Would this life plan work?

[Bulawayo]

Philip, I did the same ...... first boat and sailed from Cape Town to Rio. There is a reasonable YouTube series (ongoing right now) about Riley and Elyna; its called Sailing La Vagabonde. They also took this route, starting in the Med and now they are in the South Pacific. Well worth watching as they also started with no experience.

Originally Posted by philip.cat

This is what I did in 1982, read a few sailing books, bought a 36ft mono hull sailing boat sailed around Botany Bay in NSW Australia, then with my wife and 2 children went cruising (children's ages 3 and 18 months old) we cruised the world for 10 years had a great time although a few hiccups along the way, I never had sailing lessons learnt navigation from books and tried to fix everything on the boat myself, I had no depth sounder a Walker log trailing behind the boat 2 solar panels and a kerosene anchor light, it makes me smile when I see posts from people who think that they need all these sailing lessons spending countless thousands of dollars when the sailing part of boating is the easiest, it is everything else associated with sailing and cruising that is the hardest. Now I have a 60ft Catamaran with all the bells and whistles but at least I am still out there cruising,currently in Fethiye Turkey but soon to be on the move again heading West eventually Panama in 2017 and then mmmm who knows! Everyone have a great day.
Phil on board Big Bandicoot soon.

[Capt_Flrp]

Our oldest was "off the charts" in many areas, has learning disability in math. The public school system allowed her to pass senior math by using extra credit. The closest thing to math was to cut geometric shapes and paste them on a sheet of paper. Our youngest came home with an "A" on an algebra quiz and only missed 5 questions. Five? out of? 8. Extra credit involved naming the toys from the island of miss fit toys from the movie Rudolph. You get the idea. I think home schooling is WAY ahead of many public schools. The experiences will be fantastic. The youngest looks back very favorably to the year of cruising and home schooling. Best of luck on the surgery and the sailing. Best of all, sharing such experiences is the best.

[Macblaze]

Depending on where you want charter cruising is less about "sailing" than you might think. While the small boat plan promoted by several here is a good idea to hone your sailing skill, it isn't really all that helpful to the overall plan. After all there are probably thousands of "sailors" that successfully cruise but never leave the dock in over 10 knot winds.

Anyway, do get the family involved. Try chartering a boat to yourselves and hiring an instructor on some sort of custom cruise and learn. Sure the cost is higher but you can customize the learning curve to satisfy multiple people. In fact what we did when we got started was to start with a powerboat course which allowed us to do the Crew portion and the Day Skipper portion in one cruise. I did both courses while she just did the Crew course. But she still did most of the Skipper work anyway.

It worked out great since (especially here in the PNW in the summer) cruising is more about motoring than sailing anyway and we got the basics down in a week. The we went on to add sailing courses etc.

Speaking of the PNW, do take a look here for learning or just cruising. Seattle or Vancouver is probably just as close as San Fran and the cruising here is fantastic with lots of companies to choose from.

Anyway, great plan so far... good luck!

[iliohale]

Hi Elon,

My advice would be to save your money on lessons and go buy a cheap sailing dinghy that you can tow and do as much sailing as you can in as many places as you can. Find an experienced sailor to go with you at first and help out. Then buy a cheap beater that you can go and race for a few years. Get as much time on the water as you can. Then go buy your boat.

Gary

[alansmith]

Elon, makes the mind spin, doesn't it, when you are released from the terrible cycles of pain you must have endured for many years. You are two weeks postop...so I am guessing that things are progressing nicely with physical therapy. You are still young enough that you should recover nicely and rebuild muscle and flexibility. But don't get too crazy too quickly...smile. Hard not to get excited after what you just left behind, huh?

Many ways to slice the apple so I won't expound. Just saying to you to bridle your enthusiasm and channel your dream building into team building...which you seem to have already made a decent effort. If you have the money look at Catamarans as a sensible thing for family life. You will understand why once you spend some time on them. You have separation of hulls for privacy, bodily functions like multiple toilets, cooking, and flopping around in anchorages that get rolly. The movement through waves is less vomit inducing.

