When a long passage looms, many cruisers begin thinking about whether or not to take on crew to help. What pops promptly into our heads are the shorter watches that having extra crew enables. How seductive that idea of lying abed for more than two hours at a stretch! Maybe, even… together?! Uh, huh! But like most great ideas, taking crew aboard your boat is an issue with many facets worth considering closely. And the same is true for those crewing.

Don and I weren’t the only ones crewing aboard boats in the Sail Indonesia Rally. There was the monohull with a gal who’d crewed for the owners several previous times in the Pacific (whom we’d first met in Fiji) – a happy situation. There was the catamaran with a whole second family aboard; were they guests or crew? There was the midlife-skippered trawler with a bevy of free-spirited babes; hmm? And there was the couple stuck with an indigent sailor they’d taken on back in Trinidad.

What does it mean to be “crew”?

The label applies to many different actual situations. Is “crew” anyone who is not the captain? Or does it include all aboard, working together as a team? Most cruisers use it both ways, even when talking about a vessel’s basic complement of husband and wife!

Maintenance

But on a cruising boat there are different niches a body can fill. I’ve seen paid crew, paying crew, passengers and guests, and from each is expected a different level of contribution, while, in turn, to each is owed a different level of accommodation. Not everybody, of course, gets what they expect, but everybody should go in with their eyes open to both the plusses and minuses.

For longer trips, the most common cruising crew situation seems to be a sharing scenario, where the crewpersons joining pay personal expenses, share food costs, and pitch in like family on everything that needs doing. In return they get an experience they would otherwise not be able to have. This was the basis for all three of Don’s and my crew situations in Indonesia.

There are many advantages to having spare hands along on a long trip. In addition to shorter and less frequent watches (meaning everyone gets more sleep), there’s the comfort of knowing that, should one of you become ill or injured, your partner won’t have to manage alone. There’s help on deck with sail changes, the downwind pole or spinnaker, getting anchors up or down or launching the dinghy. Likewise, basic chores like cooking, dishwashing and everyday maintenance can be shared.

Getting the anchor up

Plus, when it comes to troubleshooting in remote areas or out at sea, more heads are better than one. When the mainsheet traveler car on Quantum Leap snapped departing Timor, Don was able to help Tom devise a fix that served for six weeks. And should crew come with special skills (such as a gift with languages or Don’s watermaker tech background) – it can be quite an asset.

In addition to physical help, having crew can enhance the experience by bringing new perspectives, making shared experiences and conversations more fun and interactive, even pushing each other to do more, such as our presence on Quantum Leap motivating our hosts to get back into scuba diving. Plus, when in port making trips ashore, there’s someone extra to stay behind and watch the boat, as we did for Quantum Leap and Dedalus in Bali.

From the crewpersons’ point of view, the advantages are obvious.

From the crewpersons’ point of view, the advantages are obvious.

Quite simply you get to do something you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do – whether it is the sailing itself, the places you visit, or the experience of a certain kind of boat – without the investment in the boat yourself! And afterwards, as Don likes to say, when the boat goes to the yard, you go to the airport!

When you are new to cruising, crewing can be an unmatchable learning opportunity.

I was able to show the captain several functions he didn’t know about on his chartplotter

If you already have some miles under your belt, it feels great to get out there and contribute, to exercise skills and share what you know, even while getting the chance to learn how other people do things, use different equipment, or experience a very different kind of sailing. (Even as I learned about multihulls, I was able to show the captain several functions he didn’t know about on his chartplotter.)

Furthermore, as we discovered, meeting new people along the way can lead to more opportunities.

For crewing situations to work, both parties need to do their part, but also recognize what compromises have to be made.

Sharing a space as confined and personal as a cruising boat is not always going to be a bed of roses whether you are the share-er or the share-ee!

For the owners, the boat is not just a vessel but a home filled with personal possessions and defined by personal ways of doing things. Bringing outsiders into the mix not only halves personal space but exposes you to compromises over itinerary, menus, and activities. Practically speaking, the finite resources of the boat – sleeping and storage space, foodstuffs and water… even battery power – will become taxed, laundry and trash will double, and each person’s threshold of “shipshape” may well be different.

Sharing meals

Even when crew are known friends – but definitely when strangers – there can be issues of trust, which is, in the final analysis, the cost of those extra hours of shut-eye. Ivory Street’s captain was taken aback to come on watch and find his crew (before us) flying the spinnaker in winds well beyond when it should have come down. He couldn’t sleep the same afterwards.

Owners and crew may bump heads over the way everyday things are done, from anchoring to washing dishes. Owners may sometimes feel second-guessed, criticized or challenged, phenomena that become, ironically, more likely the more knowledgeable and experienced your crew is! From the crew’s point of view, you must bow to not doing things your way. Indeed, good crew strive to stay conscious at all times of keeping to their hosts’ standards and practices.

