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Old 12-11-2016, 03:31   #16
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Jarsy, and SFer.
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Old 12-11-2016, 05:17   #17
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

Has your wife sailed? Have the two of you sailed together? If not, you need to try that before you can answer your question.

There are a few small sailboats on Lake Diefenbaker, you might find someone who would take you out. Not sure where else in Saskatchewan you'd find any. Or you could take a course together in Vancouver for example and see how you both feel by the end of it.

Anything's possible; it just seems to me that you're asking a very big question with very little real information to help you answer it.
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Old 12-11-2016, 06:52   #18
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

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Originally Posted by SFer View Post
You might find inspiration from Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the winner of the first Vendee Globe race (then called the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race), in 1969, making him the first person to sail around the world solo non-stop. One of his favorite poems is called The Mustn'ts by Shell Silverstein, which goes like this . .

Listen to Mustn'ts, child, listen to the Don'ts.
Listen to the Shouldn'ts, the Impossibles, the Won'ts.
Listen to the Never Haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child, Anything can be.

At the very least, read it to your kids!

I like that a lot... good quote.
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Old 12-11-2016, 07:07   #19
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

It's been done. As someone said, it's all a matter of how badly you want it, and your personality and aptitudes. If you're a self-starter, curious and mechanically inclined, learn from experience well and have a healthy ability to deal with the unexpected, then you might just be right for the job.

As far as the trimaran goes, there is one quick fact for you to learn; the bigger the boat, the more difficult it is to manage by yourself, unless tricked out with lots of expensive gear specifically targeted at making it easier to single-hand. Also with size comes complexity, generally speaking. And bigger boats are almost exponentially more expensive to run and maintain. Instead of a $150 halyard you need a $400 halyard. Instead of a $500 of anchor chain you need $1200 of anchor chain. Everything needs to be bigger and stronger, and that costs money.

I mentioned on another thread that to be a successful long-distance voyager on a boat you sort of need to be a sailor, a navigator, a meteorologist, a plumber, an electrician, a mechanic, a logistics analyst, a crisis manager, and probably a few more things. If learning all those things, to a greater or lesser degree, appeals to you then you might be well suited.

FYI there are TONS of similar threads on this forum, with many of them focusing on what boats are suitable, how to buy a boat when you know nothing about boats, etc.
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Old 12-11-2016, 09:05   #20
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

You live in the exact middle of the biggest snow bird sailing population on earth. Too late this season because they are all somewhere sailing. But the Sea of Cortez is half full right now now with friendly, gregarious, mostly elderly and mostly drunk Canadians. You should network your way into a cruise next season, and see how easy and cheap it would be to own a small boat down there, stored on the hard during hurricane season and out cruising whenever you could get there during the winter. A triailer sailor would be perfect. When we get too old to travel far we intend on finding a summer home in the states and putting a smaller boat permanently in the Sea somewhere. Good luck, it is easier than you think, and especially if you overthink.
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Old 12-11-2016, 09:10   #21
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

Another option - start out in the Caribbean. Sailing in the islands might be an easier place to start out. Let me know if you are interested, we have several boats listed down here in Grenada. Also - if you are looking for a refresher class, or just a chance to make sure everyone is ready for life on board - check out our sailing school!

Best of luck!
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Old 12-11-2016, 09:25   #22
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

Maybe we can - just for exploratory purposes - grant Jarsy that he may be playing it close to the vest for the time being and be hoping to learn enuff - in solitude, so to speak - so that when he eventually broaches the subject to his wife, he won't be judged by her to be talking utter nonsense and be scheming to put her and the children in imminent jeopardy.

Proceeding on that assumption my answer - if Jarsy were to ask me directly - would be:

NO, you cannot handle a 46 foot cat by yourself. At this point, judging by the way you have put the case, you cannot handle even a 27 foot mono all by yourself. Messing about in Vancouver's English Bay, yes, you probably could. In the Straits of Georgia, possibly, depending on weather. Once you turn right off Race Rocks by Victoria, it'd get a bit problematic, but in good weather and with luck, possibly. Once you turn left by the Swiftsure light - forget it! You'd be way, way outta your depth, and twixt Swiftsure and the next easily accessible hidey-hole (Eureka, California 475 miles distant = six days and nights of continuous sailing) lies a coast so dangerous that no sensible person goes anywhere near it. Professional seafarers and competent yachtsmen keep 200 miles out to sea. And employ a level of seamanship it will take you years to acquire when coming into harbour.

