Why do cruisers quit cruising?

[Kettlewell]

5-6 kts sounds slow. 125-150 nms per day gets you somewhere so it's the right tool for the job. If the goal is exhilarating sailing vs adventure travel, I don't think cruising is a good fit no matter the boat.

Though most cruisers aren't out there just for the sailing, many of us enjoy fast, efficient, and sometimes exciting sails. We first went south on a 30-footer that would really move out in heavy weather. On our first sail we needed to get her home quick so went out in a gale and made about 85 miles in 10 hours, often surfing over 10 knots, which feels really fast on a 30-footer. Sailed her all over the Bahamas in the 1980s, and in those days fuel stops were few and far between, and unreliable, plus we didn't carry much. We sailed into and out of all sorts of places nobody sails today, including up and down most of the Exumas because the fuel docks had run dry. I personally, get more pleasure out of that type of sailing than just putzing around the bay or racing around buoys.

[Captain Graham]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I've never understood people who get into cruising on a sailboat, and then complain about how slow the boat moves. Sailing is pretty much the slowest way to go anywhere. If you haven't done even this modicum of research before getting into sailing, well... I just don't get it.

I joke with people that sailing is the most complicated way to got slow.

In my case I love going slow just setup the sailboat to self steer, go below make some muffins, a cup of tea and think about all the great joys in my life.

In my case I am only a weekend sailor but in June 2024 I will retire and will be spending more time on the boat sailing to nowhere and back.

[Mogle]

Originally Posted by Captain Graham

I am thinking about the people who start cruising and then in a short period of time quit.

I think many do not realize the reality of cruising life.
1. Sleeping on a sailboat in bad weather.
2. When at anchor the need to check you are not dragging your anchor.
3. Having to cook all the time on a moving platform.
4. Not having a shower anytime you want one.
Etc.

If issues are a problem - you are better off on land.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Mogle

If issues are a problem - you are better off on land.

Or you have to try and overcome the issues.

Originally Posted by Captain Graham View Post
I am thinking about the people who start cruising and then in a short period of time quit.

I think many do not realize the reality of cruising life.
1. Sleeping on a sailboat in bad weather.
2. When at anchor the need to check you are not dragging your anchor.
3. Having to cook all the time on a moving platform.
4. Not having a shower anytime you want one.
Etc.



I have trouble with the sleeping unless I can stay on the boat for at least 5 days. By then, I have adjusted from my queen size stable bed to the moving small settee.

As far as at anchor, most times you can tell if you are still in the same spot or sometimes I'll have my depth finder on right in front of me which is another
indicator you can use. Opening one eye for a quick check will do it.

Or take a peak when you get up to relieve the old bladder.

Cooking and shower not a big deal yet, but I haven't had to take a cockpit bath in temps below 40 degrees. My boat has no shower.

I will need lot of books though.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Or you have to try and overcome the issues.

Originally Posted by Captain Graham View Post
I am thinking about the people who start cruising and then in a short period of time quit.

I think many do not realize the reality of cruising life.
1. Sleeping on a sailboat in bad weather.
2. When at anchor the need to check you are not dragging your anchor.
3. Having to cook all the time on a moving platform.
4. Not having a shower anytime you want one.
Etc.



I have trouble with the sleeping unless I can stay on the boat for at least 5 days. By then, I have adjusted from my queen size stable bed to the moving small settee.

As far as at anchor, most times you can tell if you are still in the same spot or sometimes I'll have my depth finder on right in front of me which is another indicator you can use. Opening one eye for a quick check will do it.

Or take a peak when you get up to relieve the old bladder.

Cooking and shower not a big deal yet, but I haven't had to take a cockpit bath in temps below 40 degrees. My boat has no shower.

I will need lot of books though.

I have watched my old Humminbird Depth finder bounce back and forth between 1'-2' under the keel quite a few times at anchor between 1am and 3am, but I only had to move once when I was anchored too near the ocean and the wind swung around causing waves to start breaking over the side of the boat.

Video shows my ancient Humminbird the PO had and I still use. I did have to replace the display though. As luck would have it, I found one on Ebay for $25.

Btw, I redid my entire interior not long after this video was taken. I'm at a very nice anchorage in the video. Replaced the tiller and dodger also and repainted the cockpit.