There are things both owners and crew can do to make the situation work for everyone.

Aim to match yourselves up by compatibility, shared interests, and complementary attitudes and styles

First, aim to match yourselves up by compatibility, shared interests, and complementary attitudes and styles.

As crew, be sure you are comfortable with the boat’s condition, systems and space as well as with the voyage’s planned schedule and pace before you sign on. Be sure your own schedule is open.

Then, the captain must act as captain, making clear from the outset the way things are done whether it’s reefing a sail, washing dishes or flushing toilets. You can’t expect crew to follow protocol if they don’t know what the protocols are. However, a captain must never take unfair advantage of crew nor forget who is ultimately responsible.

And speaking of responsibility, both parties need to remember that the skipper of a boat is liable for the health and welfare of all aboard and cannot simply put someone ashore when things don’t work out.

Skipper’s responsibilities: you bring them in, you have to get them out

For most countries, you bring them in, you have to get them out. In most situations, as in ours, this is a gentleman’s understanding.

However when South African friends took on their countryman in Trinidad, they understood he had his own means to contribute to provisioning, buy meals and clothes, pay for doctor visits and fly home when the time came. It did not turn out to be the case. They were stuck with him until they could repatriate him halfway around the world.

This article was published in the February 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles on this website

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• Single Women Sailing – Part 2 (Admiral’s Angle column #28)
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Lifestyles Aboard Three Big Boats

It has come as a bit of shock to Don and me that our style of cruising aboard Tackless II might rank as rather middle class these days. When I do Women and Cruising boat-show seminars and stand with Pam Wall and Kathy Parsons, Pam has always represented older-style, purist cruising, Kathy a middle ground, and I the relatively cushy, gadgety way.

But these days it seems there is an increasingly sizable “upper class” of cruising, folks who’ve sunk a lot of money into really nice boats, state-of-the-art equipment, and lots of little luxuries. I’m not talking about the mega-yacht circle, the ones with professional crews, but folks who are making the same course and weather decisions, pulling the same lines and changing the same oil as the rest of us, just doing so with more comfort and élan…and electric winches!

Being dropped in as guest crew aboard three different big boats in a rally like Sail Indonesia has given us an unusual opportunity to compare styles — snapshots though they may be. First was Quantum Leap — the 50′ St. Francis catamaran I wrote about last month — American flagged and sailed by Tom and Bette, retired medical professionals from “Sweet Home Alabama” (as Tom likes to say). Second was Dedalus a 60′ power cat, custom-built in Chile for George and Melinda, her Euro-based owners. And third was the elegant Australian-built 57′ Perry Prestige cat Ivory Street, home to Kiwis Greg, Christine and 12-year-old Michael.

Our being on three big catamarans was self-selected by being boats that had space for us (and owners willing to invite us!), but, of 104 boats in the rally, twenty-five were over 50′. That’s nearly 25%! Only twenty-two were under forty feet, and even three of those were cats and one a trawler.

I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t confess that when invited to sail aboard Quantum Leap, a boat we considered big and luxurious, we’d been giddily tickled. Who would’ve thought she’d be the smallest boat we’d sail on!?

Quantum Leap in Komodo

Tom and Bette, veterans of three boats and nearly 40 years of sailing together, bring a southern graciousness to their cruising style, always ready to help others with parts or medical counsel or to invite new acquaintances over for cocktails. The boat is attentively decorated with items collected in their lifetime of travel, and Bette provisions for the apocalypse. The galley is crammed full with microwave, Vitamix blender, Soda Stream, spices and condiments, a full line of pots and silicone bakeware, plus nice china, glassware and tableware. They mostly serve sit-down meals, preceded by a quick grace. They have a spinner, but — egad! — laundry is hand-washed in the tub.

Quantum Leap’s inside nav station

Technologically, they have a chartplotter at the helm, but separate radar and AIS units inside, alongside an SSB, Iridium and two computers for weather, back-up navigation, email and Skype with grandchildren.

However they’re notorious for failing to listen to SSB Nets or having their VHF loud enough to hear. They had paper charts aboard, but rarely referenced them, yet planned from both applicable cruising guides (such as they are!) and material from internet travel blogs by former rally participants.

Raymarine’s emergency MOB alert wristband

They were casual about logging and using jack lines, but rigorous about watch-persons wearing a Raymarine MOB alarm wristband.

Above-deck, Tom is quick to get sail up, set a downwind pole, or accept an anchoring spot, while Bette Lee counterbalances him with more reflection — Is there too much wind for the full main? Is the wind steady enough from that quarter for the pole? Will we get sufficient breeze if we drop the hook here?

While it is Tom who checks engines and makes water, it was Bette who went up the mast to fix a steaming light and who diagnoses electrical problems.

