The first day we met, on a beach in the Bahamas, Doris said “I wish I’d understood when we moved aboard how uneven the tasks would seem.  I wish I’d understood that my husband’s skills carried more weight than mine.”

That got us talking about how we divvy up chores aboard.  Another friend, equally competent, joined us.

Neither Doris, nor Maj-Lis, nor I change the oil.  We don’t know how; frankly none of us want to learn.  Yet we do our share of chores.

Boat chores, like home chores, fall into categories:

• domestic (laundry, cooking, remembering to send birthday cards);
• running the boat (navigating, sail trim, helm, anchoring);
• ordinary maintenance (polish the fiberglass, teak, brass, etc., clean the bilge, annual inspection of standing rigging, sheets, ground tackle, sails, etc.);
• and extraordinary maintenance when something’s going wrong (steering cable replacement, unclog head, fix/replace water pump).

Who does these jobs on your boat?  I’d like to report that I can do all those things and that I do them.  But I’d be lying. 

Many women I know do them routinely.

I asked some cruising friends this winter, sailing in the Bahamas on my Gulfstar 39 Salsa, and wrote an article on the subject for SAIL Magazine.  The article’s called “Pink or Blue?“  It’s in the May issue on the last page in the section called Wind Shifts.

Take a look and let us all know your thoughts on the subject.

Monty emerges from untangling a line from the prop (blue job?)

Betsy sewing canvas in the cockpit (pink job?)

From Betsy’s article “Pink or Blue?” in SAIL Magazine, May 2010:

“Do you change the oil?” she asked.

I sensed a gurgling in my brain, not unlike static; it was the same feeling I’d get as a little girl when my mother asked if I’d brushed my teeth, and I lied, “Yes, Mom.” I remembered my promise to myself in 1992 when our plans gelled to retire from our jobs and sail off the edge. I would learn to do every single thing on the boat that Monty could do…

About Betsy Morris

In 1993 I retired from banking, and with my husband, Monty, took off from our home port of Marblehead, Massachusetts, for the Caribbean. But first we turned left out of the harbor instead of right, and spent the first summer in the remote ports of Newfoundland.  Eventually we sorted ourselves out and pointed Salsa, our 39′ Gulfstar, in the right direction, and spent five consecutive years in the Caribbean.

Now we’re land lubbers again, only cruising on Salsa for three months each winter.  In the meantime we’ve done boat swaps in Wales and Brazil and will do another this summer in Scotland.  We keep a Quickstep 21 in Marblehead, since you can’t live in coastal New England and not sail in the summer.  I write for SAIL, Points East, Southwinds, and even a couple of motorboating magazines.  In my spare time I write fiction, give writing workshops, and am a mediator, mostly in the Salem, Massachusetts, courts.

Related articles (on this website)

• Boat jobs: Pink or Blue? Marcie Lynn comments
• Boat jobs: Pink or Blue? …Violet, Meri says
• The Need to Know: Sheri Schneider is on her own in the Pacific after her husband is evacuated (Admiral’s Angle column #17)
• Joint Effort (Admiral’s Angle column #5)
• The Engine Room (Admiral’s Angle column #22)
• Women and Cruising’s List of Maintenance-related Resources

How do you divvy up the boat chores?
Does it fall along pink and blue lines?
Let us know.
Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.