Up Mobjack Bay and back into the Severn River. This is about a 5-6 hour sail from my slip or 3 hour or so sail from Kiptopeke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWwQ4iUfiyM

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

For those in good health and with family in good health the #1 reason people get out is the maintenance. I've talked to tons of cruisers over the years, having worked at hundreds of boat shows and also having done many cruising seminars, and it is the constant work on the boat that drives people away. Even the boaters who have plenty of money--you just can't take a boat into a yard and tell them to make everything perfect. It is never that easy. Every boatyard job I have ever had done ended up costing more than the estimate, and required troubleshooting afterward by myself. I mostly do all my own work, and it can be tiring and frustrating on my 38-footer to the point that I'm thinking of downsizing to get away from some of that. But, once your health problems mount or you start to have to take care of someone else that can also be the tipping point for many, especially older, cruisers.

A good read about this is from the late Robert Pirsig (author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) in an article in Esquire called "Cruising Blues":
https://www.original.moq.org/forum/P...singblues.html


"Their case was typical. After four years of hard labor their ocean-size trimaran was launched in Minneapolis at the head of Mississippi navigation. Six and one half months later they had brought it down the river and across the gulf to Florida to finish up final details. Then at last they were off to sail the Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles and South America.

Only it didn't work out that way. Within six weeks they were through. The boat was back in Florida up for sale.

"Our feelings were mixed," they wrote their hometown paper. "Each of us had a favorite dream unfulfilled, a place he or she wanted to visit, a thing to do. And most of us felt sheepish that our 'year's escape' shrunk to eight months. Stated that way, it doesn't sound as if we got our money's worth for our four years' labor."

"But most of us had had just about all the escape we could stand; we're overdosed on vacation. Maybe we aren't quite as free spirits as we believed; each new island to visit had just a bit less than its predecessor."

"And thoughts were turning to home."

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by mbianka

"And thoughts were turning to home."

I never have turn my thoughts to home ... I'm here all the time.

[Mike OReilly]

"But most of us had had just about all the escape we could stand; we're overdosed on vacation"

I think this line is telling. Perhaps it explains why some people only last a short time. It's the attitude that this is somehow a "vacation." That the real world is back on shore, at the desk, or in a land-home. This boating life is treated like a hiatus from "real life," or some sort of sabbatical.

This is why I say motivation matters. The reasons that motivate people to start cruising also explain why, and when, people leave the life.

For me, cruising is a means to an end, it's not the end in itself. I like sailing, and I like living on a smallish sailboat. But that's not why I got into cruising. It's because it's a lifestyle that allows me to live closer to the way I want. It allows me to do things that are important to me, and to live the values that motivate me.

It's certainly not a "vacation," or time away from the real world. It's as real as any lifestyle.

[MicHughV]

I know a guy that has been building his boat for about 40 plus years now...the boat was completed years ago, but he keeps finding odds and ends that need to be done preventing him from launching it.

That boat is unlikely to be launched in his lifetime. Launching it would be the end of the of his dream, which is what sustains him.

Here's the thing, every night when he switches off the lights, he is out cruising in his mind. He has probably circumnavigated this planet a dozen times...in his mind off course, but who cares, he is out there....somewhere, some new voyage.

He'll quit the day he passes on, which is as good a time as any.

Somebody will inherit a very nice boat one day.

Quitting is mindset in my opinion.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

I know a guy that has been building his boat for about 40 plus years now...the boat was completed years ago, but he keeps finding odds and ends that need to be done preventing him from launching it.

That boat is unlikely to be launched in his lifetime. Launching it would be the end of the of his dream, which is what sustains him.

Here's the thing, every night when he switches off the lights, he is out cruising in his mind. He has probably circumnavigated this planet a dozen times...in his mind off course, but who cares, he is out there....somewhere, some new voyage.

He'll quit the day he passes on, which is as good a time as any.

Somebody will inherit a very nice boat one day.

Quitting is mindset in my opinion.

Had a similar fellow in the boatyard. He spent 20 years building his boat. Even poured his own keel using car tire weights he collected and melted. Finally launched it and I don't think he left the harbor more than ten times before he passed on. But, he loved to work on it. On land or at the mooring. Somebody else bought it and sailed off to live his own "dream". I often wonder where that boat is now.

[Kettlewell]

Well, the builders that never finish never quit cruising because they never started cruising in the first place! There aren't very many cruisers out there who built their own boats, but my own guess is that many of them don't cruise for that long. Maybe they enjoy the building more than the cruising. Nothing wrong with that. A follow-on question to this thread is why do so many people purchase cruising boats and then almost never use them. We all see those boats in marinas, on moorings, and on the hard. I've seen many really nice cruising boats that spend their lives almost never out cruising. I think one factor today is that these really nice boats are also really expensive. To afford the really nice boat someone has to have a really demanding job that requires way too much time, and then they probably also own an expensive house, at least a couple of expensive cars, a couple of expensive kids, etc. Back in the day an ordinary middle class person could afford a cruising sailboat that was perfect for the family vacation and putzing around on weekends, but now that person is working weekends to afford the expensive stuff. The typical cruising boat in the typical harbor was often a young family with young children onboard, with a smattering of retirees. Today the young family is the exception. Back in the 1980s I worked at a lot of boat shows and I could imagine owning many of the boats I saw there--not so much today.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

It's certainly not a "vacation," or time away from the real world. It's as real as any lifestyle.