We were aboard Dedalus with her owners for only one day’s voyage but yacht-sat the boat for a week, so our observations are less personal but still insightful.

Dedalus at Gili Aer

With no previous sailing background, Melinda met George in the midst of his building Dedalus, so plunged into bringing herself up to speed. They imported a woman 1600 Ton captain from the US for the dual role of overseeing electronics installation and teaching Melinda in particular how to be a good mariner.

Melinda on watch

As a result, Melinda is exacting and by the book. Every gauge, dial, screen or data resource is at the inside steering station: on, interfaced and duplicated.

Meticulous logs are kept — current, tide and weather references monitored, cruising guides tabbed with post-its — every switch is labelled, and a separate instrument keeps a 24-hour anchor watch.

George & Melinda with their engine and windlass remotes

George is just as precise in his engine room maintenance, and he left us pages of detailed instructions on every system.

My most lasting image of the two of them will be their standing on the foredeck, heads down over remotes for windlass and engine, push-buttoning the anchoring process!

Dedalus‘s decor is all wood and Euro black leather, with Panamanian molas the only souvenirs in sight.

Melinda’s galley is sleek and all-electric (including a dishwasher!), a common situation on power yachts, although underway there’s enough motion to make cooking on the infrared cooktop without gimbals dicey. Everything has a customized place, eg china in fitted drawers, and the fridge, freezer and pantry hold just what they’ll need for their careful diet for the season.

There’s a washer and drier aboard…and in a den a big flat screen TV!

For the last leg of the rally from Bali to Singapore we joined the McM- family on Ivory Street.

Ivory Street at Gili Aer

At a potluck aboard back in Darwin, Tom of Quantum Leap admitted rare “boat envy” of this sleek, new catamaran.

Ivory Street salon

It has an elegantly modern, yet practical cream and myrtle-wood decor, spacious accommodations, perfectly placed windows for peripheral sightlines and good ventilation and light, and a lovely cockpit.

The boat is equipped with Raytheon E series nav instruments at the outside helm, electronic controls for the engines and windlass, and a top notch sail suite with all control lines led to the cockpit. Nav data can repeat on flat-screen TVs inside, there’s a Bose stereo, an ice-maker in the bar, while out back there’s a 13′ dinghy w/ 30hp outboard and a dive compressor. Other domestic luxuries include a washer/drier, dishwasher, and even a pod espresso machine.

And yet, there’s a lean feeling about the boat: no wads of clothes, books, or stuff nor glut of provisioning or culinary indulgences. Generally they eat light and simply, and meal prep is sometimes make-your-own.

Interestingly, this beauty is Greg’s first boat. Greg is the calm, dry, determined characteristic Kiwi, self-educated in the waters of Australia and New Zealand on every detail and aspect of sailing and maintaining her. Chrissie and Michael enjoy the trip well enough, but they are here because Dad wants to be, and Greg essentially single hands the boat. We’re along simply to help with night watches for the busy approach to Singapore.

So here’s what we ask ourselves: have we merely stumbled fortuitously into a corner of cruising’s “Lifestyles of…”, or is this indicative of a seismic shift in what people expect of the cruising life? Despite the economy, I think it’s the latter, but perhaps these boats predate the downturn. Perhaps the cycle will turn again, and people who want to go badly enough will return to a simpler way. After all, there were those twenty-two boats under forty feet!

Either way, large or small, cushy or basic, we all share the same anchorages, winds, experiences, and beach bars, and, in the end, that is the democratic point of cruising!

This article was published in the January 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles on this website

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“So? Whaddya think?”

Everybody’s asking us. They want to know what we — 20+ year veterans of monohulls — think about our first eight-week catamaran experience cruising aboard a 50 foot cat? Some anticipate utter conversion, some expect loyalty, others could care less about the boat and want to hear about the trip.

Comparing catamarans to monohulls based on our experience is not even a question of comparing apples to oranges, but rather THIS apple to THIS orange.

Individually and together, Don and I have 20+ years experience on one boat type, the CSY 44 cutter, a 20-year old production boat, but the sum total of our catamaran experience is the eight weeks we’ve sailed with friends aboard Quantum Leap, an 11-year-old semi-custom St. Francis 50.

You might think these two boats would have nothing in common, but to us they do. The first is that both boats were constructed on principles of solid construction and strength. This results in a heavier boat for its class, perhaps not as fast as others, but with a more secure-feeling ride in heavy conditions.

The second is more abstract. It has to do with feel. I loved the look of our CSYs, particularly Tackless II (T2), the walk-thru. The classic lines and color choices we’d made for paint, canvas, and even bottom paint pleased me approaching across an anchorage. I truly appreciated her cool, comfy, breezy cockpit and 360* view, while inside, I loved the welcoming feel of the honey-toned carved woodwork, the decor we’d chosen, most of the layout and the generous natural light from her big salon windows.

