Prepping for Blue Water

[Mycroft]

After reading the threads about the loss of the Zen and Rebel Heart, the most important take-away for me is that my partner and I will need to get some open ocean experience *before* setting off on a thousand mile passage.

With that in mind, I would like advice on a future sea-trial for us.

We have a 43ft 1983 Slocum double-ender cutter rigged sloop. We're new to sailing with ASA 101 & 103 under our belts and some time on 22 - 30 foot sloops in a club out of Olympia. In order to get insurance with our limited experience, we had to agree to having a USCG certified captain on board any time we left the slip. We just found a local volunteer, (thanks Gary!!), and took our boat out Wednesday for the first time on a successful bay cruise and look forward to lots more.

As soon as we're able to get our insurance restriction lifted, we plan on retiring, cutting the dock lines and cruising Puget Sound for at least a year.

My plan is that some time during that year, the earlier the better, we would prep our boat for sea and head off shore a couple hundred miles for at least two weeks, doing big circles, to see how we handle that type of voyaging. If we find that we can handle the open water, then we continue with our plans, but if we find that we can't handle it well, then we can change our plans to spend a few years just exploring beautiful Puget Sound.

What do you think?