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Cruising ..................Back
to Sailing
Cruising means different things
to different cruisers, but all cruising shares the following characteristics:
living on the boat, traveling, extended periods of time (more than a week
or two). To reduce fuel expense, the most common cruising boat is a sailboat.
Cruisers on the East coast of North America commonly visit the north (e.g.
Maine, Newfoundland) in warmer months and travel south on the Intracoastal
Waterway (ICW) as far as the Bahamas in the winter. The Cheseapeake Bay
is also a very popular crusing area. It is especially good for Gunkholling,
a form of cruising where each night one anchors in a different location.
The Chesapeake, particular the Northern part is rich in gunkholes. Also
the Cheseapeake Bay forms the central part of the ICW. On the west coast,
a popular route alternates the Gulf of California in winter with the islands
of Washington state and British Colombia in the summer. The Baltic Sea
has terrifying equinoxial storms in the winter, but in the summer the
coasts of Sweden and Finland have thousands of beautiful islands with
well-marked channels. The Netherlands, the northern Mediterranean, Sri
Lanka, Singapore, Australia, and the South Pacific Islands are other favored
destinations with mild or predictable weather.
Many cruisers are "long
term" and travel for many years, the most adventurous circling the
globe over a period of five to ten years. Many others take a year or two
off from work and school for short trips and the chance to experience
the cruising lifestyle.
Due to the transient nature of
cruising, Cruisers form their own community. Cruisers commonly, upon anchoring
in a new area, will stop by nearby boats (in their dinghy) to introduce
themselves and say "hello". The classic icebreaker is to hail
a boat in an anchorage and ask "where there's good holding?"
Many cruisers leaving an area are happy to trade charts with boats going
in the opposite direction.
Table of contents
1 Problems
2 How to start
3 Equipment & tips
4 Further Reading
Problems
Money is the number-one problem. Conservative cruisers have several years
of savings, and plan to work about one quarter a year. Most have or acquire
skills that sell easily in many parts of the world, such as nursing, doctor
or dentist, accounting, boat-maintenance handyman, sail-maker, welder
or diesel mechanic. Some cruisers make a little money shipping wines,
jewelry and the like, but most can't compete with large commercial firms.
Smuggling and other illegal incomes cause people to lose their boats.
In 2002, very cost-conscious no-frills cruisers could maintain two people
and a 28-foot boat on U.S. $1000/mo. This rate roughly doubled when in
a port, partying with other cruisers.
Mail is often received this way:
Have all your mail sent to one address. Have all the junk mail removed,
and have your mail-receiver send the rest in one package to a yacht club
on one's itinerary. Yacht clubs are better than post offices because they
know that cruisers can be delayed, and do not return the mail after 30
days. The single-package assures that you receive all of your mail, or
none of it.
Getting money from a distant
bank can be painful, sometimes taking up to 3 weeks for a check or letter-of-credit
to clear. It helps to be in a large city, and bank at a large bank in
a famous city of your home country. Get money no more often than every
six months, as small, $10 traveler's checks. Perform haul-outs, bottom
painting and other maintenance while waiting for the money. Also, plan
to wait somewhere pleasant and inexpensive.
How to start
Try it out in little steps. Many people are attracted to the romance of
cruising, but find that they dislike the reality.
First, take a class in sailing.
This will teach you the basics, and you'll see if you like to sail at
all.
Next, buy a small dinghy (6-11
feet) with sails. Sail it regularly. If you keep wishing you could go
farther, you might be a real cruiser.
Next, crew on a yacht, just for
fun. Local yacht clubs often have boats looking for crew. It helps if
you're a good cook, or good company. Try to get references, and look the
boat over. Look for bad maintenance or safety problems. If you see any,
go later with someone else. Never give your return plane ticket, passport
or emergency money to other crew or the captain. Consider taking your
own GPS so you can detect unspoken deviations from the itinerary.
Take a class in celestial navigation.
GPS works, but careful navigators use a belt & suspenders approach:
They keep a continuous dead-reckoning track using a compass and a distance-measurement
device called a log, and use coastal landmarks, GPS and celestial navigation
to correct it. Careful navigation is needed to avoid stormy areas, shoals
and other hazards. Currents can carry you into these without any warning,
unless you navigate carefully.
Enjoyed the crewing? Buy a small
boat, maybe 30 feet. This is small enough that you can handle it yourself,
and big enough to take a family or your mate to anywhere in the world.
