Blog » CHECK LISTS

Struggling to get cruising? Make three lists!

Kathy Parsons — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:11:12 +0000

Several summers ago, I went to visit my brother and his wife who were hard at work aboard their catamaran in Morehead City, North Carolina, trying to get the boat ready to begin their first cruising that fall.

Like most boats that were in the thick of projects, the boat was in disarray with lockers open and the crew was feeling stressed.

The project list was long and Margaret was very worried that they might not even make it out cruising this year.

Margaret wanted to just GO, and she wasn’t very happy that her new home looked like the storage closet in a West Marine.

Ken wanted everything to be right and shipshape and properly installed. Major stress.

“Where is your project list?” I asked. They did have one, although there were many important jobs that hadn’t made it to the list.

“And what are your cruising plans?”

They planned to travel down the intracoastal waterway with some passages out in the Atlantic and make their way before Christmas to Marathon in the Florida Keys.
They would spend a month in the Keys, then cross over to the Bahamas.
After a winter in the Bahamas, they would return to the US for hurricane season, and then sail to the Caribbean the following autumn.

Okay, so now let’s start THREE LISTS:

Things that ABSOLUTELY MUST BE DONE before we can sail south.
Things that we MUST DO before sailing to the Bahamas, and that we could do during our month in Marathon.
Things that we COULD do next hurricane season in the US before we set sail for the Caribbean.

List number 1 MUST include those projects that are necessary to safely sail, motor and anchor their way south to Florida.

Ironically, often these safety and maintenance projects haven’t made it to a list.

Charts, lights, anchoring gear, sailing, reefing and preventing systems need to be installed and tested.
Often, there are nagging problems with equipment that you keep wishing would just fix themselves – you suspect the ship’s batteries might be shot but, living at the dock, you never test them in a way to know for sure.
You have had some fuel or overheating problems with the main engine or the generator.
Pulling up the anchor is almost impossible because the chain piles in a pyramid and blocks the haws pipe.
Why is it so difficult to furl in the jib? How exactly do you reef? The rigging should be inspected.

Plus all the administrative and paperwork tasks, especially if you will be traveling to another country: documentation, passports, insurance, pet vaccinations. Etc, etc, etc.

Think long and hard about what must be on this list. List number 1 will also require you to do some sailing and take shake-down cruises. You must test your systems and find out what works and doesn’t!

Don’t let yourself start putting the fun sexy projects, the new gear you’d love to have, on List number 1 until you have all the truly, truly essential items noted.

Review List 1.

Can you get those items done in time to leave this season? Hopefully, the answer is yes. BUT DO THEM FIRST. Because as you know, boat projects almost always take lots longer than you think.

Okay, now go down your original list, and add items to your new lists 1, 2 and 3.

Remember, you will have much more experience under your belt by the time you reach Florida, and certainly by the time you return to the US next spring, and you may have better ideas at that point about exactly what and how to install new equipment.

You will have had a season’s worth of happy hours to discuss boat stuff with other cruisers and learn from them as well about what works and doesn’t. You may avoid some costly mistakes by putting off some installation projects right now and saving them for next season.

As you make out your lists, research what you will have available at your next stopping point.

For example, down in Marathon, Florida, you will have access to chandleries, hardware stores, shipping services, supermarkets, mail service, car rental. You CAN work on your love-to-have list in Marathon, if you aren’t having too much fun to bother.

In fact, you will probably revise your lists somewhat while you are in Marathon – again prioritizing the items that ABSOLUTELY MUST BE DONE before you cross the Gulf Stream and sail into a different cruising environment with much less access to marine supplies and technicians.

And you will probably make another three lists the next summer as you prioritize those items you MUST DO before sailing down to the Caribbean.

Here is another scenario when making three lists becomes very important: Leaving Europe and preparing to cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

Often sailors will cruise Europe, then sail to the Canary Islands, finish their preparations, then cross the Atlantic in December or January.

So often, I have seen cruisers arrive in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands without having really thought through what they will NEED for crossing the Atlantic.

Their project list is so long that they have been distracted by all the “wouldn’t it be nice” items, and haven’t noted down or planned for the essentials.

Here is an example of the THREE LISTS you might prepare for this scenario:

Things that absolutely must be done before leaving mainland Europe (with access to mail and freight service, well-stocked chandleries, marine technicians) – and that must be done to safely sail from Spain to the Canaries, and then across the Atlantic
Things that absolutely must be done before crossing the Atlantic, but can be done in the Canary Islands.
Things that could be done after arriving in the Caribbean.

