"Sail Away"? What else is needed?

[KeepInTune]

We are exploring a new 40' (+-) mono (such as Bene/Bavaria/Catalina, etc..). As we attend the sailboat show, we'll get quoted these great "sail away" boat show prices. I'm assuming sail-away is just the basics which get you off the dock.

Those of you who have purchased a new production mono in the last few years, what else have you found was needed to properly outfit your boat for cruising needs? You insight is appreciated.

[JPA Cate]

If you're serious about cruising, imo, you will need a real anchor, not the toy that comes with your boat. Check out the threads Photos of Anchors Setting and videos of anchors setting.

You will need a dinghy, with an outboard motor. You will need shade protection for hot places*, and good ventilation (like dorades and opening ports., and fans.) You will need rain protection for your hatches so that they can be kept open while the wind is blowing and the rain is falling.

*Some people will tell you this must be a bimini. I do not believe this is necessarily so. For the last 30 yrs, we have made do with a 1/2 shiftable underway awning, and a cockpit awning for at anchor.

You will need to add handholds, so that you can be safe in a seaway moving forward and aft as needed, and a butt belt for the galley, unless you have a "U" shaped galley.

You will want a good quality bilge pump or two, both electric and manual, at the very least. If your boat has a shower, its sump should be separate from the ship's bilge, and have its own pump. Be sure you have a toilet that is manually operated. The boat may have two, one electric is okay, but you need a head that can be used by hand pumping, or go for a desiccating (sometimes called composting) head, if there are only two aboard.

You will need to add insulation to the fridge, most of them come with 2", but need 4". A salt water pump for the galley, for rinsing dishes is a useful, water saving addition.

Add lee cloths and attachments for them in the saloon area, so that the settees areas are available in rough weather, on passages. Optional: weather cloths for privacy in the cockpit, and water protection.

If you don't have fiddles, buy a lot of non-skid "fabric" for the horizontal surfaces.


Above decks, you'll want a spinnaker pole, reaching strut, preventers against accidental gybes. You will probably want roller furling headsails and possibly a roller furling main. [Some people love them, we have slab reefing on a larger boat.] Lots of discussion of all this on CF, check the archives. Use the Google CF Custom Search.

How about an electric windlass? It is a great back saver. We like having ours.

Some people like to add a barbecue, and a meat line.

You may want to add lazy jacks for your mainsail, and jack lines for offshore passages. And harnesses with crotch straps. Possibly self-inflating, but check about maintenance, because you might be better off with one you have to inflate, or a combo.

Some people will tell you you need a PLB. You will want an EPIRB, most likely. Perhaps AIS. (We have the latter two). We also have SSB (ham & maritime) radio, which works for us, but many people prefer to trust Satphone. These can have some peculiar failure modes, so we stick with what we have, although Jim is quite accepting of modern technology.


On a lighter note, you will benefit from having swim clothes, fins, snorkels, mask.

More money and less clothes. (You can always buy more clothes, as needed.)

There are whole threads about tools. But the deal here is that you lose precious time out of your lives if you have to wait on someone else to fix *stuff*. The more *stuff* you have to be fixed, the more time your lives are on hold. The more stuff you can fix yourselves, the less time you spend waiting. Don't buy expensive tools you don't know how to use. Learn how to use it/them properly first.

Learn about repairing, diesel engines, refrigeration, electronic devices, simple wiring and plumbing, or spend weeks and weeks waiting on others who may not do as good a job as you could do with some CF guidance, once you learn how to separate the good advice from the less experienced.

Sewing. I have always had a sewing machine aboard, and I have made everything from mainsail covers, lee cloths, weather cloths, to wraparound skirts to give to islanders....and other friends, including my sister in law. I have sewn on other people's sacrificial strips to their jibs [done ashore, with Jim driving the hand crank], lots of little projects. I have enjoyed having done those projects, though not so much, solving the problems involved in doing them!

Cruising is (a) not for everyone; (b) can be terribly frustrating for those who are inadequately prepared; and can also be terribly rewarding. How you guys are personally prepared for it is key.

Ann

PS. It might be better if you asked specific questions. I appreciate that you don't want to guide the flow of information, but buddy, you picked a huge question to answer!

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by KeepInTune

We are exploring a new 40' (+-) mono (such as Bene/Bavaria/Catalina, etc..). As we attend the sailboat show, we'll get quoted these great "sail away" boat show prices. I'm assuming sail-away is just the basics which get you off the dock.

Those of you who have purchased a new production mono in the last few years, what else have you found was needed to properly outfit your boat for cruising needs? You insight is appreciated.

That's sort of like asking how long is a piece of string, given that there is "local weekend cruising" and "sail away and never come back cruising".

What are your plans for the boat? That will allow us to provide better feedback about what you might want to outfit it with.

[MLOI]

As normal, Anne's response is pretty thorough.
But given we're just going through the process of setting up a well found boat for a 6 month cruise, here is what we are adding;

Dodger
Solar supported on a bimini
Expanding house batteries to 400 AH of deep cycle
Nav computer below, and cheap plotter at the helm
Fixing Autopilot
Replacing 10m of chain with 60m
Replacing undersized anchor and adding a second backup anchor
Adding a bigger holding tank
Adding a second smaller headsail.
Adding extra halyards / blocks / jammers
Adding reaching pole plus cockpit lead control lines. Adding main boom preventer
Dinghy plus outboard.
Lee cloths on bunks
Removable cockpit table
Converting hanging lockers to shelves
Adding secondary water tankage.

