Ideas And A Request

After gaining some experience of sailing long distance I have had the possibly arrogant idea of trying to pass on my incomparable wisdom to others. In short, I am looking at writing a how to book for an already crowded market. This is an introduction to a potential book.

The request is: Could anyone read through this and let me know if they think it is a goer. Bear in mind that this is an early version and any finished one would likely be very different.

All comments received with prolonged sulks and muttering about suppressing incipient genius!

Thank you in advance.



Yet Another Long Distance How-to
Almost everyone who tries long distance cruising sets out to write a book about how they did it with a view to helping others over the hurdles that they themselves had to overcome. This sort of writing has a long pedigree going back to Eric Hiscock Voyaging under Sail. Other illustrious writers such as Donald M. Street have also written detailed how to books. Some of these books are more useful than others of course though this is usually a function of style and the type of cruising you plan to undertake. This book is written from the perspective of the cruising we undertook. This consisted of starting with coastal cruising in UK waters. Subsequently, we completed a two month cruise to Gibraltar and then an Atlantic circuit.

The ideas and suggestions are not generally very original. Very little is new today and thousands of others have done it all before as well as overcome the same hurdles. There are some changes that are applicable now that are not covered in older books. These are usually technical developments such as new electronics or changes in the regulatory structure. The most striking example of this is Automatic Identification System or AIS. Other developments are more evolutionary in nature.

What I have tried to do in this book is to explore possible equipment and techniques with a view to what is tried and tested as well as delivering genuine benefit to a budget consious cruiser. If you read some websites and some sections of the yachting press you are flirting with imminent disaster if you don't load the boat up with enough electronics to make the cockpit of an airliner look a bit spartan. This is not usually conducive to increasing safety at sea or even comfort for that matter.

Although much has changed over the years, one thing has remained constant which is the sea itself. It is still around 2600 miles from Gran Canaria to Barbados and the trade winds should still be blowing for most of them. The cross seas from gales in the North Atlantic will still be an issue to contend with.

For example, someone who wishes to spend their whole time sailing on very long passages in high latitudes is not going to have much of use for the person who wishes to potter round the Greek Islands and is always tied up ashore at night. Between these two extremes there are probably as many different styles as there are cruisers. That fact notwithstanding, it is possible to group cruisers into broadly similar bands. These are my totally arbitrary descriptions.

Coastal cruisers who stay in their home waters.
European cruisers who stay in northern and western Europe.
Mediterranean cruisers
Medium term blue water cruisers
Long term blue water cruisers
Extreme cruisers

We list ourselves in the Medium term blue water category having planned and completed an Atlantic circuit but probably with no intention of transiting the Panama Canal. Thousands of others are planning or on similar or different cruises. A note on the final heading of extreme cruisers. These are the ones who enjoy visiting very remote areas with challenging weather patterns such as high latitudes or very long passage distances.

It should also be pointed out that what sort of cruise fits in to these categories can to an extent be quite subjective and is based on such things as the type of boat and experience of the crew. Crossing from Cowes to Le Harve would be quite an extreme cruise for a Wayfarer dinghy whereas crossing from Tenerife to St. Lucia in December would be quite a moderate passage for a 15 meter steel ketch. I personally know people who have done both of these voyages.

This book though is written from the standpoint of someone with a bit of money accumulated and a moderate size of boat who wishes to take a year or two out to explore further than their home waters in reasonable comfort.

Of course, there is a lot that can be learnt from all types of cruiser – and racers – for all. The experiences of people such as the Pardy's who have sailed in all the seas of the world can be invaluable for people who only want to have sufficient and interesting enough provisions to sustain them from Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands to Barbados. Similarly, the skills acquired by repeated passages up and down the English Channel will also stand the person who is encountering the very strong tides in some of the Gulf Islands in British Columbia. Once again, size can play an important part and the twenty five foot coastal cruiser on a two week cruise can teach a lot about stowage to the forty footer embarking on a trip to the Mediterranean.

