French canals, with their mast and draft issues, puts chartering a canal boat on the “To Do List” of many.  Similarly, it’s why Lorraine and her husband left Twist of Fate in the Med to do bareboat trips in faraway New Zealand and Thailand. “We love our boat, but realistically, we can’t have it everywhere at the same time. So, when a new urge comes up, we charter.”

Finally, when cruisers end their voyage – whether temporarily for family or work or because full-timing has become too much – chartering is a way to keep in touch with the lifestyle.  Don’s and my recent 10-day charter to British Columbia in tandem with former cruising buddies was such a trip.

There are many different ways to charter a boat. Most people think first of bareboating. Essentially the marine version of a rental car, you choose an area and rent the boat for however long you want, drive it yourself, and return it, hopefully in the same condition you got it.  This is suitable for those with enough experience to ensure the “returning it” part!  If, however, doubts about ability remain after the orientation, most bareboat companies will make available (or possibly require) taking a skipper for a few days or the whole week.

A Moorings bareboat charter fleet in the Caribbean

Less well-known are various crewed charter options.  Found in most major cruising destinations, these yachts come staffed by professional crews, often owner-operators, who oversee the sailing, navigation, cooking and maintenance worries for you.

If you want to charter a crewed yacht in the Virgin Islands, you can contact the Virgin Islands Charter Yacht League

Often operated independently, they are booked through specialized charter yacht brokers, (whose ads can be found in most sailing magazines or online) who strive to match you with the right boat/crew. Other crewed yachts are managed as a separate sub-fleet of the big bareboat companies.

Crewed yachts are more individual and better equipped than bareboats, and the captain/crew usually bring many years of local knowledge.  Crewed yachts are not just chosen by inexperienced sailors, but by experienced ones wanting to check out a particular boat, take advantage of a particular crews’ expertise, or enjoy a vacation free of responsibility.

Yet another charter option is flotilla sails organized by yacht clubs, sailing magazines, or sometimes by the charter company itself.  Here you can book a boat or a cabin aboard a boat, and enjoy, as Sunsail advertises, the reassurance of a flotilla leader and of “being part of a like-minded group of sailors.”

SEABISCUIT, the snazzy Saga 40 cruiser we chartered in Canada

Though most of us know the big names in international charter companies, there are many regionally-based companies, easily found online by Googling “charter” plus the area of your choice.

While the big companies have fleets selected from several standard product lines and painted and outfitted to match, regionally-based companies may manage a fleet of atypical boats placed in charter for a time by their owners, such as the snazzy Saga 40 cruiser we chartered in Canada.

The advantages of chartering are picking your destination and arriving to a boat, provisioned, equipped and ready to go.  You get briefings on the cruising grounds – complete with tips for good anchorages, restaurants, local sights or events – and someone to call for help when something breaks down. When the charter is over, you walk away.

Disadvantages, however, are that much time in an expensive week is spent learning boat systems, trying to fix whatever doesn’t work, or waiting out weather.

The stuff isn’t what you are used to.

Provisioning, cooking gear, and bedding are rarely what you’re used to, so everything feels makeshift and temporary.  You party, eat, sleep and rush around trying to see as much as you can, but you rarely have enough time to learn an area’s details or find special places off the beaten path.

Finally, with rare exception, charterers have neither time nor opportunity enough to truly connect with the cruising community, which most of us feel is a chief treasure of the cruising experience.

So, clearly, charter fits at many stages of a cruiser’s career – before, during and after. Need help fantasizing? Jimmy Cornell’s new book World Cruising Destinations includes charter info for 184 cruising grounds!

Contributing Admirals: Marcie Lynn, Nine of Cups; Sheri Schneider, PROCYON; Kathy Parsons, Hale Kai; Debbie Leisure, Illusions; Ellen Sanpere, Cayenne III; Lorraine Bramble, Twist of Fate; Kathy McGraw, PO OINO ROA; Shelly Tucker, Three Moons.

This article was published in the December 2010 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

More information (external links)

• World Cruising Destinations, by Jimmy Cornell

“If only I’d known it could be done!”