You might note that "easily accessible" is a euphemism. The harbour entrance at Eureka is narrow and not to be toyed with in a hard westerly blow. So in a sense, Eureka - like Newport, Oregon 225 miles from the Swiftsure - is rather useless as a hidey-hole for a weather-stressed novice. Newport is trickier than Eureka, I'm told.

Read Ann Cate's second post again. Ann seems uncannily perceptive. As I know to my amusement, but that's another story :-)

If you really, really want to become a seafarer, then hang around here. Have patience. Be like a sponge. As I was fond of telling my students in my teaching days: "The problem with not knowing something is that you don't even know that you don't know it!"

I say that in friendship, by way of welcome, and in the hope that you will not be lost to the seafaring "cause". Despair not! We get this query at least a couple of times a month. A great many people seem to think that buying a boat and heading off to where the coconuts grow is like buying a second-hand Toyota and driving it home to Mom.

It ain't!

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Old 12-11-2016, 09:33   #23
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

I would go with your spouse on a week long training course in Florida to see if you both enjoy learning to sail. ASA 101 102 104 for bareboat chartering is often a prerequisite to get insurance for the boat. It will tell to if you are comfortable living in a damp closet with the Admiral. Then take the family on a bareboat charter in the Caribbean to see if they can enjoy the experience. You might look up the Windtraveler blog which will give you an idea how 3 littles can be managed successfully and safely.
It is a wonderful lifestyle ..IF.. the members of the family are game. If not. you have a disaster waiting to happen. Welcome to the group. There is a lot here in the forum that offers insight into our lives. Fair winds and following seas. Go for it with eyes open.
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Old 12-11-2016, 10:02   #24
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

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Originally Posted by boatpoker View Post
About 15yrs ago I surveyed a 42' Catalina for a guy who had never even been on a sailboat. it took him two weeks to load the boat and his first time leaving the dock (solo) he headed for the Caribbean. I got an email from him a year later "in Trinidad, having a great time".

He was a pretty smart, competent type with lots of mechanical skills and ...... no kids.

It ain't as complicated as some make it out to be but it can be done with some self education and if you have some basic smarts and are technically competent . Don't think I'd risk that with kids tho'
I agree! He can get and should get the rules of the road from something like Chapman's. Sailing in it's own is common sense. Being a rocket scientist and being able to sail are two different animals.
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Old 12-11-2016, 10:18   #25
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

BC to Caribbean is a LOT of ocean work, with the worst of it at the beginning of the voyage. You are very likely to run into some bad weather out there, endanger and scare your family, and sour them on the whole thing. I would suggest you get a great deal more experience first. Here's one way to do that: Consider boat-shopping this winter, buying a boat in the Great Lakes in the spring, and using the summer months working your way south on the US east coast to gain experience. After hurricane season, then you, your family, and your boat will be ready to jump off for the Bahamas and Caribbean. It always amazes me how people who would never jump in an airplane and take off without flying lessons think they can hop on a sailboat and take off across the ocean.
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Old 12-11-2016, 10:35   #26
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