Here, availability of parts, supplies and technicians becomes more important when making out the lists.

Although there are chandleries and marine professionals in the Canary Islands, they are much more limited than in major European sailing ports.

You may not be able to get flares, a boom preventer, liferaft certification, generator, autopilot or watermaker parts, etc etc etc!

You might not be able to find someone who can diagnose the problem with your autopilot, generator, watermaker, sideband radio or charging system.

And getting parts shipped in is not as easy any more either. Waiting for parts delays many an Atlantic crossing. Sometimes cruisers resort to flying crew home to get what they can’t find locally.

So your List number 1 needs to include longer shake-down passages BEFORE you leave Europe so that you can find out what doesn’t work and make repairs while access to marine services is still good.

Worse, cruisers often begin their Atlantic crossing from the Canaries without ever getting around to the most important projects.

A few very common examples:

Beginning a three-week downwind sail without any way to prevent the boom from jibing, or without ever having rigged the downwind sails.
Not having either a working sideband radio or satellite phone to get weather underway.
Autopilot that won’t steer the boat.
Inability to charge the batteries sufficiently.
Bilge pumps that don’t work.

Ken and Margaret did make, use and revise those three lists as they began their first year of cruising.

They noticed that one important item for List number 1 was to get the charts and cruising guides and to research the route they would follow traveling south.

Margaret took that important project to heart and learned about the tides and currents, the low bridges and the safe inlets along their route south. When to travel inside and when to take the offshore route, how to play the currents and tides. By the time they left, Margaret was quite prepared to navigate them south.

And they did negotiate over those lists. Both Ken and Margaret placed items on List 1 and 2 that, though not essential, were important to them – items that made the boat home, that made cruising more enjoyable.

Five years later, Margaret reflects on that first year: “What a lifesaver your visit, and list-separating, turned out to be. It was early November before we got out of there, but we got out We still use that same list, it’s just much, much longer now and has pages and pages of items marked as completed. It’s kind of fun to look back over 5 years of projects…and the beginning 3 lists.”

YOUR lists will vary according to your cruising plans, the difficulty of the various legs of your voyage, the opportunities to get parts and professional help along the way.

But if you are starting out and feeling anxious that you might not get out cruising, or that you might get out there and have forgotten something important, make three lists!

About Kathy Parsons

Kathy Parsons took the leap and went cruising on a sailboat in 1989. Over the next 20+ years she lived aboard and sailed the US, Bahamas, Central America and Caribbean.

Her love for the sea, the sailing life and the countries and cultures she visited blossomed in a number of different ways.

She wrote two language guides for cruisers sailing in foreign countries:
French For Cruisers and Spanish for Cruisers, both widely used by sailors internationally.

She has helped thousands to pursue their sailing dreams through seminars she has developed and delivered at boat shows and sailing conferences. She has given classes and webinars in Spanish for Cruisers, and Women and Cruising, and taught cruising skills, provisioning, cruise planning and cruising the Bahamas and Caribbean. She has assisted in sailboat rallies in Europe, the Canary Islands, Caribbean, Panama and the Galapagos.

She is the founder of the website Women and Cruising, which she developed to give women and families courage and support in pursuing their sailing dreams.

Kathy currently lives on land, in Provence, France, a delightful event that never would have happened if she hadn’t sailed away years ago.

Will she go sailing again? Perhaps… Cruising and cruisers still are close to her heart.

Book Review – SeaWise Safety Checklist / Emergency Action Guide for Sailing Yachts

Gwen Hamlin — Sun, 22 Nov 2015 13:02:49 +0000

Book Review – SeaWise Emergency Action Guide and Safety Checklists for Sailing Yachtsby Zvi Richard Dor-ner and Zvi Frank. Cornell Maritime Press, a division of Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

An ‘action guide book’ for mariners,
inspired by the aviation world’s discipline of thorough checklists for everything.

What if….?

“What ifs?” are dark questions that lurk in the minds of many sailors, and not just those new to sailing, but those new to a particular boat, signing on as crew for an ocean passage, perhaps, or just relaxing as a guest for a weekend.

Safety Checklist side

Too often, “What ifs?” are questions that get left unasked, shoved aside by blind trust in the skipper or in the face of sunny reassurances and thus left to fester in the musty corners of the imagination.

Even responsible captains who plan carefully and brief thoroughly can fall prey to assuming their crew will somehow know what they need to know in the unlikely event an emergency arises.

Left unaddressed, especially for those who come aboard nervous to begin with, “What ifs…?” can lead to anxiety if not disaster.

