Am I biting off more than I can chew

[brianlara 3]

TOPH. For what it's worth I am of the view that it is incumbent on any good commander (recreational, military or whatever) to have an equally capable 2IC on stand-by at all reasonable times. If you have ever known the pain and incapacitation of multiple broken ribs you would know that the pain of even breathing is pretty unbearable much less getting out of a bunk. No sexism implied in the following but as you were the OP and you talked about your Wife doing the other "non command/operational" duties it seems to me that in the event of you becoming incapacitated, your Wife would really have her hands full nursing you and being in control of the vessel.....Matey, you could easily turn your Better Half AND the Kids off boats for life. IF..IF.. She is already a Gun operator then I would say DO IT !! 95% chance of a lovely bonding experience.
But if she ain't as capable as you then I'd leave the Kids out of the equation until such time as she is a capable and as confident as you obviously already are.
The fact that you are well past the contemplation stage is a good sign, the confidence is there. But it could be hell, as KMAC, says if The Lady isn't up to the task and the 5% chance of things going belly-up occurs.
Best of all, there's plenty of good advice from many on CF.
Cheers.

[Toph]

Jim... The yacht is currently in Brisbane. I need to get it out to Tahiti and have been looking for a delivery skipper that is able to do so. I was contemplating helping on some of the delivery if possible. I only want to do the trip one way..

Brianlara 3... Thanks for your reply. You are right on a few things. We are beyond the consideration stage. Both my wife and I will be on long service leave and both employers have been generous enough to let us take it at half rate (hence the 6 months), the home schooling prep is well prepped and I have done what I can to advance my skills and knowledge except for a diesel engine course which I think I might do... The boat has also been bought for the purpose of the trip, so yes... we are definitely going somewhere.. I am not new to boating by any stretch, I just haven't sailed anywhere other then my local area (and a bareboat out of the Whitsundays about 11 years ago).

My wife is certainly capable of using a radio if required and having done some sailing (competent crew plus on our previous boat) she would certainly be capable of bashing and crashing her way into port if we were only a days sail out. Beyond that she may well find it a struggle to cope with sailing, navigation, kids and a sore grizzly husband.

The other thing you are also correct on is that the last thing I want to do is to frighten the boys and wife so much, that I will be doing this trip on my own before long and to have the kids turn off sailing for life. I had not really considered this until an early post here and it is certainly worthy of consideration.

Cheers to all

[Jim Cate]

Ahaa! That puts things in a different light for me!

May I suggest a different plan altogether, one that saves you the cost and hassle of eastward delivery to FP?

Join the boat in Brisbane and spend a month getting to know her and settling the family into their new abode. Then, sometime in the late winter do the ~800 mile passage from Southport to Noumea. If you pick your weather, this is not a bad passage. Plan is to depart whilst there is a low off of the NSW coast. This gives you two or three days of W'ly quadrant winds, time spent sailing ~due East. Then, as the wind backs to the SE you fall off onto a close reach to the NE and Passe Boularie at the south end of New Cal. It usually takes us 5-6 days, mostly nice conditions, and an easy landfall with a well marked channel through the reef and up to town. The easiest entry formalities we have ever encountered, and then all the delights of a small French city, with lots of facilities for yotties. After that, you have delightful, low stress cruising around a gorgeous lagoon, with ranges of mountains as a backdrop.

Then, as cyclone season approaches and your 90 day visa diminishes, you pick a decent high and have a easy trade wind passage back to Oz. Depending upon how much time you have left, you pick your clearance port for arrival, somewhere on the east coast.

To me, this is a better matched itinerary than what you have proposed. It gives time to acclimate, a long enough passage to properly taste the process, short enough that kids and wife should not get stir crazy, excellent cruising for a reasonable time in a welcoming country with spectacular scenery, only one period of wasted time clearing into a small nation, no delivery to arrange and pay for (and no boat repairs at long distance to remediate the ravages of the delivery trip). And enough time at that destination to get a more intimate look at the culture (both French and Kanak), rather than a series of short stays, largely spent in recovery from "boat lag" and getting oriented in your new surroundings.

It makes sense to me, but only you can tell if it fits.

Of course, the boat ends up back on the East coast, not in Perth, but I don't see you actually making that destination in 6 months, starting in FP... that's a hell of a lot of miles for an untried boat and crew to cover in cruising mode. I would not attempt it myself!

Jim

[JPA Cate]

Toph,

Something you might consider doing, if you have Open CPN on your computer is to do a rough track from Tahiti to Perth. Look at the ocean miles total. Figure out what your average days' runs are likely to be, and how many sea days you would have. Your plan may start looking a bit like a forced march.

Then look at what Jim suggested. You will still have a lot of sailing miles to cover to get to Perth, although you could consider going across the top and south along Oz's west coast. Cruising is different from visiting areas by plane. It takes time to shop/provision/learn the lay of the land. Schooling takes time, too.

I think you need to have some serious talk with your good lady. I think in and out, Southport, New Cal, and then delivery back to Perth is very ambitious for a family in 6 months, perhaps too ambitious. However, you could always bring the boat back to Oz, and possibly, you could even arrange to leave it in New Cal for cyclone season. [For that, there were some good threads about preparing to leave boats for the recent hurricanes on the North American east coast.]

Your worst problem is that you lack time. There won't be much time to smell the roses, and the bigger chunk of miles you select, the less rose smelling there will be.

The experience base Jim and I have for what we have written are two cruises we did, one in a 30 foot S & S, the other in a 36 ft. Palmer Johnson Standfast. The first was San Francisco to Hawaii and return, in 7 weeks, approx 5,000 mi. The second was SF, Mexico, French Polynesia, HI, SF in one year, which was around 15,000 mi. After the second, we had convinced ourselves that that was way too many miles to do in one year's cruising. We, too, had to go back to work, because we could not yet afford to become full time cruisers. However, we did not have to meet the needs of children, our exes were minding them (we trusted). We have been cruising full time, now, since March of '89.

Ann