Looking for a Single Parent to Join Us

[JJB]

Hi Guys,
Tis my first post here, I was on sailing anarchy, when I found a link to here, I never knew about this site before. I will try and shorten my story as best I can but I do have a tendency to ramble to please bare with me.

My Children have spent most of their lives on my boat, a little over 12 months ago their mother & my wife past away as a result of breast cancer - please I don't need any sympathy wishes regarding this I am sure you can understand, it's been over a year, we have learnt to live with the loss.

I have three children, they are 11 (twin boys) and 9 girl, they have been at me since mid last year to get back at sea, there is still a lot of places in the world I promised them we would go to, but have been stuck in a bit of a rut for the last 6 months.
I have decided to look for perhaps another single parent with one or two kids to join us, I have run this past my kids, they seem to wholeheartedly approve.

I'm not looking for any monetary return, I understand most single parents can't often afford an undertaking such as this even when the boat is supplied, so I would only ask for what the person can afford to contribute, while still covering their own bills at home.
Our boat is a Warwick 72, we have plenty of room on board and plenty of storage space, while it's not a requirement the person knows how to sail, it would very much help if the person that comes with us has done a competent crew certificate, we are happy to teach how to sail, boat handling skills etc.

We are located in Brisbane, Australia, we have tentative plans to depart some point in March into the South Pacific to revisit some of our favourite spots and see some old friends along the way. We then have plans on cruising up to Japan, Hawaii, then eventually onto Vancouver, we plan on staying in Vancouver for about a month - might be more might be less. Once we depart Vancouver we plan on cruising our way down through the US cities and coastline down through Mexico & South America with an extended stay in the Galápagos Islands. Right now that is where our plans stop, but we do have idea's on rounding the horn and taking an extended stop of perhaps three months in Buenos Aires

About my kids: They are very easy going kids, they very much love being at sea, they seem to consider themselves to be very lucky with many of the things they have done and seen. The three of them are very very good sailors, I trust all three of them to take watches, even at night.
They are very compliant when I ask them to do something, or change routine.

One of the boys is deaf, but has a Cochlear implant, but because of sensory issues he doesn't always have it turned on so we communicate with him most of the time in sign. His speech is as good as any other child's you would have a hard time telling he is deaf until you saw his implant.

About myself: I've been sailing since age 4, I've been an RYA Yachtmaster for over 10 years. I'm a qualified Primary and High school level teacher, I make my living out of the Forex market and have done so since 1999. When we are at sea, I have been pretty much my kids sole educator, when they went back to regular school last year they were slotted in a year above their typical age level, as they were well ahead of where they needed to be.

The boat: As I previously stated, the boat is a Warwick 72, that was custom designed for us, it has a full Furuno Navnet outfit with UHD radar, all this is brand new and never been used yet at sea, new rigging and sails, it has 200L of freezer capacity, 20kw genset, 1kw Wind generator, 600W Solar, also has aircon however we don't use that while at sea, since the airflow through the boat while under sail is quite good. We have a tender that is large enough to carry everyone at the same time plus a couple more if needs require.
The food situation, we carry loads of cans and loads of frozen food which we refill anytime we pull into a major port, but obviously the main diet on the boat is fish. The boat also has an Inmarsat sat phone and broadband available. The broadband runs up to 256k but costs a bomb for internet data, hence things like YouTube, Facebook, any streaming media is banned, Email back to family with some small pictures is ok. We send all our emails in one batch even if they are connected to multiple accounts. If I catch anyone using YouTube or Facebook, I'll throw em overboard LOL.

People we are looking for in an ideal situation:
A single mother and daughter would be ideal, just to balance up the sexes on the boat, but this isn't a requirement, an ideal age for the child would be 5 to 15, so quite an open age range, but again this isn't a requirement.
My kids are informal nudists, mainly in hot weather and when they go swimming off the back of the boat, so it is a requirement that this is not an issue with whoever we take.
Ideally I would like someone that I can share education duties for the kids with, I do have a tone of available educational resources, and will pick up more at every port we visit.
Keep an eye on this post as I might add an edit every now and then as I get replies.

To the site mods: I posted this in the kids forum as I am looking for people that are single parents, I understand if you need to split this topic into the crew wanted section, but please could you leave a copy of it here as well due to the nature of this forum.

[capcook]

Originally Posted by JJB

Hi Guys,

, I make my living out of the Forex market and have done so since 1999.

Wow, what an opportunity... I am only half kidding when I suggest I and my 2 Ks join you while Mama can stay on the dry land as she desires :-) I can imagine why you might like a lady, but my 11yo daughter and 9 yo son might be a fun match for your Ks :-) They are both fluent in Japanese so might earn their way in translation service while traveling that part of the world...

Just curious how you keep up your trading with the limited bandwidth ? I do a lot of trading as well and and would like to do so while cruising, so have been looking into Sat Com solutions... looks like it will set me back $5gs /mth...but perhaps doable...maybe I could pay for the extra bandwidth since I would not have to shell out the money for a yacht...

Anyway, hope you find a good match, I really wish.... hum how much does a sex change cost ?????

Cheers

[lawdawg]

If you can show me how to go from being a teacher to a Warwick 72 in 10 years I will happily take care of helping to teach the kids and everything else
Sounds like s great trip and best wishes mate

[boatman61]

Cool Dude..... best wishes

[MarkJ]

Have you considered sailing without a 'partner'?

2 x 11 yo boys would be ample crew as you seem to have a good bit of experience.