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I am from a land locked province in Canada, I had done a whitsundays sailing charter in Australia when I was in my twenties and fell in love but that was as far as it went. Since then I have settled down with a wife and two kids under five but just recently for whatever reason have a desire to buy a liveaboard boat and start sailing before my kids need to be in school. My plan would be to sail from Vancouver island to the Carribean and make a ton of stops along the way. Am I totally ridiculous to think this is possible to take a sailing course and wing it the rest of the way?
Absolutly, live your dream while you can. I did the same at 35. I was invited by a business friend to sail to Catalina Island from Marina Del Rey (LA) for a week-end. I felt in love with the lifestyle. Later that year, on a flight from Paris to Montreal, I met and had a long discussion with a French Canadian who kept a sailboat in Juan-les-Pins, Southern France. That did it! The next year, I made a life changing decision. I sold my small company, took a second mortgage on my waterfront house, got married to my American girlfriend and bought a brand new 40 ft. sailboat on the French Riviera. Before I activated this adventurous plan, I had had a meeting with a maritime lawyer with a captain license to get his opinion on my foolish plan. Since I only knew him socially, he asked me a few questions about my background. I had a formal education in sciences and was president of a national company involved in high tech. His only suggestion was this: READ! So, I went along with my silly project while reading about navigation, chart reading, celestial nav, sailing technique, rule of the sea, signal, marine radio, electronic equipment, rigging, and so on. Read my resume. That was 35 years ago and I have no regrets.
Two years later, I was ready for a bigger boat. So, I sold that first sailboat to get a bigger one to a couple from Montreal who were professionals with two young kids and had no open water sailing experience whatsoever just like you. By coincidence, I met them again ten years later in a boatyard in Trinidad where they were refitting my ex-boat for sale. They were planning to buy a bigger one because the kids had grown and they were moving on.
In my world experience of cruising, I have met many sailing couples with kids two were taking courses via Internet with their parent's supervision. The kids gets a much more complete education on life by living on a boat than facing today's school system rigged with drugs and bullies.
Check my resume. If you need help when you get going, I can offer my services with some more difficult crossings. I must admit that I don't do it for the experience only since I have more than I need. There will be a small fee. We live on the Mexican Riviera but I still have a house north of Montreal.
Live your dream and get READING.
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Old 12-11-2016, 12:28   #27
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

And don't forget your Gold Membership in BoatUS (BoatCanada??).
You'll need it.
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Old 12-11-2016, 12:49   #28
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

This is one thread where I think posting my blog would be appropriate.

We are a family of 5 from Edmonton that bought a Cat in Cuba and is currently sailing the Caribbean. We had ZERO experience and when I left Cuba, I had "The Sailing Bible" open on the salon table. IT CAN BE DONE..

However, I can not express how difficult this will be. It has been the single hardest thing I have done in my entire life. Sailing has been the easiest part. Politics, family dynamics, psychology, I underestimated by orders of magnitude.

I hope you find it useful. You can start reading from the beginning here.

http://www.svpartyoffive.com/2015/12/05/hello-world-2/
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Old 12-11-2016, 13:45   #29
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

Hello Jarsy,

Your plan may be doable, but it depends a lot on many things.

You need some training. Different people are quite different. Some benefit of formal training, some should sail with others, some should read a lot, some should sail with dinghies to learn the magic of winds and sails, some people need to learn lots of new skills (like maintaining and fixing mechanical stuff), and some people have a pretty good understanding on what sailing is like and what one needs to know already when they start thinking about buying a boat.

Some people have tendency to rush forward, and run into trouble, and only then learn. Some people are very careful and don't do anything before they are certain that they have thought of everything that might happen, and they have two backup plans. The latter is better at sea. The problems of the first case should be corrected in some safe environment, preferably in the company of some more knowledgeable and experienced sailors.

In any case, training should consist of small steps forward, and last until you feel ready to
sail to the seven seas. You don't want to take any unnecessary risks with the kids I guess. There are no service stations at sea, so you need to be able to take care of everything (problems with motors, storms etc.) yourself. Also your wife should learn all the basic skills.

You mentioned trimarans. They are ok but not very spacious. If you sail with your wife and kids, you might want to have more space inside. If your wife is a standard female, she is very interested in how practical and comfortable the boat is to live in. Unless she is as eager to start sailing as you are, you should let her decide what kind of boat you will buy, and especially what the living quarters will be like. That makes a standard female sailor happy, and she might feel like home in the boat (instead of being dragged there by you). You may have more say on the exterior and technical details of the boat.

It would probably be easier to start from the Caribbean or from the east coast. Personally I'd love to spend some time in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, before sailing south.

So, in my opinion this is probably doable for normal careful people, but I can't estimate how long time you should first spend on learning and sailing. You know better.
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Old 12-11-2016, 13:54   #30
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Re: To live a dream? No experience sailing

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Am I totally ridiculous to think this is possible to take a sailing course and wing it the rest of the way?
No

But if you had been with me the other night you would reconsider
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