All types of cruising require that the skipper and crew should have and acquire a number of skills in a large number of areas. The further afield you go and the larger the boat, the wider the range of skills you will need until, the extreme cruiser will need to be almost entirely self sufficient in all aspects from boat handling to medical. Once again, point of view is very important for this. A smaller boat will not be able to carry as comprehensive a set of tools and spares as a larger boat. However, smaller and lighter boats are usually simpler and have fewer things that can go wrong so will need less spares. Provisions can be another matter and fitting sufficient water on a Hurley 22 for an ocean passage will be much more difficult than on a Rival 34. Hurleys, have of course crossed oceans but her skipper will have to be very careful in both planning and drinking water.

All types of cruising, but long distance cruising in particular, requires a lot of planning and preparation before departure. The more ambitious the plan, the more of this there will be. Some of this can be quite surprising. Not many people would give much thought to setting dates and locations for friends or family to join them for holidays but this can create a lot of headaches in your cruise plan once you are fully in the much slower routines of a year or more of living aboard. Once you have launched yourself, you will then find all the things that you thought you had planned for but hadn't. There will also be things that you assumed would be easy to manage while on the go that aren't. You will also find the things you worried about that with hindsight are not important.

Perhaps one of the biggest things in the planning process is the finances. This should really come before choosing a boat even as the budget will determine what sort of boat you can afford. Anne Hammick entitled her inspirational how to book Ocean Cruising on a Budget and she spends a lot of time in examining how the amount of money you have will affect all aspects of your voyage. Earlier writers did not give nearly as much attention to money or even how to manage it on the move. This may be a feature of the democratisation of sailing or it may just be a reflection of how society views these matters. There can of course be no doubt that the pioneers such as the Pye or Hiscocks devoted a considerable amount of their energies to managing their finances but did not document it in the detail we do now. Today, some aspects of managing your finances have become much easier – internet banking being an obvious example.

Many aspects of sailing have not changed for centuries. Weather patterns, currents and coastal features are essentially the same as they were for our ancestors even if climate change may be affecting them. Other aspects have changed out of all recognition of course. There will not be many cruisers who rely exclusively on a sextant and chronometer for fixing their position. The electronics revolution is too widely documented elsewhere to warrant much examination here except in the context of a cruiser needing to be as self sufficient at possible. Very few people (even electronic engineers) would be suitably equipped with skills and tools to fix a modern chart plotter should a rogue dollop of sea water get into it and stop it from behaving normally. On the other hand, a long distance crew might well feel that it would be wise to learn how to splice braided rope as this is now used almost everywhere on boats. On the other hand, familiarity with stockholm tar is now only a requirement of the minority of people who own traditionally built wooden boats.

The classic works on cruising have no mention at all of an issue that is now very much at the forefront of our minds and that is our impact on the world. Sailing, has the potential to be a very “green” pastime and way of life. However, without getting stuck into the minutiae of debates on the environmental impact of sailing, it is clear that we need to leave as little behind us as we move around the world. In the past no one would have considered the need to fit a holding tank or been concerned about how their anchor affected the growth of eel grass. Now, all this and more is of critical importance and dominates our thoughts.

Finally, perhaps the most important consideration is that the whole enterprise should be fun. I have long recited a mantra: “Unless everyone is enjoying themselves it isn't fun and we won't do it.” Going cruising at any level takes a lot of effort and often sacrifice. Therefore, the reward should be that it is enjoyable for all who are involved in the project. Of course, not all times and activities can be a rip roaring laugh all the time but the bits that are not so nice should be so that a later time can definitely be fun. Time spent in a dirty smelly harbour with constant wash from passing fishboats disturbing your sleep should be because that harbour is a convenient stopover on the way to the Rio Guadiana between Spain and Portugal. At the other end of the scale. If one member of the crew is uncomfortable with being offshore; either the plans need to be changed or another compromise is reached.

If you can work through all the compromises and the preparation it is a wonderful way of travelling and seeing parts of the world.

© Roger Kynaston 2014