Turned into a long list for a boat I would have been happy to sail anywhere without doing any of the above. A lot of it is not for sailing, but rather for anchoring and living. Something to consider if buying a 'cruiser/ racer'

Mike

[chuckr]

We bought SoulMates new and went though a bunch of items with our broker who was an old cruiser - our intent was to put enough on her that she would function really well and if we did not like the sailing thing we could sell her easily - but also we could put all the stuff on the mortgage instead of out of pocket cost later

we added
chartplotter with radar
all instruments from RayMarine
autoprop
bimini and dodger
windlass
big anchor (it was a cqr and we eventually traded it out for a big delta)
added 4 more batteries for a total of 6
upgraded our sails
and I forget what else --

once we got underway and started sailing a bit we made a list of items we would need if we wanted to continue but did little with it until we spent 2 winters in the Bahamas and decided we really like the life style then we made a ton of changes to her that we would never have done in the beginning due to the cost -

It also of course depends on if you are just sailing a couple of times a month or on the weekends or longer voyages or for a week or so out or you get it --

and our list never ends by the way

[Capt.Alex]

Spare parts for engine, dinghy, pumps, heads. Fuses for everything, cleaning supplies, courtesy flags, cruising guides, electronic and paper charts.....maybe consider a used boat with all of the stuff everyone has listed above...it can cost a small fortune to properly outfit a new boat for extended cruising [emoji15]

[Dockhead]

Besides everything else mentioned above, give a lot of thought to tools and spare parts.

There is a lot of discussion in the archives about proper inventories of spare parts, and no single correct answer. Likewise with tools. This is worth spending a lot of time thinking about, as cruising is most truly defined as "boat repair in exotic places".

Having the right tool and the right part to hand when (not if) something fails, can make the whole difference between a minor diversion, and something which ruins large swaths of time which could otherwise have been used cruising. It can be amazingly hard, maddeningly hard, to find even common parts, in even very civilized places, so you should be prepared to fix any common failure with tools and parts you keep on board, even if you are cruising in civilized areas. And if you are going far away from civilization, then you need to be prepared to deal with even uncommon failures, using your own resources.

[Paperbird]

Will definitely echo the bit about spares. Think about anything that can go bad, even the propane solenoid valve (missed that one but had the parts to bypass it so 1/2 credit?)

We tend to think in 3 groups: the boat, the crew, and the voyage. Boats need systems and parts, crews need food, clothes and safety gear, voyages demand charts, guides, visas etc. Each boat, crew, and voyage combination is unique and no 2 will end up with the same lists.

So check lots of sources like CF, Downwind in San Diego and others then build your own variation.

[Madwand]

On a new boat, add 50% to the price, on a used boat, double the price.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Paperbird

Will definitely echo the bit about spares. Think about anything that can go bad, even the propane solenoid valve (missed that one but had the parts to bypass it so 1/2 credit?)

We tend to think in 3 groups: the boat, the crew, and the voyage. Boats need systems and parts, crews need food, clothes and safety gear, voyages demand charts, guides, visas etc. Each boat, crew, and voyage combination is unique and no 2 will end up with the same lists.

So check lots of sources like CF, Downwind in San Diego and others then build your own variation.

Good advice.

Most people work out their spares list based on hard experience, and only gradually reach a good inventory when it's too late to save the last 6 (or however many) cruises.

I wish I could go back in time and skip that hard learning process, and start out from the beginning with a proper spares inventory.

So for the OP -- it will be worth its weight in gold to study other people's experiences and spares lists. There is a lot of information in the archives.

Maybe one way to express this is like this: "What can go wrong, will go wrong. No biggie IF you have the spare on board."

[sailing_gal]

I would caution you against purchasing a new boat at a boat show. I had a friend who was a marine mechanic and spent quite a bit of time prepping new boats for boat shows--- they are set up quickly--- with the object of making them look nice, and many short cuts were made. He warned me, never buy a new boat at a boat show!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by KeepInTune

We are exploring a new 40' (+-) mono (such as Bene/Bavaria/Catalina, etc..). As we attend the sailboat show, we'll get quoted these great "sail away" boat show prices. I'm assuming sail-away is just the basics which get you off the dock.

Those of you who have purchased a new production mono in the last few years, what else have you found was needed to properly outfit your boat for cruising needs? You insight is appreciated.

Buy nothing.

Sail away.

After 6 months you will know and can upgrade.

[Cadence]

Re: tools. Buy a gross of screwdrivers, if used on deck they inevitably go over the side.

[lancelot9898]

Two books by Nigel Calder. "Cruising Handbook" and "Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual"

[blueazimuth]

To a lot excellent suggestions, I would add:
1. Windvane - Under sail, I engage as soon as clearing the breakwaters.
They take no power, rarely fail, are easy to fix at sea but cannot be used
under power. Auto pilots take power, can and do fail, are difficult to fix
at sea, but are essential under power. IMHO carry both.
2. Carry spares for spares