Sailing and Aging

[OldManMirage]

Originally Posted by atoll

a friend of mine sailed to the philipines and now has a much younger philipino girlfriend,she sails the boat,does all the cooking and boat maintanance....he just supplies the cash and instructions..........

I was considering this exact plan !

Actually hoping I don't have to wait until the Philipines, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Maybe I'll just hire a younger female crew. Oh wait, that sounds like about the same thing ! LOL

[charliehows]

ketch rig, mate. Forget about furling, just drop the main and run on the mizzen and gib.

[Capt Phil]

Originally Posted by charliehows

ketch rig, mate. Forget about furling, just drop the main and run on the mizzen and gib.

So that is how I kept sailing as long as I did! Thanks, Charlie...
Also help that I married a PA, vascular surgery type, who is about 30 years my junior and keeps me fit year in year out! She is an Aussie, not a Philipino...
Cheers, Phil

[milagroman]

turned 65 this May. have played soccer most of my life on various teams and age groups, usually two or three times a week when I was in the US. left the US (florida) last June on this journey singlehanding around the Caribbean...first time as a cruising liveaboard. i have found that sailing this 35 year old prout cat has kept me in shape. but the best part is that I've found and played soccer with the locals in almost every port of the 9 countries I've visited. I'm currently in cartagena, colombia and play twice a week with local guys here. guess it will be time to get off the boat when I hang up my soccer cleats. but feel pretty blessed right now!

[Bill Creadon]

I just turned 70 on Monday. Coming home to MD from 6 months on the boat in southern FL and the Bahamas I decided I was not going to be land based. I live on the boat and work on new upgrades and maintenance. We'll leave in mid October to head south with a 4 month stay in the Bahamas. We sail and motor our 456 Passage Hunter and handle her with ease. Living on the boat I do boat yoga everyday.......up and down the companion way, cleaning, you name it. It beats being at home and on the couch. We watch our weather and stay put in rough weather. We make no commitments to any place or anyone. The first rule of serious cruising. I'll do this till I die. Life is a one way road. Enjoy it.
Bill
s/v Georgia Song

[MAE]

Jim you are a legend! Such a great contribution from both of you on this forum All the best

[estarzinger]

just as a different perspective . . . . it is not the end of life to move on from cruising.

we ran into some 'aging issues' . . . we considered all the various options (extra powered gear, trawlers, different sailboat designs, different cruising grounds) . . . . and we decided to just move on to other things . . . . we were not comfortable that we were fit and capable enough to continue doing what we were doing (fitness & health are definitely seamanship aspects), and we did not think we would enjoy as much a lower level of cruising challenge. It took us some while to adapt to life ashore, but we have found (other) things now we greatly enjoy.

[thomm225]

There are many more ways to exercise ashore also and possibly more stimulation for the brain depending on one's situation.

I know that I go sailing/cruising to relax and for the Sun high, but also for the work and hardships. I singlehand and the boat has no special setup for that except for maybe the autopilot and roller furling jib.

As a Coastal Weekend/Vacation Cruiser it's always about raising and lowering sails, anchoring, docking, dodging ships, and sometimes trying to sleep at a bad anchorage while depending on the anchor near a lee shore

There's also kayaking, hiking, and nature

When I get back, I'm usually totally drained but quite happy!

I think variety is nice........

[zeehag]

70 in a coupla months.
ketch. yes. donot use main as it doesnt add much to overall speed and is a lot of useless work. genoa 150 on a furling system , otto von pilote, aka simrad hdl2000, might add self tailing winches, as my hands are fail..hahahahaha sailed since 1955 without self tailers or use of thumbs, why hurry....
guardcats tell me when someone sneaks or swims by--good silent alarm..
ROW. especially when the rigid not inflatable dinghy is covered in 2 inches bottom growth. builds body best toning and flexibility. do it is minimum 20 kt breezes for best results. have someone else lift your 20 liter garafones of water onto deck. save your own back. moved up to a walker bay from leaky caribbe in 2009.
donot bother climbing masts, step em for maintenance and or hire young kid or
local worker to hike up masts --have em take pix so you know what there is up there..
oh yeah ...donot fall into drink. it is hard enough climbing out when a kid.. hahahaha just try it when older . loses ye yer goddess classification.
make sure you donot do anything after 2 pm. must rest up for mandatory evening gatherings. or become a hermit. both work. no one bothers an old woman in a boat.
thankfully.

oh yeah., my uncle , aka sailing teacher sailed a gaff rigged 1903 raceabout until he was 95. solo. no engine. no frills. no cheaters. no otto von pilote. he never did upgrade his dink from leaky old wood rowing boat.

[sowwaninii]

After consulting with designer of our boat, we elected for a self-tacking jib. While performance is slightly compromised, it certainly makes tacking almost effortless.