I have found it good fun by myself and a good, but not difficult, challange



Mark

[JJB]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Have you considered sailing without a 'partner'?

2 x 11 yo boys would be ample crew as you seem to have a good bit of experience.

I have found it good fun by myself and a good, but not difficult, challange



Mark

Hey Mark.
If we were doing a short trip somewhere, that would be fine, it's not that we have to have the extra hands, it would just be nice for the sake of the extra company.

[timbenner]

Have you tried Find a Crew™

[JJB]

Originally Posted by timbenner

Have you tried Find a Crew™

Thanks for the link, I will have a better look at it, but for lack of a better comparison, it seems a little like a dating site.. I will see how we go here first, perhaps I will sign up for that a bit later if we aren't having any luck here.

My main motivation in posting here is word of mouth, so perhaps a current member might tell a friend about it, that fits what we want to a Tee. All the Ideals that I posted are just that, what we are looking for in an ideal situation, but as we all know this world is far from ideal, I'll consider anyone.

[JJB]

Well I haven't had much of a response to this trip from anyone, so I'm going to modify it a little.
If the person that ends up comping with us, is happy to teach the kids 50% of the time, while I look after the other 50%, I will look after their food on-board, so I will not be looking for any contributions towards the boat or food while at sea, I will also look after that in port.

I'll also pay for any RYA exams for anyone that wishes to join us, I can teach anyone what they need to know up to and including Yachtmaster.

Reading through the different crew sites, it's really amazed me, how many boats are looking for crew, and not just small ones, but anything up to 100ft!

[timbenner]

"Informal Nudist" might scare off a single mother, with daughter. If I was their ex-husband, I would probably protest that as well. Might want to leave that part off the verbal description and just deal with it when the girls observe it.

Have you tried findacrew.com??

[JJB]

Originally Posted by timbenner

"Informal Nudist" might scare off a single mother, with daughter. If I was their ex-husband, I would probably protest that as well. Might want to leave that part off the verbal description and just deal with it when the girls observe it.

Have you tried findacrew.com??

The nudity bit I would rather be upfront about rather than it becoming a problem later on, if someone was interested, I doubt that is a detail that they would be telling their ex.. But I guess you never know..

Find a crew, reminds me too much of a dating site in it's purpose, it looks ok, but really I would rather avoid a site like that. If I get no response from here I might look at that site later on.

[ausaviator]

I wouldn't be too worried about the nudity part. It's normal for kids to do that away from home in the middle of nowhere. The word prude comes to mind for anyone not comfortable with it. Admittedly though, you probably should have left that bit out, otherwise everyone will think you are running a religious sect onboard ( or worse) .

[Pelagic]

Hello JJB,

With what you are offering… the right person (family) will surface and it is a wise decision to keep your standards high and firm in building an extended family, since they will impact both you and your kid’s lives greatly.

The networking you are doing will help you to meet the right candidates and I believe your kids may even take that on as a project.

I like Mark’s advice to start off on your own, especially with the South Pacific part so that your family can once more gel as a cohesive team and become an identifiable unit that can help any newcomers to adapt.

Why not consider hiring an au per’ along for the South Pacific part, to help out with the little one and to keep the young men from forgetting the value of manners around a lady, who understands that nudity is only a mindset we acquire when we loose our innocence.

It is a long great journey you are planning, I wish you well.

[JJB]

Originally Posted by ausaviator

I wouldn't be too worried about the nudity part. It's normal for kids to do that away from home in the middle of nowhere. The word prude comes to mind for anyone not comfortable with it. Admittedly though, you probably should have left that bit out, otherwise everyone will think you are running a religious sect onboard ( or worse) .

I mentioned it, as there are many more prudes out there than you think, we took a young couple on, they turned out having an objection to it, so I just find it better to mention.

[JJB]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Hello JJB,

With what you are offering… the right person (family) will surface and it is a wise decision to keep your standards high and firm in building an extended family, since they will impact both you and your kid’s lives greatly.

The networking you are doing will help you to meet the right candidates and I believe your kids may even take that on as a project.

I like Mark’s advice to start off on your own, especially with the South Pacific part so that your family can once more gel as a cohesive team and become an identifiable unit that can help any newcomers to adapt.

Why not consider hiring an au per’ along for the South Pacific part, to help out with the little one and to keep the young men from forgetting the value of manners around a lady, who understands that nudity is only a mindset we acquire when we loose our innocence.

It is a long great journey you are planning, I wish you well.

Hi, Pelagic.
Thanks for the kind words, I really do appreciate it.
The more it seems like Mark's advice may well be the prudent course of action, as time goes by.
The idea of picking someone up on our travels through the pacific also seems like a good idea. I'm not sure how well they would take to an au pair, but it sure is an idea to think of in the mean time, it is one that I had not thought of before.
As for the manners around ladies, I agree to a large extent however even when they have spent long amount of times alone with me, that never seems to have been a problem, I'm more worried about my daughter becoming too much of a boy, and loosing her chance to do her day to day girly things, sorry if girly sounds bad, but I am sure you can see where I'm coming from there, her brothers often try and do things with her, that you would expect two girls to do.
I appreciate what they are doing for her, but nothing is going to replace the female presence for her, that's the main reason for looking for a single mother and daughter, I am sure some have thought oh he sees an opportunity to get some nookie on the way.
I'm not even in the right frame of mind for that, I'm more interested in acquiring a life long friend, than "getting some".