Big boats are much more work; many rich people buy a big boat, and eventually
sell it and get a smaller one because they are more fun.
Abandoned yachts are for sale
cheaply in many distant places like the Panama Canal, Gibralter, and Singapore-
check the gossip. This happens because many people really do not like
cruising, and thought they would.
Introduce your family to sailing
with the most pleasant cruise you can arrange! Share the planning so everybody
buys in to the trip. Share the chores fairly, among everyone (captain
takes a turn!). After they're hooked, send your significant other to a
class (your relationship will thank you). Let the others take your dinghy
out alone so they can love sailing, too. Teach everyone how to manage
all the parts of the boat. This way they can get around even if you get
sick. Women follow instruction well, and often make wonderful navigators.
The small 30-foot boat will have easy equipment, well within a woman's
strength.
Equipment & tips
There are two rather different schools concerning equipment:
1. I'm on vacation. Give me every
comfort there is. I can afford it, and I can find a good mechanic.
2. I want to stay on vacation.
I want the simplest boat I can get, so it will keep working (so I can
go), and cost less (so I can stay away longer).
There are some areas of agreement.
In general, try to arrange your boat to be safe, and so heavy weather
or a faulty engine are interesting adventures rather than disasters:
Major storms are less than 1% of the time that cruisers spend on the water,
but still be prepared.
Get a strong monohull. Multihulls kill their crews by capsizing in storms.
They cannot be righted by their crews, who generally die of exposure.
Monohulls in the same situation are usually dismasted, but turn right-side
up. The crews cut away the rig, jury-rig a mast and sail home. This is
frightening and difficult, but not fatal.
Inspect your boat before each sea-passage. A checklist makes it very fast.
If nothing else, check running rigging, standing rigging, lifelines and
safety equipment, anchor and rodes, the engine, and navigation equipment.
Check the rigging for cracks in metal and chafing.
Keep a watch. Almost all trouble is visible before it becomes serious.
Put things away, especially sails. They last longer, and if a storm comes
up, your sail will already be stowed.
Get a strong boat. Have it surveyed before you buy it, and tell the surveyor
you plan to go offshore. Pick a boat that probably would not be harmed
if run aground, because most yachtsmen do this (wince) at least once.
Anchor well. More yachts are lost when the anchor drags than to any other
single cause. Use lots of scope (extra rode) (five times depth is good,
although three is theoretically enough). Test the hold before you trust
an anchorage. Use a "fully tested" chain rode on your main anchor.
Nothing cuts chain. Many cruisers swear by a CQR anchor. Set an anchor
light while anchored. Set an anchor watch during storms, at least one
full tide cycle in a new anchorage, and whenever it's easy to be in the
cockpit - if you drag even a little, panic and set another anchor!
Have the anchor ready to go at all times. It can prevent most groundings
if it can be set quickly. If you can hear or see surf, and you should
be in mid-ocean, set the anchor! Then, figure out where you are!
Try to rig so your boat can sail in very light airs. Much of the sailing
in safe-weather is under force-1.
Do some research and get good safety and salvage equipment. U.S. Coast
guard requirements are minimums. Practice a man-overboard drill with a
dummy that weighs like your heaviest crew. Include an EPIRB (emergency
position-indicating rescue beacon), which will get you out of many types
of trouble- If you possibly can, don't trigger it until the weather clears
and an aircraft could reach you. The salvage equipment is stuff to make
emergency repairs: plywood covers for broken port-lights, wood cones to
block pipes spewing seawater, a spare spinnaker pole to jury-rig a mast,
plastic tarps or CO2 bags to cover hull breaches, etc.
Stay with the boat until it sinks. Prepare to abandon ship if you get
worried, but don't actually abandon ship until the boat sinks. Often a
boat is located, empty, by rescue personnel, and the crew in their much
smaller, less-visible little life raft are never found.
Prevent man-overboard: Have a toe-rail, non-skid decking, perimeter life-lines,
and run interior lifelines from the boom gallows up to the bow at about
chest-height. Make sure everyone has harnesses to clip to the lifelines
for heavy weather. A low bulwark, 8 to 12 inches, is immensely helpful
because it provides footholds, and keeps gear from slithering overboard.
Some persons mount the life-line stanchions on the bulwark (which lets
them use u-bolts and pipe!) and use a larks-head around the bulwark as
an adjustable jib track.
Plan routes to avoid heavy weather. The British admiralty has pilot charts
designed to help sailors plan.