I’d hear this exclamation from my husband every time he and I ran across a family cruising. We’d pull into an anchorage and there would be kids: kids paddling kayaks, kids fishing in the family dinghy, kids swinging Tarzan-like from halyards or whisker poles to drop screeching with glee into the water, and, my personal favorite, a diminutive Spiderman, in complete costume, 2/3rds the way up the roller-furler!

Later we might socialize with the family – on land excursions ashore, joint fishing or snorkeling outings, or evening gatherings on one boat or the other – and we’d hear about how home schooling shapes their days and, by the way, did we know any other boats in the area with kids aboard? Even as we would marvel at how much more complicated cruising with children sounded to us, we’d invariably find the kids to be engaging, articulate and at ease in the company of their elders or, alternatively, perfectly happy entertaining themselves and not hanging all over their parents.

And every time, Don (a single parent when he first got bit by the sailing bug) would shake his head in amazement and say it again, “If only I’d known it could be done!”

Because Don didn’t know, the best compromise he could manage between his dreams and his perceived obligations was to move from the mid-West to Florida and keep a boat in a marina during the school week, relegating sailing to weekends. It produced a divided life for him and his daughter, one where juggling the needs of an adult’s work and social life with the distractions of a teenager’s high-school years let them drift apart.

What if instead he had packed his daughter aboard and taken off to cruise, say, the Caribbean for a year?

I don’t think there is anyone, even those of us out there living the life, that doesn’t pause at the idea of taking one’s family cruising. We’re not talking a two-week vacation; we’re talking about adopting a whole different lifestyle for months or years at a time. For grownups and kids alike, going cruising involves a huge wrench from the fabric our previous lives – friends and family left behind; amenities like TV, telephones, and Internet abandoned; and conveniences like fast foods and frozen dinners swapped for local markets, the day’s catch, and baking from scratch.

So imagine making such a decision on behalf of your children as well as yourselves? There are only so many toys they can take, their bedroom may now just be a bunk, and they imagine they’ll never see best friends again. It’s an enormous commitment, and for parents it’s one fraught with all sorts of extra ramifications like home schooling, keeping children safe at sea, and the approval/disapproval of relatives left behind.

Yet it turns out that, for most that make the choice, the rewards far exceed the trials.

I don’t just say this based on my own observations. I say it based on the results of our most recent project on WomenandCruising.com: Twelve Questions to Twelve Sailing Families.

Our objectives with the project were to showcase families who have made the big break, to paint a picture of what the lifestyle change is really like, and to collect information that would be helpful to other families currently weighing the idea.

So, we posed a series of questions designed to look at their experience from start to finish. Most of the contributors we approached were currently or very recently cruising, but several looked back on voyages made ten or twenty years ago enabling them to report on how their children subsequently adjusted back to land life.

The result was a tremendous outpouring of effort from all corners of the cruising world.

Answers addressed the obstacles they had to surmount to get going; the “best” age to take children to sea; modifications made to the boat to make it safer and more comfortable for children; how they handle health, education, safety and entertainment issues; to the rewards they as a family are reaping. Generous photographs richly illustrate daily life, accompanying descriptions of typical days both at anchor and at sea.

Because each family is different – different boat, different starting place, different obstacles, different budget – their stories and opinions are also different. But they all come to the same conclusion – that the choice is replete with unmatchable rewards.

Chief among them, by all accounts, is the exceptional time together the lifestyle affords the family unit. Not merely are parents and children having an adventure together, but children are intimately and integrally involved in all the important day-to-day responsibilities from fundamental things like meal preparation and housekeeping duties, to more complex ones like maintenance, navigation and watch-keeping. Such shared objectives – once a major part of family life – seem all but extinct in the modern household!

Additionally, better eating habits, fresh air, natural exercise, fewer germs and less stress lead to better health for all aboard; experiences outside the everyday comfort zone produce curiosity, confidence and more open minds; and education is a joint effort, whether formally in the home-schooling process or more casually in what one parent calls “cruising’s endless teachable moments.”

It turns out that one of the major challenges is just getting started. On the one hand there is finding the right boat for one’s family: balancing seaworthiness and space with budget. Overall, the recommendation is to keep things simple, not just so that you don’t add burdensome maintenance to the parental juggling act, but mostly so that you can GO NOW rather than waiting to afford a fancier or bigger boat.