One of the things that is really hard to predict about sailing families is how they will take to an ocean life. You haven't been on board a monohull in a rolly anchorage where the boat is rolling so much you can't sleep because of being rolled port to starboard. You can't even keep anything on the dinette table without it moving or spilling. It doesn't happen all that often..but it does happen. Don't let anyone tell you don't. When sailing downwind you can get a corkscrew motion going on that can get real sickening. Watch some youtube and you can get a fair idea how nasty that can be.

Many wannabe sailors have this dream of just sailing in 10 knots of wind and 2 foot swell and everything is tracking beautiful and it is warm and lovely. The reality can be just that if you hit the right weather window on your charter. Or it can be blowing 30 knots with a 5 foot swell and the rain is torrential for days.

The platform you choose will have a lot to do with family comfort. Three monkeys vomiting, wife on her back and due to vomit again, ain't no one's idea of a vacation. Just so you know the absolute truth...and many on this forum can attest to...there are many destinations on this planet where the women just said enough is enough and became mutineers. Just spoke with 2 skippers last week while I was in the Bahamas and Miami whose wives refused to sail any longer with them. Which leaves a man with a costly divorce or loss of boat...or sadly...both.

So, I like the way you are thinking about lessons, chartering, and then see where it goes from there. Take your wife and children on a nice charter in a beautiful place on a 35+ foot cat and build their appetite. Use strategy and build the dream. Wish you a beautiful recovery and a full and happy life.

[Kalinowski]

Buy the big boat now on the East Coast. Move all aboard. Take your classes there. This will help you and yours get used to boat life.

Get the kids into a local sailing club. You can sharpen your skills on big water. Most importantly, you can learn the boat, outfit her to your needs, and learn how to fix all the systems aboard. You might even find a better deal. After a year, you should have the experience to make the crossing.

[Sun and Moon]

I'm with the 'buy-a-small-boat-now" crowd. For the $12k you are talking about spending, you can buy a Catalina 22 on a trailer and a truck to pull it with, and still have half your money left over. There are lots of lakes around you - the Boulder Res for day sails. For overnight cruises you can go up to Lake Dillon, Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain Lake or Lake Granby. Yellowstone Lake is really just a day's drive away, and in a couple days you could be down to the Sea of Cortez. You will learn way more with your own boat than you ever will in a few weeks of sailing classes.

[wristwister]

One thing to add to your list: look for an opportunity to crew on an open ocean voyage, preferably in a nasty part of world the wrong time of year. It's easy to fall in love with the cruising lifestyle after an idyllic charter in the tropics, but see if you still want to do it after a few weeks of being doused with frigid water while puking over the transom!

Also, if you're seriously considering including young children in this dream, pick up Liza Copeland's books. She and Andy raised their three boys on their 38' Beneteu while doing several circumnavigations.

[barnakiel]

It is easy. You can make it work. If you do not like it, you will simply do something else that feels like the best alternative at that point.

Not much difference between a mobile home lifestyle and doing the same in a boat. I actually prefer mobile homes which seem to give one more freedom.

Good luck,
b.

[jholder51]

Instead of taking classes with other people, we chartered our boat with an ASA sailing instructor. That way we did all of the book work together and our sailing experience was for 10 days with an instructor. We weren't sharing the instructor with anyone nor waiting for someone else to practice their skills. We also experienced living aboard and cooking on the boat as well. It made for an answer beginning sailing experience plus.....what an awesome vacation.