Tom and Bette Lee Walker (right) aboard Quantum Leap

When we first met Tom and Bette Lee Walker in Fiji, their boat struck us similarly, with handsome aesthetics, fine joinery, and pleasing layout. Like most tire-kickers, we’ve walked on and off a lot of catamarans, at boat shows and socially, and rarely have we had that reaction of, “Yeah, I could do this one.” We had it right away with Quantum Leap (QL).

So we were thrilled to be invited to meet up with QL in Darwin, Australia for the first leg of the Sail Indonesia Rally to Bali.

Right off, we appreciate one of the big advantages of a catamaran, the room to have guests aboard.

Guest berth aboard QUANTUM LEAP

On T2 our guest cabin had filled up with stuff, but on QL we have a whole hull to ourselves, a queen berth with ensuite head, generous lockers to put clothes away, and even a spare cabin in which to pile our empty suitcases! Head-in on the bridge deck, our berth is comfortable and well-ventilated with plenty enough headroom — nice for sleeping or an afternoon reading getaway.

The cabins are all open because this cat has tons of interior and exterior lockers, so that deck gear, spares, and provisions are all put away. Even on deck, only their windsurfer and kayak are secured to a lifeline; all fuel jugs are in an external locker making for a very clear deck. Not the case on T2!

Space, of course, is the main reason people first consider catamarans: the extra cabins for family or guests, the spacious cockpits for meals and partying, the wide open deck for lounging about.

The second main reason is stability.

Seat down meals on Quantum Leap

Expected at anchor, it’s mind boggling how much stuff is just left sitting in place underway. Granted we’ve not made a major ocean crossing like a trip to New Zealand or the Indian Ocean, but, literally, coffee cups are just left sitting on counters! On a monohull, that would be risky at anchor!

However, while stuff takes the catamaran ride easily, we don’t do as well. The quick jostle of a cat underway makes moving around the huge deck unsettling. Here the space works against you with few handholds available. There’s plenty of room to manhandle the downwind pole into place, but personally, we feel like wobbly toddlers, totally vulnerable. Our hostess says they, too, had second thoughts about the motion initially, “but it’s something you get used to.”

We love the easy access to the water

Things we especially like are the electric winches and the way most lines can be worked from the cockpit area.

We love the ease of hoisting the dinghy with the outboard in place onto the aft deck via a hinged davit, a pair of tackles, and a halyard led to one of the electric winches.

We also love the easy access to the water for swimming, fishing and boarding the dinghy, and the perfectly-placed deck shower.

The bow seats on each pontoon are favorite reef and sunset watching spots underway…once we stagger up to them, but they are also convenient for bracing one’s butt when doing anything on the precariously narrow bows! However, I’m surprised how little we’ve used the trampolines or sat out on deck. Our first day under sail Don and I took Paradise seats on deck to read, but after that, in this UV conscious era, the lure of being in the hot sun has been way down.

But on the other hand, in the cockpit, we don’t like the lack of forward view typical of most catamarans. Yes, for safety, we can see forward through the salon windows, but it’s not the same as a 360* panorama. Nor as breezy. Underway the raised helm seat gives a good view, but for anyone else to see ahead, they must stand on the bench seat or step out on deck.

An eyebrow-raising negative of catamarans is their infamous “slapping”, the product of waves thwacking the underside of the bridge deck. It was particularly alarming on our one rough, 30-knot night passage. We’re told this happens less on higher-bridged cats, but none escape side slapping. Admittedly, our monohull occasionally pounded when hard on the wind in big seas. Another thing one gets used to?

On the maintenance side, there is, of course, twice the waterline to clean but also the very huge deck to get dirty. It’s mighty nice to have private heads, but it means there are four toilets and four showers sumps to keep up. Likewise, there are two engines to maintain, and engine access (on this boat under the aft berths) is a bit harder, so daily checks of engine fluids can be a pain (though far better on QL than cats whose engines are beneath storage lockers!) It could easily make them vulnerable to out-of-sight-out-of-mind negligence.

Speed, of course, is a third attraction of cats.

QL is well-loaded down, but from a monohuller’s perspective she makes great speed, under sail and under power, even at low RPMs on one engine.

The option to motor on just one engine is excellent (using only .5-.75gph), but not all cats have this choice if essential systems are divided between engines.

The biggest negative of catamarans is expense. The initial cost is more than double what you would spend on a monohull that would get you going sooner, plus you have to plan for extra costs to berth and to haul. (Of course, cats do have the nifty option of drying out on a tidal cycle for bottom work, something we saw several do on the beach in Darwin.)

But, after eight weeks, we feel really at home on QL. So, yeah, we’d consider two hulls on “a next boat.” It’d be perfect for taking the family to the Keys or Bahamas.

It’s just a matter of that lottery ticket coming in.

This article was published in the Nov/Dec 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

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.