[vagrant]

I'm 72. I think it's important to keep fit. Currently sailed my 41 ft. boat from the east coast of England to the South Coast of Ireland single-handed. Next month down to the Portuguese Algarve. I think also it helps tremendously to keep doing it. Sailing that is. (naughty grin.) As in most things, use it or lose it. (another grin).
I go up to the mast to reef, also putting up the pole for running. I climb the mast if things need doing, even at sea. Healthy diet, cycling walking and general exercise combined with a bit of luck, and I feel like I can go on forever. Hmm? We'll see!

[marineruscg]

My experiences are coastal north america...mostly U.S.
I'm 72 my wife is 71 and we've been cruising full-time for 16 years on 36' monohull ketch. We've covered a little over 40,000 miles according to our chartplotter. Garmin electronics and an autopilot help a lot to ease the effort. We also added CDI roller furling to the main and mizzen. We already had a furlex for the genoa so nobody has to go out on deck. All sail-control is done from the cockpit. We had a fiberglas hard dodger custom fabricated that added greatly to the comfort level when sailing in 'weather'.
Over the years offshore passages have become harder and it takes us a few days now to recover from that effort. Living aboard is a fair amount of work so doing chores takes a little longer. You don't see a lot of 'chubby' sailors. 😀
Our 'family physician' is near our daughter's house on the west coast of Florida so it's easy to get our annual medical stuff done while we're visiting. For emergency care we use whatever is local where we happen to be...hospital ER, Urgent Care facilities (doc-in-a-box), or the local GP, etc.
We are in good health generally so we get by easily. We use the Wal-Mart pharmacy and they transfer our prescriptions easily and they seem to be everywhere we go. For most meds the doc gives us 90 day or 180 day prescriptions so we just have to manage our refills judiciously.
We use FindMeSpot so our family and friends can see where we are and 'follow along' as we travel.
Anyway, 16 years and 40,000 miles later we're still having fun and aren't getting 'creaky' too much.
I can tell we're slowing down and there will be a time when we may have to take the next step in ' the natural progression'...but not for a while yet, I hope.
The Natural Progression:
sailboat->trawler->motor home->nursing home->funeral home.
😎

[vagrant]

Ha! I like the sailboat to funeral home bit at the end of marineruscg's post. He's quite right. Also living on a boat for a long time makes it easier. I've lived on mine since 1976 so I'm probably used to it by now.

[RaymondR]

Sail boat - sea going house boat - funeral home.

73 this year and still going OK but it is getting harder to sail a 40' monohull by myself hence the house boat.

I cruise the north eastern coast of Australia which is fairly ideal for the life style. My northern terminus is Cairns,in the tropics, and southern the area od the Great Sandy Straits, a large area of protected waters inside a 40 or so mile sand island just south of the cyclone zone. The longest run between protected anchorages is about 60nm which allows daylight departure and entry to all weather and secure anchorages.

I must be feeling the getting older thing as whilst I still manage a sail boat I switched from 20L to 10L jerry cans for fuel and water a few years ago.

One of the up sides of aging is the tempering of the adventurous spirit, I have not been aground for a number of years now nor had to suffer bad weather outside a protected anchorage.

One of the things I have found most helpful is having a front wheel on my dingy. It's probably also a sign of the onset of geriatric helplessness that my new dingy has nice fat, low pressure, beach wheels rather than the golf cart wheels I previously fitted.

Not to much of a problem with winches yet as my upper body strength appears to be holding up, the problem is hands and a weakening grip for line hauling. Weakening knees require greater care with stepping down and dropping down onto a knee a no,no if I want to be mobile for a week or so after.

All in all the sailing and aging thing is going fairly well with the biggest potential problem uncertainties regarding health, I have a heart problem which appears manageable to date provided I don't let myself get distracted and slip into or revert to unhealthy habits.

In general I find living on the water and cruising to be far better than rotting in front of a TV whilst waiting to die.

[stevehalter]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I have a Pro Furl in boom furler, boom is 16”. Sail is full battened and has a lot of roach, both of course you can’t really have with in mast.
It came with the boat, P.O. before the one I bought the boat from were an older couple that day sailed her out of Hilton Head SC. They added the boom furling and as the Genoa had almost no wear, I assume they used the staysail and main, and weren’t in a hurry, cause an IP in normal conditions lives on the Genoa, but the Genoa can be a hand full, little self tacking Staysail is easy to handle, just not much power.
I assume they sold when they were too old to sail.

I am 69 still sailing 44 foot cat with just me and 74 year old wife. Have two electric winches that do all sail work. Main is fully battened and square top. we put reef in at 15 knots. young or old just always reef early. If you caught out in big wind blow off the main. Move car down track so main is not working and use headsail only. just use electric winch to shorten headsail.