The SeaWise Emergency Action Guide and Safety Checklists for Sailing Yachts, from Schiffler Publishing’s Cornell Maritime Press, brings all this out into the bright light of day in a handy, new flip booklet brought to reality by a duo of Israeli sailors – Zvi Richard Dor-ner and Zvi Frank – who have come together to create what they dub “action guide books” for mariners.

Emergency Action Guide side

These action guide books – there’s a SeaWise Emergency Action Guide and Safety Checklists for Motor Yachts, too — are inspired by the aviation world’s discipline of thorough checklists for everything.

Spiral bound, tabbed, and printed on waterproof paper, the SeaWise Safety Checklist for Sailing Yachts read one direction is a collection of safety checklists divided into twelve sections.

Flipped over and read the other direction, it becomes the SeaWise Emergency Action for Sailing Yachts, with guidance addressing fourteen different emergency scenarios.

The Safety Checklist side begins with a checklist for every captain for pre-voyage planning: reminders of information that should be written down in the logbook for each specific passage.

This is followed by checklists for pre-departure safety briefings about procedures and equipment – briefings that go two ways, so that the captain obtains information about the crew as well as the crew about the boat.

Safety Checklist: On Watch

The next section is on the responsibilities of the watch keeper, for both day and night passage-making, and summarizes, in a helpfully concise and accessible format, the Rules of the Road, buoyage, vessel lights and sound and distress signals.

This is followed by a checklist for heavy weather preparation, reminding crew of many small preparations to take before the bad weather hits that are all too easy to forget while worrying about the bigger preparations.

The next four sections provide boat owners a place to assemble in one place the specific specifications of their boat for the crew’s reference. This includes pages to sketch in your boat’s sail plan, deck plan and stow plan (but, unfortunately, no pages for electrical or plumbing). There’s even a page for your boat’s polar diagram, a neat graph of your boat’s potential performance in given wind speeds and points of sail, so that you can calculate if you are making the best of the conditions.

Wrapping up the checklist section are lists of materials and tools to inventory for damage control, medical needs, sail repair and engine maintenance. This last category, of course is general, and should be customized for your engine and/or generator.

Emergency Action Guide: Medical

Taking all the preparations recommended by the Safety Guide will reduce the chances of ever having to use the Emergency Action Guide side of this book, but bad things can happen to even the best prepared mariner.

When those bad things do happen, they require prompt and appropriate response, and the Emergency Action Guide is constructed to provide “concise and direct guidance” for dealing with each possibility, in those very moments when one can hardly think straight.

In an “If…, then…” flowchart format, the Emergency Guide addresses flooding, collision, running aground, fire, loss of steering, engine failure, emergency communications, medical emergencies, man overboard, extreme weather, rig failure, abandon ship, rescue and disabled skipper scenarios.

All this information is packed into a compact 8 ½” x 6” package that will easily find a place in the cockpit on passage, handy for constant review and reference. The pages can be marked on with pencil to customize and update lists and diagrams, and used in conjunction with a seagoing logbook to record specific information for each region travelled.

We of Women and Cruising have long advocated the use of checklists aboard for responsible organization. Here is a book that gives cruisers a huge head start.

SeaWise Emergency Action Guide and Safety Checklists for Sailing Yachts by Zvi Richard Dor-ner and Zvi Frank. Cornell Maritime Press, a division of Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

Also on this website

More book reviews

Oh, no, not another hurricane!

Pam Wall — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:14:34 +0000

Hurricane Irene – August 23, 2011 – 21:45 UTC – Photo Goes East

As readers prepare for hurricane Irene, we are re-printing a story that Pam Wall wrote about going through Hurricane Dennis in the Abacos.

In it she shares a list of things to have aboard to help you prepare as well as a checklist of preparations to make as a hurricane approaches.

Several years ago we were in the Bahamas for our summer vacation. It was early July and we had not been worried about hurricanes at that time of year.

But, good old Bertha didn’t look at her calendar! We were in White Sound, Green Turtle Cay, in the Abacos at that time. Our family of four plus our dog were aboard, and while we were all a bit frightened, we were proud that we had stayed aboard our boat, Kandarik, a Freya 39. Bertha did her best to ruin the islands, but thankfully there was not much damage.

And now, just two weeks ago, we were again in the Abacos, and as our luck would have it, Hurricane Dennis came out of nowhere and tested our wits again.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami predicted it would go to the East of the Abacos. When the Northeast seventy-plus knots of wind died for about fifteen minutes and the wind veered to the Southwest with a vengeance, we knew the NHC was wrong and the eye of the hurricane had come over us. And this was our vacation!