Pirsig touches on this in the article:

"If this is so, then it follows that those who see sailing as an escape from reality have got their understanding of both sailing and reality completely backwards. Sailing is not an escape but a return to and a confrontation of a reality from which modern civilization is itself an escape. For centuries, man suffered from the reality of an earth that was too dark or too hot or too cold for his comfort, and to escape this he invented complex systems of lighting, heating and air conditioning. Sailing rejects these and returns to the old realities of dark and heat and cold. Modern civilization has found radio, TV, movies, nightclubs and a huge variety of mechanized entertainment to titillate our senses and help us escape from the apparent boredom of the earth and the sun and wind and stars. Sailing returns to these ancient realities."

When I am on the boat I sometimes feel a bit sad for those sitting in front of the TV watching some game show or otherwise entertaining themselves to death. Perhaps because we have chartered in various places around the world my wanderlust was satisfied long ago. In my local cruising these days I love each cry from an Osprey and have pinch me moments at each sunrise and/or sunset that are as enjoyable as those when I charted boats a thousand miles away. Because of all the charters we did over the years I know I am not missing out on anything and am content with my current cruising plans. My cruising these days are a few hours sail down the coast. But, I enjoy it as much or more than when I sailed across Lake Ontario, Bahamas, Maldives, Nantucket etc...

[Kettlewell]

When I am on the boat I sometimes feel a bit sad for those sitting in front of the TV watching some game show or otherwise entertaining themselves to death.

Look around any crowded anchorage on a beautiful evening and you will notice many are down below in air-conditioned comfort watching a big-screen TV while the sun sets, the moon rises, and stars come out. Offshore I once encountered a cruise ship that asked me if I could get the attention of a boat near me where everyone was down below watching some movie as they blissfully sailed right across the path of the big ship. I could see them in the cabin, but neither of us could get their attention on the radio.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Pirsig touches on this in the article:

"If this is so, then it follows that those who see sailing as an escape from reality have got their understanding of both sailing and reality completely backwards. Sailing is not an escape but a return to and a confrontation of a reality from which modern civilization is itself an escape. For centuries, man suffered from the reality of an earth that was too dark or too hot or too cold for his comfort, and to escape this he invented complex systems of lighting, heating and air conditioning. Sailing rejects these and returns to the old realities of dark and heat and cold. Modern civilization has found radio, TV, movies, nightclubs and a huge variety of mechanized entertainment to titillate our senses and help us escape from the apparent boredom of the earth and the sun and wind and stars. Sailing returns to these ancient realities."

Gotta love the old Zen master. He nailed it -- again.

Originally Posted by mbianka

When I am on the boat I sometimes feel a bit sad for those sitting in front of the TV watching some game show or otherwise entertaining themselves to death. Perhaps because we have chartered in various places around the world my wanderlust was satisfied long ago. In my local cruising these days I love each cry from an Osprey and have pinch me moments at each sunrise and/or sunset that are as enjoyable as those when I charted boats a thousand miles away. Because of all the charters we did over the years I know I am not missing out on anything and am content with my current cruising plans. My cruising these days are a few hours sail down the coast. But, I enjoy it as much or more than when I sailed across Lake Ontario, Bahamas, Maldives, Nantucket etc...

Now you sound like a Zen master . I completely agree with your sentiments. I often say, you don't have to travel the world, or cross oceans, to find wonder, beauty, adventure and joy. It's everywhere. This is why I don't understand people driven by "bucket list" approaches.

[MicHughV]

I've seen this countless of times.

Husband has been yearning for the cruising lifestyle..finally quits his job, 9 to 5 routine, retires, etc...
and is ready to tackle the world.
The wife is not so gungho, this is not really her thing....but being married for so long, agrees to " go along"

They visit the boatshows, etc and finally find a boat they like....they plunk down the $500K or thereabouts and outfit the boat to the max with every creature comfort money can buy, plus all the electronic whizz bang stuff.

Finally, one day, they head out for a test sail. Weather is gorgeous. The minute the boat clears the jetties and rises and falls to the ocean swell, she panics and tells him to turn the boat around...." it's me or this boat" is the ultimatum given, and another gorgeous boat finds itself on the docks in Ft. Lauderdale with a " for sale" sign hanging on it..