On the other hand, the nay-saying of family, friends, and society in general can often be the bigger hurdle families have to overcome. “Going cruising means flying against convention of the predictable paths in life,” says Behan Gifford, cruising with her husband and three children aboard sv Totem. “For many people, our desire to live like this instead of doing whatever it is we’re ‘supposed’ to do is just too much to comprehend.”

Perhaps one of the greatest rewards for us in completing this project is hearing the feedback the families themselves have been getting.

Those folks back home, the ones with greater or lesser reservations, suddenly are seeing brought to life on the webpage what the lifestyle is really like, that it is a good and enriching experience, and that the children are having a ball! Not only that, but they are realizing that the choice their loved ones made is not unique, that there are many other families out there doing the same thing.

Of course, the greatest reward for us will be hearing from families that this project helps to motivate, the ones who say, “If they can do it, so can we…especially now that we know IT CAN BE DONE.” Please treat yourself and go to 12 Questions to 12 Sailing Families. Afterwards, share your own experiences by writing into our Blog or befriending us on our WomenandCruising Facebook page.

Photos: Thanks to Pam Wall, KANDARIK.

This article was published in the November 2010 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles on this website

• 12 Questions to 12 sailing families
• Kids Aboard Resources
• 6 Tips for home-schooling sailors, by Nadine Slavinski
• Advice: If you want to see your children and grandchildren a lot, just go cruising!, by Coral Beach
• What does it cost to cruise as a family? One family’s first-year expenses, by Meri Faulkner
• A mom looks back on the decision to go cruising as a family, by Behan Gifford

To Do lists have two sorts of items on them: Must Do’s and Wish To Do’s. As the days tick down to departure, it’s easy to get your priorities confused, knowing deep down what you should be spending time and money on, but allowing yourself to get distracted by sexier items from the wish list.

Ken and his fiancé Margaret are in just this position.

They had been dreaming about cruising for years, when they stumbled on a deal to buy the boat of their dreams, a Voyage 44 catamaran that had been struck by lightning. It was a little sooner in the plan than they’d figured, so they’ve been commuting back and forth between North Carolina, where they’re prepping the boat, and Houston, where they’re trying to wrap up their shore-side lives.

Like many guys, Ken loves the challenge of fixing up his own boat and outfitting it with the equipment of his choice. Like many women, Margaret wants the boat to be a new home – particularly since enduring a household being dismantled. Like many new cruisers, they are both discovering that everything takes longer than they thought. Time is getting short.

There are two questions Ken and Margaret need to ask themselves if they want to leave on schedule:

• Does it all have to be done NOW?
• And WHAT really DOES have to be done now?

The answer to the first question is, no, it doesn’t all have to be done now.

Although many things benefit from being planned for, purchased and installed before you leave, the truth is there’s a lot you can get along without. Ask yourself if you can survive – really SURVIVE – without it. You can save lots of money and time by doing without your first season and learning what matters. If your cruising plan is seasonal, you can come home with a new To Do list and start earlier before your next departure. If you’re continuing onward, much of what you’ve decided you do need can be purchased “down island” or shipped in, and projects can be completed along the way.

But the answer to “What really DOES have to be done NOW?” is more complex, so, of course, we asked the Admirals.

Almost everything the Admirals came up with has to do with onboard systems that keep you safe. Note the key word “system.” Every piece of each system must be working right before you can truly rely on it.

● For sailors, right at the top is rigging.

A careful rig check from top to bottom can save you from mortifying disaster. Look under those spreader boots! You can be millimeters away from losing your rig through procrastination. If you aren’t confident, hire a professional. Ensure all turnbuckles (including the life-lines) have cotter pins and rings, and check all running rigging – halyards, sheets and reefing lines – for chafe. Replace what needs replacing, and refresh yourself on how they work! Have one or two spare lines for the furler, and, catamarans, check your nets and tramps! This a good time to be sure your deck jackline plan works so your harnesses and tethers won’t snag; you have bought all that, right?!