Getting prepared for a hurricane

South Pacific: S/V CARIBEE riding comfortably in 80 knots
after hurricane Rene passed – Photo provided by Cheryl Baker

I feel now that we are experienced in getting our boat and ourselves prepared for the forces of a hurricane. The things we will always have aboard when cruising during the tropical storm season are essential for the safety of the boat and all aboard.

I have made a small list of essentials that may be useful for others:

Hurricane List

Galvanized shackles of every size, your chain size and larger, and of course, seizing wire

Extra 50 foot lengths of chain, the size you use for your anchors and larger

Anchor swivels

Extra heavy duty line ¾” and larger preferably Megabraid, 100 and 200 foot pieces

Heavy duty galvanized or stainless steel thimbles

Assorted different style anchors (at least three plus a larger storm anchor)

Jerry cans for extra fuel and water

Lots of lashing lines

Hand held VHF

Hand held depthsounder for sounding secure anchorages as well as what is ahead of and behind the boat

Raw water strainers that are easy to clean for the unusually dirty water following a hurricane

Sheepsfoot knife for fast cutting of lines to be kept in the cockpit

SSB or Ham Radio and/or battery powered AM/FM radio for local forecasts

Masks, snorkels, fins, and if possible filled SCUBA tank for setting anchors and securing moorings under the water

Good recording barometer (really fun to see AFTER it is all over!!!)

Lots of towels and heavy duty chafe gear

Ventilator caps for all vents and dorades

Dogs for all hatches and ports

Big roll of Duck Tape

Dacron sticky back tape for instant sail repairs

Good sturdy dodger that can safely be left up in the strongest of winds

Anchor weights

Extra long anchor snubbers

Batteries for flashlights, radios etc.

A really good washer and big dryer for cleaning up everything after it is all over!! Ha, Ha, I wish!!!

This looks like a lot of equipment, but it really isn’t. And most of it you would have already. If you don’t have all this aboard, you could be caught short when you need it the most. Believe me! We saw so many people looking for this equipment when it was too late or unavailable. It is so easy to think ahead and make provisions. Once we knew that Dennis was going to be a threat to us, we started looking for a secure anchorage. This can sometimes be difficult when everyone else is doing the same thing.

So, start getting yourself a safe place as soon as you can.

Beat the crowds and find yourself a place with as few other boats as possible as the real danger can be others breaking free and crashing into you!

Here is another small list that makes it easy to prepare for the worst:

Safe List

Take ALL sails down, mainsail, genoas, mizzens, ALL, flake them and stow below deck

Take all Bimini Tops, awnings, weather cloths, etc. off the frames and lash the frame securely

Take all downwind poles off the mast and secure as low on the deck as possible

Tape the snap shackles with duck tape and pull to top of the mast (don’t forget to leave one to be able to retrieve the rest!)

Lash all the halyard falls to the mast. Nothing should be able to whip in the wind (and it will if left unlashed)

Take any undeployed anchors off the bow rollers where chafe could occur; lash the anchors on deck where they could easily be deployed if needed during the hurricane

Cap all ventilators

Stow EVERYTHING on deck down below. If it can get loose on deck and cause damage it will!

Use a combination of chain at the bottom and line to the boat for anchors and mooring lines. All chain does not have enough stretch, and all line could chafe on the bottom. Mooring weights are a great help and Megabraid seems to have the best stretch and chafe resistant capabilities for these extreme conditions.

Secure all lines through smooth chocks, to strong cleats, and use fair leads. Heavy-duty snatch blocks are great if the lead from your chock to the cleat isn’t fair.

Do not rely on the windlass for securing anchors on chain or line

Check every unattended boat around you for secure mooring (that will be your biggest worry!)

By the time Dennis came upon us, we had secured everything as best we could. During the 48 hours of very strong winds, we were constantly checking for chafe and adjusting the lines to the best advantage.

After the eye passed over us at about 4 am (naturally it would be in the dark!) we had only a couple of minutes to make sure we would be ready for the 180 degree windshift.

We actually had to swim out another couple of mooring lines to different mooring blocks when the shift came. It’s easier to swim under water than take a chance on a flipping dingy above the water. Two of our anchors were useless, as the eye had been predicted to pass well to the East.

Ready for the storm

As the storm approached us, we were all ready for her in the Eastern Harbor of Man-O-War Cay in the Abacos. There were about 25 unattended storage boats in the harbor on permanent moorings.

