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

• Guests Aboard (Admiral’s Angle column #40)
  Some counsel about managing visits and visitors to enhance their experience and maintain crew sanity.
• Single Women Sailing – Part 1 (Admiral’s Angle column #27)
  Ways to get into sailing when you are single
• Single Women Sailing – Part 2 (Admiral’s Angle column #28)
  Perspectives on owning and operating your own boat

Many single female sailors I’ve met were once part of a cruising couple where the partner is no longer in the picture.  Debbie of Illusions, for example, did not become a single-hander by choice.

Her husband died unexpectedly leaving her with a difficult decision: either learn how to continue on her own or give up the boat and move back to Missouri.

When Joy faced divorce from her husband thirty years ago, she wanted their cruising boat. “In my mind there had always been ‘two captains,’ although I doubt he shared this concept.  Not many did back then. But, I had the buy-out money and the perseverance, so eventually, painfully, I did end up owning Banshee on my own.”

Marjetka signed on for a three-year circumnavigation adventure with the male owner of 26’ Little Mermaid, but after 30 days sailing around Europe he wanted to cancel the deal.  Marjetka was so angry, she impulsively bought him out and, despite having little sailing experience, continued across the Atlantic on her own.

And when her former husband lost interest in sailing and their cruising boat sat unused on the dock, Sherry got involved in local racing, eventually buying her own race boat Fast Lane and putting together an all-woman crew. “It took several years and a few hundred races, learning all the tactics and rules the hard way (by making mistakes), but I eventually ended up with the fastest boat and the best women’s crew in all of our women’s racing circuit.”

None of these women set out to be pioneers.  They didn’t sail on their own to make a statement.  They just wanted to keep sailing when, one way or another, their men failed them.

Other women start from scratch. Kiwi sailor Jackie of Soulmate got the bug as a youngster when she co-opted her father’s sailing dinghy.  “I used to take off sailing all over the place on my own, which caused my parents no end of worry.” Focused on having her own cruising boat someday, Jackie put her head down and built up and sold two businesses to raise the capital needed for the boat that now carries her around the South Pacific.

More typically, women evolve into owner-operators when various trial experiences don’t prove satisfying enough. “When I turned 50,” says Rachel of the CT 47 Ventana, “I decided to take a year or two off and cruise on other people’s boats, combining the two things I enjoy most, traveling and sailing. I answered ads for crew and ended up sailing for two years on four boats. The first three were all skippered by men, and in each case I experienced problems of being continually propositioned. I finally found a boat with a couple aboard who simply wanted help sailing their boat from Thailand to South Africa. A very pleasant year, but their style of cruising was not really mine. I came to feel that I would have to be extremely lucky to ever find a boat cruising the way I wanted to cruise with a man whose propositions I would welcome.”  Instead of giving up, Rachel took the big step of buying her own boat.

On the other hand, it was purely a taste for adventure in general that motivated successful professionals Linda and Dee to buy the Liberty 49 Serafin.  They divided up the duties they’d have to learn and subsequently cruised together for several years.  When an onboard fire stopped their cruise short, they shipped the boat to Ft. Lauderdale for a refit.   The refit sapped Dee’s commitment, but Linda, not ready to quit, has since sailed the boat back through the Canal and across the Pacific, using fellow cruisers met in Mexico for crew.

Single-handing is a lot of work. It means 24-hour watches under way and doing both the “blue” AND “pink” jobs every boat demands.  Most of the single-woman sailors I’ve met do sometimes use crew, particularly for passages.  Leery about using unknown pick-up crew, most women turn to friends, friends of friends, or boyfriends.  But sometimes that complicates life more than it simplifies it.  Men tend to develop what Joy calls the “rooster complex … they just can’t resist taking over,” while, as Linda has recently experienced, others can’t handle taking direction from a female which turns help into handicap. It can also be emotionally disruptive, as when Marjetka’s friend flies in from Norway.  “First I look forward to seeing him, then I fret about him being in the way of the way I do things. When he is here, he helps me get so much done on the boat, but then he is gone again, and I am lonely where I wasn’t before.”

Marjetka and Debbie, both sailing small boats, point out that single-handing as a woman can be very isolating, as they are often odd person out in the anchorage.  Says Debbie, “Since there are few single women and most couples socialize together, I find myself on my own or hanging out with the “guys” (male single-handers).  I pay my own way at happy hours and group dinners and don’t expect to be treated any different from any of the other guys.”

An alternative to being lonely or depending on men who may have other agendas is taking on another woman as crew.

Rachel of Ventana met Elisabeth, a young Norwegian, in Panama crewing on a German boat transiting the canal for the South Pacific. The boat was Elisabeth’s fourth boat with a male skipper.  Over a casual conversation on the vagaries of crewing for single women, a mutual friend mentioned Rachel and that she’d recently been through two disappointing crew. Elisabeth sought Rachel out and has been her crew for the six years since.

Joy of Banshee has a similar arrangement now with Leslie, who “dropped into” Joy’s life 13 years ago.  “Leslie was a broke, single-handing scuba instructor on a tiny boat.  She loved sailing, enjoyed boat work and dreamed of going offshore, but didn’t have the finances to do so.”  Joy did have the finances and the comfortable cruising boat, but no sailing partner.  Again, a match-up that has stood the test of time.

Is it weird cruising as two women?  “When we arrive in a small village in a remote island group,” relates Rachel, “the canoes will come out, look at Elisabeth and me and then ask where our husbands are?  When we explain that we don’t have any, they are very confused, and particularly the men have trouble relating to us. Imagine! Women, who have no children, sailing this big boat by themselves. We, in turn, look at their women and think how sad that they have not had the choices that we’ve had.”

Contributing Admirals:  Debbie Leisure, Illusions – SE USA; Joy Smith, Banshee –  Philippines; Marjetka K, Little Mermaid – Vanuatu; Sherry McCampbell, Soggy Paws – Panama; Jackie Hope, Soulmate – New Zealand; Rachel Emery, Ventana – Papua New Guinea; Linda Morgenstern, Serafin – New Caledonia;  Terri Watson and Kimi Harrison, Delphinus – Bay Area USA, and others.

This article was published in the November 2008 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles (on this website)

• Single Women Sailing – Part 1 (Admiral’s Angle column #27)
• Debbie Leisure learns to sail her boat single-handed (Women and Cruising blog)
• Sailing on, single handed, by Elizabeth Tyler
• On my own, but never alone, by Laura McCrossin