Learn to heave-to, and heave-to when you first think of it. Carry a parachute
sea-anchor, which permits one to heave-to in any amount of wind to survive
storms. Basically, put the bow 50 degrees off the wind, let the wind push
the boat slowly backwards, and don't sail out of the "slick"
your drag vortices make on the water. The sea-anchor prevents sailing
out of the slick in very high winds, which would otherwise force a bare-poled
boat to sail. The slick calms waves. Really. Most boats lost in storms
attempt to "run with the storm" or "lie abeam." Heaving-to
is a safer way. See the book "Storm Tactics" by Larry &
Lin Pardey.
Practice sailing and anchor-warping maneuvers for docking, which don't
need an engine, and are salty-skills fun anyway.
Have at least a hand-held VHF marine radio. If you have a fixed-mount
radio, have a spare aerial. This lets one talk to authorities (like bridgemasters
and lock managers) and other marine vessels (like the ship bearing on
you).
Have a GPS or two. Little ones are down to $119.
Have at least a plastic sextant and a copy of the Nautical Almanac, so
you can arrive if your GPS fails. The almanac expires every year. It has
an emergency set of sight reduction tables, although HO-249 (a set of
large books) or a navigational computer are easier to use. Practice with
it now and again. Davis Instruments sells a basic plastic sextant for
$40 in 2002- the accuracy of celestial navigation is 0.2 to 30 miles depending
on your equipment.
Have a good-quality short-wave receiver, like the Grundig "Yachtboy"
or equivalent. This permits one to get navigational time from atomic clocks,
as well as basic weather reports (on the same channel as the clocks) and
world news (the BBC).
Have a good quality quartz watch or two- For celestial navigation, rate
them for accuracy (how many seconds gained or lost per week), rather than
set them. Change the batteries every January.
Have running fresh and salt water taps. You can do this with gravity,
which is tremendously convenient, yet makes a more reliable boat than
a pressurized water system run off the engine. Saltwater is fine for washing
dishes and decks, saving water. With coconut-oil soap you can wash yourself
in sea water, as long as you sponge off with fresh water afterwards. Clothes
washed in seawater look dingy and feel damp.
Get a stove with at least two burners, that's easy to light. Many people
like liquified propane. Avoid electric stoves run from the engine.
Get the simplest toilet system that's legal in your area. Carry spare
parts for every seal and moving part. Be sure that the outlet is on the
opposite side and downstream of the salt water tap.
Minimize through-hull openings. E.g. share the salt-water tap with the
motor inlet, and consider sharing the toilet and engine outlets. Run the
depth sounder over the side or transom.
Assure that every through-hull opening has a sea-cock. Close them when
the boat is unattended. If your boat needs a bailer to keep afloat, it's
broken!
Have the biggest radar reflector that will fit your boat.
Make sure you can navigate without engine power- i.e. have battery powered
GPS or celestial navigation as a back-up.
Have more than one large fresh water tank. In some areas, they limit how
long you can stay out, and how safe you are. Engine-powered watermakers
should not be essential to return safely.
Consider using oil navigation lights. Most sailboats with electric lights
don't run the engine enough to keep the battery charged enough to keep
the running lights lit. This is unsafe. Oil lamps aren't bad, especially
if the boat has an oil tap (from a gravity tank) to fill them.
Consider charging the boat's batteries with solar cells, wind turbines,
or water-turned generators, as well as or instead of an engine. They're
much more pleasant. Many people consider it rude to run a motorized generator
in an otherwise quiet anchorage.
Consider leaving off the engine. They cost thousands of dollars and break,
often in the middle of a cruise, wrecking the fun. The propeller slows
down a sailboat, (it's literally a drag). The motor and prop shaft add
three holes through the hull (inlet, outlet and prop-shaft). A sculling
oar can move a 6 ton, 30 foot yacht around a harbor at 1.5 knots, with
only mild effort. The hard part of sculling is holding the oar at the
correct 40-degree angle- rig ropes to hold the oar.
If you must have an inboard engine, arrange the prop shaft and rudder
so either one can be removed and repaired without removing the other or
dismounting the engine.
If you must have an engine, consider using a long-shafted marine outboard.
They can be repaired and replaced much more cheaply than in-boards.
If you have an engine, prefer a diesel (economical, safe fuel) with a
hand-start option (i.e. it can be started wet with the battery run down-
standard on workboats).