[ingrid75]

For what it's worth, here is the view of a guy who has been cruising full time since 1995: I agree with snort. Forget the classes. Buy a small boat and sail her. Don't worry too much about learning to sail. Sailing is easy. Learn to think. To think about what may happen and how you will deal with it. Learn to repair everything you will have on board. Learn to improvise. Learn to navigate. You don't need celestial but you must be able to do more than just blindly follow your chart plotter. Learn to get along with people. You will encounter lots of folks who don't think like you as you wander around the world. Be able to deal with them. Learn to be flexible. Changing situations can make massive changes in plans in a matter of minutes. Remember this: 99% of our "sailing" is done, after we balance the sails, by fifty pounds of stainless steel tubing. Our monitor wind vane. Good luck. And try to keep at least six inches of water under your keel

[Sea Dreaming]

Originally Posted by snort

I think I'd do it a bit differently, though your way seems viable as well.
I'd buy a small sailboat (trailer sailor) locally and use it on lake in Colorado (assuming that's where you're still living).
Would look at a basic boat that has all the major systems on it. That way, you'd get to practice for many more hours than a course would give you.
Find someone to teach you and the family how to sail and keep on practicing till it becomes second nature.
You can always "test-out" for those ASA or US Sailing certificates once you feel you're proficient.

We are in Colorado too. This is exactly what we did. We dont yet have off shore experience but sailing in the flukey colorado winds is very good training and experience.
Several ASA courses are available at Blue Mesa reservoir too.

[snort]

Originally Posted by Sea Dreaming

We are in Colorado too. This is exactly what we did. We dont yet have off shore experience but sailing in the flukey colorado winds is very good training and experience.
Several ASA courses are available at Blue Mesa reservoir too.

I actually went through the US Sailing program when I was learning to sail, and while there's a lot to recommend that approach, I'd go about it the other way, if I had to do it over again.
My moving around circumstances sort of forced me into doing it that way.
I prefer more boat time to more classes. There's a lot of re-learning the same stuff as you "progress" through the system of classes.

[Bavaria50]

The best part of posting this question was seeing what an amazing and caring community is here!

I appreciate all of your input and I especially heard you when you said "get the family involved" so here is what we're doing.

Late November 2016 from Tortola BVI's:

• 2-days J 24' keelboat training.
• Then we move onto a 39' Beneteau with an ASA instructor on board
• 5-days training for the family on the Beneteau (my sister and I doing the hard-core training and bareboat certification, while my wife, mom and kids can learn as much or as little as they want). Lot's of beach, snorkel and down time included even though we're doing lessons.
• After 5-days we drop the captain off but we stay on the boat, and then we have 12-days to bareboat the 39' Beneteau around the BVI's on our own.
• This also means that for our next charter we'll have a sailing resume in place (since certs alone don't always work from what I hear).
• Then we can charter different kinds of boats in different locations around the planet for a while, and if we choose to go live-aboard we'll know where to do it and on what kind of ship.

I'm reading 'Dove' (Robin Lee Graham) to my kids right now and I'm ordering "It's Your Boat Too" by Suzanne Giesemann for my wife. My daughter is getting excited for scuba diving certification locally this summer, and I told my son he can drink rum once we're in the Caribbean.

Post-surgery healing is going *perfectly*.


-Elon

[Bulawayo]

All sounds good.....

Originally Posted by Bavaria50

The best part of posting this question was seeing what an amazing and caring community is here!

I appreciate all of your input and I especially heard you when you said "get the family involved" so here is what we're doing.

Late November 2016 from Tortola BVI's:

• 2-days J 24' keelboat training.
• Then we move onto a 39' Beneteau with an ASA instructor on board
• 5-days training for the family on the Beneteau (my sister and I doing the hard-core training and bareboat certification, while my wife, mom and kids can learn as much or as little as they want). Lot's of beach, snorkel and down time included even though we're doing lessons.
• After 5-days we drop the captain off but we stay on the boat, and then we have 12-days to bareboat the 39' Beneteau around the BVI's on our own.
• This also means that for our next charter we'll have a sailing resume in place (since certs alone don't always work from what I hear).
• Then we can charter different kinds of boats in different locations around the planet for a while, and if we choose to go live-aboard we'll know where to do it and on what kind of ship.

I'm reading 'Dove' (Robin Lee Graham) to my kids right now and I'm ordering "It's Your Boat Too" by Suzanne Giesemann for my wife. My daughter is getting excited for scuba diving certification locally this summer, and I told my son he can drink rum once we're in the Caribbean.

Post-surgery healing is going *perfectly*.


-Elon