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Old 15-08-2019, 15:03   #1
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age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

Wondering what age is the average active cruiser that singlehands? when are you too long in the tooth ? I know it varies with health but curious on seniors who actively cruise
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Old 15-08-2019, 15:20   #2
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

I'm 75 and will be sailing up from Sydney to Clarence River singlehanded in a couple of weeks. Few hundred miles.
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Old 15-08-2019, 17:54   #3
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

god bless you
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Old 15-08-2019, 18:03   #4
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

Typically, sailing is what keeps you healthy as you age. Plenty of fresh air and exercise.
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Old 15-08-2019, 18:05   #5
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

Thats an interesting question. Certainly most of my clients are over 50 years old and I would say that 60-70 years old is very common. On Monday I had a client who was 82 and still in very good shape.
92 has been my oldest client and he just wanted a yacht that others could sail him around on.
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Old 15-08-2019, 18:53   #6
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

There was that guy within the last couple of months who took his 96 yr. old Dad with him on a trip north from FL on a new catamaran, he reported back that his Dad had a great time.

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Old 16-08-2019, 08:11   #7
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

Read "Ulysses", by Lord Tennyson; especially the last stanza-- then you will know.
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Old 16-08-2019, 08:26   #8
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

Quote:
Originally Posted by resoluute View Post
Wondering what age is the average active cruiser that singlehands? when are you too long in the tooth ? I know it varies with health but curious on seniors who actively cruise
My wife and I sailed to Alaska this year. She had a dental (root canal) problem and had to fly home; I returned solo, I'm 76 and rather enjoyed it. However, sailing offshore/passage solo would be another story.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ MJH
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Old 16-08-2019, 08:46   #9
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

im 69.i have lived on boats for 25 years and will be doing my 9th atlantic crossing this winter singlehanded.
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Old 16-08-2019, 08:53   #10
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

I'm 79. There are many others as old or older. The question of age is a red herring. Asking it distracts you from the REAL questions: 1) How frail are you? Clearly none of us have the alacrity we had at five and twenty. Among the things one notices is a lengthening of reaction time and a diminution in the sense of balance which must be considered when on deck. 2) How REALISTIC are you about your frailties? If, like many people of advanced years, you get the odd cardiac arrhythmia, just how portentous is that? It is just a pain in the butt, so to speak, or is it serious enuff that someone else (such as your wife) might have to bring your ship to port?

You get the drift: Identify all the possible impediments that might impact YOUR going cruising. YOUR going cruising, not someone else's! Then enumerate all the steps are presently taking, and can take in the future, to minimize the risks intrinsic to those impediments.

As for physical strength - which also is not what it was when we were young - just rig your boat appropriately and exercise appropriate seamanship. In respect of appropriate seamanship we geezers have it all over the young and the fearless.

So - take it for a dead certainty: Age has NOTHING to do with it.

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Old 16-08-2019, 10:33   #11
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

We've lived on a 22 m steel boat (converted to a houseboat) for 37 years. OK, she doesn't sail, but she moves around a lot in a blow. We stay fit by cutting, splitting and stacking firewood, building, rebuilding and refitting and maintaining the external woodwork. I recently built a new jetty, 20m x 6m, from poles, to beam shelves to beams (37 hardwood beams at 95 kg each) to deck. Then I built a workshop on it.

We're now in the process of selling our property and will be buying a Formosa 51, our first 'real' sailing boat (apart from having sailed some smaller boats and having crewed for a short while on a large 3-mast schooner). We'll be sailing the Formosa in the Adriatic and the Med. then up the Atlantic coast. For our 'shakedown' cruise we'll have the company and advice of a friend who is qualified as Ocean master, probably also a couple more friends who are sailing enthusiasts.

My wife and I are both 71, and hope for a fair number of years on the boat, possibly including a circumnavigation (we have lots of far-flung friends we'd like to visit).

We expect that sailing the boat will keep us fit, if not make us even fitter.

Are there any health issues? Well, yes, I have had cancer, but am considered to be clear. Apart from that, we are as reasonably healthy as you could expect from 71 y.o., reasonably fit people.

The shake-down cruise will be utilised, among other things, to make sure that either of us is capable of single-handing the boat if it should become necessary.

If anybody wishes to offer us advice, or just tell us we're daft, feel free
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Old 16-08-2019, 11:23   #12
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

I'm 70 and have a powerboat. It's easier on arthritis and other mobility problems. But I mostly solo an 83' boat. People that sometimes travel with me are my age. It's all in the mind. If you run to the doctor or pill cabinet for every ache or pain, don't do it.


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Old 16-08-2019, 11:24   #13
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

Knew a guy regularly sailing single handed from Wellington around New Zealand's South Island right up to into his nineties. Here's an Amazon link to Perce's book Some Voyages Around New Zealand & Elsewhere he wrote in 2013 when he was, I believe, 88.

And for those that don't know, sailing the South Island of New Zealand is brutal. Freezing cold, severe storms, occassional polar storms and almost nowhere to shelter. The West Coast (Perce's preferred side) offers nothing but a lee shore, high seas and big winds for several hundred miles.
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Old 16-08-2019, 11:46   #14
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

I'm 58 and will be getting back into sailing next summer and living onboard full time. Lost my wife in June so some of it will be with hired crew and my kids, some on my own. Looking forward to both.
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Old 16-08-2019, 13:50   #15
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Re: age and living aboard and cruising on a sailboat

Solo'd to Hawaii at 67. Just delivered my new to me Sabre 28 from SF to Oceanside, mostly solo. at 74. There's a guy in Oceanside who regularly races his Sabot Dinghy at 83. Age is all about attitude and condition. Know people at 50 who are OLD and others in their 80's who are young. If your body hasn't given up on you, chronological age don't mean a thing. Yes, you aren't going to have the strength and flexibility of your 18 year old self but there are work arounds. Personally find Boat Yoga really helpful in retaining flexibility and movement.
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