If you have an engine, include an engine-driven mechanical (not electric)
bailing pump. This is one of the most powerful arguments in favor of an
engine, because a mechanical bailer can save a boat. In a pinch, an engine's
cooling inlet can be rigged with a screen and serve as a mechanical bailer-
just don't let it run dry!
Carry a large manual bailing pump.
If you want an engine-powered anchor winch, consider using hydraulic,
rather than electric. They can't short out, or stop working when the battery
fails.
Manual anchor winches are slow, but safe. If you don't have one, remember
to place a manual sail winch with a chain tail so that it can back-up
the anchor winch.
Bronze and stainless winches seem to have fewer corrosion problems than
aluminum winches.
Tiller-steered external rudders are hokey-looking, but easy to repair,
have no cables to break, and cost thousands less than wheel steering.
Get a reliable automatic steering system. They are wonderfully convenient.
It frees the person on watch from the tiller. Electronic systems use large
amounts of power. If this makes them dependent on the engine, that's bad.
Wind-vane systems need a well-tuned, easy-to-steer boat.
Have a set of sails for light airs. Most places with good weather have
a lot of time where the wind is force 1.
Many long-term cruisers dislike roller-furled sails. They claim that the
furler tends to jam exactly when it is most needed, in high winds. Furler
companies claim that their new designs solve these problems. Roller furling
is substantially more expensive than reefed sails.
Consider using reefing sails rather than carrying a sail for every occasion.
Not only will the total cost of a sail suite be reduced, but changes of
sail are more convenient- the sail stays in place.
Many cruisers install labor-saving rigging. Some favorites are self-shipping
anchors, lazyjacks to help reef sails, jib downhauls, and tracked self-erecting
spinnaker poles. Spinnaker poles in the rigging is a classic sign of a
cruising sailboat. Many cruisers consider boom gallows to be essential
safety equipment.
Metal dishes can be pretty, and break-proof. The stainless-steel goblets
for wine come to mind.
Guns and drugs are far more hazardous to you than to anyone else. If you
declare them, friendly customs officials can become very unpleasant. If
you do not declare them, your boat can be confiscated.
Here are some major comforts,
eschewed by minimalists; the trade-offs are given in the way they look
on the water. If there's a compromise, it's presented after the extremes:
Air conditioning. Even most power boats can't afford this. The cruise
ships are painted white to minimize the load, and built as floating generator
plants: They actually run their propulsion as a minor load off the air-conditioning
circuit. A few sailing yachts (the Albin Vega is the only mass-produced
type with this feature) have a system that circulates air from the cockpit,
past the sea-cooled hull, where it cools and condenses excess humidity
into the bilges, into the front of the cabin. In the Vega, the air circulation
is driven by solar heat on the hollow mast, and a wind-powered ventilator
on the rear cabin top. Vegas are said to be 5 degrees cooler than outside
in most summer areas. Everybody else rigs canvas sunshades and a fabric
windscoop over the forward hatch.
A bigger boat- gives you room for all your stuff, and you can have big
parties! Alas, you probably will have a terrible time trying to get crew
who want to go where you want to go, unless you pay them. Also, in the
U.S. many marinas charge $50 per foot per month. The price of the boat,
and its maintenance costs, go up as the cube of its waterline length (it's
the volume that costs, not the length). Think really hard before you get
anything much over 35 feet.
A hot shower- The problem here is that a real hot shower requires a real
on-board waterworks powered from the engine, with watermaker ($2300 in
2002), water storage tank ($200), pressurisation pump & tank ($400),
water heater ($300), assorted plumbing- ($1000), ($4500 total), for a
small system. A dripping faucet can cost quite a bit of diesel fuel. However,
a hot shower is desperately missed even by most minimalists, who often
rig solar-powered showers, and smugly mention the thousands of dollars
they saved. For those who cannot commit on this issue, there are little
sit-down showers with hand-pressurized tanks that can be filled from a
kettle or a solar water heater. Everyone carries a kettle, washbasin and
pitcher.
A watermaker- envied by minimalists... who compensate by carrying a multiple-hundred
gallon freshwater tank in the space where your boat has an engine (they
call it "freshwater ballast"). An expensive compromise is to
run a small watermaker off a solar panel or windmill, just to keep the
tanks topped-off, and provide emergency water. Always have two sources
of water for a cruise (two tanks, if nothing else).