Only five boats had crews aboard. Funny how close we all became. It was like one big family in different rooms, all with the same fears and problems, and all willing to help one another should the need arise. We were continuously on the VHF radio checking on each other. Truly, we became the closest of friends during that 48 hours!

The pelting rain and gusting wind began about 12 hours before the eye passed over us.

We went for a walk to the windward side of the island to see the ocean. It was blowing about 55 to 60 knots and even though we had difficulty walking against this wind, the view we had of the raging sea was spectacular. The normally peaceful lagoon inside Man-O-War reef was a tempest of gusting wind, huge seas, no visibility, and enormous breaking surf on the coral lined beach.

And the hurricane had not even yet arrived. Our anchorage was still quite calm behind the hills with the wind very sporadic with short-lived gusts to 50 knots.

At dark the full fury of the storm came upon us.

Why does it always come at night? Cockpit watches and chafe patrols kept us awake. The anemometer registered over 70 knots and I know it was blowing more than that for some of the time. Kandarik would heel over in the stronger gusts, then shake herself back onto an even keel. The noise on deck was deafening as the wind whistled through the rigging. We could hear the shotgun sounds of a loosed roller furling genoa on the boat up the harbor from us. Below in the cabin it was difficult to talk to one another over the sound of roaring wind. While it did not rain very much, only spitting at times, the wind driven seawater poured over the boat like a wild shower. Even in the dark we could see the gusts literally lift the harbor water up and send it whirling across the surface.

We could not sleep. I was on the Ham Radio every few minutes getting updates, and giving the National Hurricane Center our barometric pressure, wind speed and direction. It was fun being part of their network.

At about 3:30 a.m. the wind stopped. It was so weird!

We rushed up on deck; there was the loom of the full moon, and no wind. I got on the radio and reported this to the Hurricane Center in Miami. I was asked to go on deck and give every detail of the conditions. Now, at last they knew exactly where the eye was. Within minutes the wind made its dramatic change that confirmed the location of the eye.

If it was blowing hard before the eye passed us, well, let me tell you, it blew even stronger on the backside of the storm!

And now the pouring pelting rain came. Sheets of rain smothered the boat. Even higher gusts of wind came more frequently and lasted longer. The barometer plummeted in its final dive, and seemed to stay at its all time low forever.

As dawn finally came we realized we needed more lines out to windward.

The only solution was for Andy to swim to where we thought there was another mooring block. There I was on the bow, holding on as the wind tried to tear my hands from the bow pulpit, watching my husband swimming in the half-light of dawn, trying to secure another line to a mooring in front of us! I remember not being able to see anything as the stinging rain bit into my skin like a million needles.

I was really worried about Andy and was so relieved when he resurfaced near the boat. It was a struggle for him to get back aboard. He laughed at my worried expression and told me how peaceful it was below the surface of the water. He was lucky to have found the mooring.

The hurricane force winds lasted another twelve hours.

We saw two boats tear loose from their moorings and smash into other boats before finally ending up on the shore. There was nothing anyone could have done to save them, as the wind was far too strong for a dingy to survive without flipping over. I have never seen such rain. Blankets, not sheets, of water were thrown over us. Dennis must have liked the Abacos, as he was so slow to move on.

Our poor barometer must have hated my eyes peering continuously at it hoping for the much-desired rise in pressure.

It was late evening of the second day that it finally calmed down to 35 or 40 knots. The rain continued, but there was a definite ease in the wind. By Sunday morning it was all over, calm and peaceful again. The seas outside the island continued to rage for several more days as Dennis insisted on churning up the ocean to the North.

But, for us, the show was over.

This article appeared on Pam Wall’s blog

Less than 10 days later, Kandarik encounters hurricane Floyd!!!! Read the story! (Pam Wall’s blog).

About Pam Wall

Pam sailed around the world in a 7-year adventure with her husband and young children before finding her important niche as West Marine‘s Outfitting Manager.

In this role Pam has done much to support cruisers, both new and experienced, as she has through the many seminars she presents at boat shows across the country (including Women and Cruising seminars) and the sailing she teaches annually at Women on the Water Week in the British Virgin Islands.

Pam’s website is www.PamWall.com.

More information (external links)

Hurricane Floyd, by Pam Wall: “Dennis came and went with no damage to our boat Kandarik except for our frazzled nerves. We never dreamed we would encounter another hurricane in less than ten days!”
National Hurricane Center: The National Hurricane Center website provides detailed location and forecasting of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, Mexico and the Eastern Pacific.
Hurricanes in Baja: Fire Drills and the Real Thing, by Gwen Hamlin

Have you weathered a hurricane or tropical storm?

Share your experience.

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.