●  Check your sails for tears or slits, and replace cracked or missing sail slides and pins. It’s a lot easier to patch sails now in a loft, than later at sea, and it’s a huge disappointment to blow a sail out on your first passage. Make sure you have spare slides and sail tape and a sail sewing kit.

●  For powerboaters, engine systems clearly are number one, and they are pretty close to the top for sailors, too.

Service your engine and transmission, and be sure your fuel system is running cleanly by checking filters after taking the boat out and letting her roll around a bit. Spend for a good Racor prefilter system, single or (ideally) dual, with plenty of filters, and pack on enough oil for several complete oil changes. Also ensure your engine alarms are functioning.

Make sure your hoses are sound and are all double-clamped with stainless hose clamps and that the sea strainers on engine intakes reseat well after you check them. Check your fresh and saltwater pumps, and be sure to have either spares or rebuild kits, especially belts and impellers. Examine your stuffing boxes and shaft seals, and be sure the prop shaft itself can’t back out.

● When you look at your bilge, keep in mind you won’t be just coastal sailing anymore. Spend for a high-capacity automatic bilge pump (ideally two!) and make sure it works on both tacks and won’t siphon back. Then add a high-water alarm set only an inch or two above the normal bilgewater level… and plan to sleep a whole lot easier. Check that all your thru-hulls work, and tape or wire emergency bungs to fit them within reach.

● Some boats have simple electrical systems and some more complex. Sitting at the dock or day sailing gives you little idea if your batteries are really up to snuff. Even traveling down the waterway, you run the engine so regularly you likely don’t notice if your batteries are weak. But once you get to the islands and sit at anchor in warmer waters, filling your fridge daily with warm fish and beer… well, it’s not a good time to discover your batteries don’t have another year left in them.

Most traveling cruisers rely on battery monitor/chargers like the Link 2000 to provide the data they need to stay on top of their electrical requirements. If you rely solely on your alternator to charge your batteries, carry a back up alternator, plus be sure you have a good ohm meter, wire terminals and crimper in your tool kit.

And with those tools, be sure to go out and check all your running lights. Changing them all out for LEDs is a tempting upgrade, but just making sure they all work is more essential.

● Finally, you don’t want to short yourself on your anchoring system.

Instead of hundreds of dollars on fancy fenders and covers, invest in at least two good, proven anchors (and probably a third, stern anchor) – one (if not two) sizes larger than officially recommended for your size boat. Plus plenty of chain. All chain is the choice of most cruisers these days, and, unless the Bahamas are your sole destination, you should be prepared to anchor in deep water (40’+) at ratios of at least 5 or 7:1 in storm conditions. That’s a lot of chain. Think of yourself on the foredeck in a bad squall while choosing a windlass that will be strong enough to do the job and easy to operate; then don’t stint on the installation.

● Notice that almost all of these recommendations include some test to be done away from the dock. Sail away for a weekend at least, and see how your systems perform. And don’t wait to the last minute to do it. While you are out, check your autopilot under load, your depth sounder, and get radio checks from somewhere distant for your VHF and SSB. Cook with your stove, run your fridge and freezer, use your toilets, and clean your bottom. Life is not good if these don’t work right.

This is the stuff that should top your Must Do list for departure.

They don’t seem that sexy while tied to the dock, but once you are floating free – trust me – their importance will loom up. And, Margaret, nothing will make you feel more at home on your boat than faith in her essential systems.

Contributors: Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI; Karyn Ennor, MAGIC CARPET; Ellen Sanpere, CAYENNE III; Mary Heckrotte, CAMRYKA; Sheri Schneider, PROCYON; Bev Feiges, CLOVERLEAF; Ken Bujnoch & Margaret Henry, ROCKING B

Photos: Thanks to Mary Heckrotte, CAMRYKA; Sherry McCampbell, Soggy Paws (www.svsoggypaws.com); Ken Bujnoch & Margaret Henry, ROCKING B; Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI; Bev Feiges, CLOVERLEAF (feiges.blogspot.com).

This article was published in the October 2010 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles on this website

• The Engine Room (Admiral’s Angle column #22)
  What women need to know about their engine rooms and boat systems and why
• To Have or Have Not? (Admiral’s Angle column #31)
  Equipping your boat with an eye to striking a balance between simplicity and complexity