A refrigerator- iced beer is an amazing luxury in the tropics. Minimalists
grit their teeth and smile thinking grimly of the extra half year they
will be able to stay on vacation with the money they saved by not having
a refrigerator. Everybody has an icebox, but ice, if it exists in the
local economy at all, is probably only available at the fishing boat service
pier. The Eastern Mediterranean, Mexico, South America, and Indian Ocean
rarely have bulk ice available at any price. In the U.S. fill the box
with dry ice and you can have colder stuff longer.
Washer and dryer for clothes. The water-works problem, plus a washer and
dryer problem. You're clean, and the minimalist is negotiating with a
local washerwoman. This is a toss-up. Laundry is a wonderful excuse to
meet and mildly enrich locals. Many people have had success with large
sealed buckets towed in the wake, or rocked on the stern. In good weather
it's easy to rig clotheslines.
A dishwasher- the water-works problem, but you're watching a video instead
of doing dishes. Everybody hates doing the dishes. Minimalists lose crew
if the rotation is unfair. There's just got to be some trick with dishes
in towed buckets of soapy water...
A barbecue- There are little stainless-steel gas barbecues that clamp
to a lifeline stanchion. In the tropics you can cook outside, which is
much cooler. If you like the idea, the only downside is the rather large
amount of fuel they use.
A stereo/video system. The minimalist is in town dancing the lambada with
the locals- what are you thinking? A little boom-box that plugs into the
boat's 12V power eases life for music addicts. With nubile crew in bikinis,
this can inspire heartening amounts of envy in locals.
Radar and imaging sonar- genuine, though expensive safety equipment, when
it works. Try to minimize through-hull connections, connectors, wires
and moving parts. Silicone grease in and around connectors can prevent
salt-water corrosion and shorting. Some masters actually put a packing
gland around the connectors and fill it with silicone grease, which is
less extreme than it sounds after you've replaced the connectors twice.
A SSB marine radio, or amateur radio rig- very handy when you get tired
of talking to your crewmates. There are insulators and antenna tuners
to use standing rigging as the antenna. You have to have a license. The
safety advantage is minimal now that EPIRBs exist. The minimalist loves
his wife, plans short passages, talks to the locals and carries a short
rack of great books...
Satellite phones (most often Inmarsat or Iridium). The phones cost from
a thousand (hand-held Iridium) to twenty thousand (Gyrostabilized permanently
mounted Inmarsat), and the calls cost $3/minute. The minimalist will wait
seven hours for the overseas phone call to go through from Bora-Bora.
If you need this, cruising might be a drag for you- just to see, why not
charter a few adventures before you buy a boat? A virtuous compromise
is Orbcomm e-mail. Orbcomm has satellites in low earth orbit and charges
about $30/month. Delivery is a few times a day. Magellan makes a hand-held
e-mail terminal for Orbcomm, for about $1000. You can even get e-mailed
weather reports if you give your position! If your aunt Minnie can't manage
a computer on the Internet, Orbcomm can handle TDY (deaf teletype) calls.
Further Reading
William F. Buckley Jr., "Atlantic High"- an amazingly well-written
account of an Atlantic passage. Not a shred of politics.
William F. Buckley Jr., "Racing Through Paradise"- etc. about
a Pacific passage.
Linda & Steve Dashew, "Offshore Cruisers' Encyclopedia"-
expensive but so useful it's been compared to Bowditch and Dutton. Easy
to read.
Eric Hiscock, "Cruising Under Sail"- just the facts, a classic.
Lawrence and Lin Pardey, "The Self-Sufficient Sailor"- The Pardey's
message is wonderfully encouraging: Go simply, go cheaply and in a small
boat, but go.
Lawrence & Lin Pardey, "Cost Conscious Cruiser"- more hints
and tricks
Lawrence and Lin Pardey, "Storm Tactics"- A must-read book.
Michael Carr, "Weather Prediction Simplified"
Steve and Linda Dashew, "Mariner's Weather Handbook"
Mary Blewitt, "Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmen"- just the
facts.
Merle Turner, "Celestial Navigation for the Cruising Navigator"-
some theory.
Nathaniel Bowditch, "The American Practical Navigator"- A classic,
continuously updated, the ultimate authority.
Elbert Maloney, "Dutton's Navigation and Piloting"- a classic,
continuously updated.
U.S. Naval Institute, "The Bluejackets' Manual"- the navy way;
the authority on Morse, Flags, Courtesies, fire-fighting at sea, jury-rigging,
ship handling and basic sea law.
[www.celestaire.com Celestaire] sells Celestial navigation supplies.
This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms
of the GNU Free Documentation License.
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