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A visitor recently asked SetSail: I started reviewing your site and found a ton of stuff to read I haven't gotten around to yet, but one burning question hasn't been answered yet for me, so let me try to frame it and see if you have some advice for us.
I am toying with the idea of a circumnavigation with my family and have floated the idea with my wife; she is slowly coming out of shock and is starting to ask questions... :-). There are a few big question marks (lots of little ones) in our minds, but the most burning one is, what sailing experience do you need to get started? My wife has never really sailed (we are planning for starters a sailing trip for all of us) and my sailing experience is limited to zero, but I have been windsurfing for almost 20 years and I paraglide, hence spend lots of time with the weather. Bottom line, we can't even start to make any risk evaluation or assess how long it would take us to get going.
Here are a few suggestions that I gathered from different sources:
Get out with the family to make sure we all like it (ASAP)
Go to sailing courses for both of us to get the basics
Get myself on a delivery to or from Hawaii to gain more experience
Get the boat and do 6 months of coastal sailing in as many different
and strong conditions as possible
Get a skipper for the first big crossing, e.g. to Hawaii from San
Francisco
Given where we are in our lives now, we are looking at a minimum of 6 months prep and 6 months active coastal sailing before anything goes. Does that seem reasonable? Are we out of our minds (or I guess I should ask am I out of my mind ...)?
In all of my life, learning has been very easy for me, intellectually, motoricly and intuitively; experience can only come with time, but how much before you feel someone can be ready? We would appreciate some honest feedback and input. Hope this finds you well wherever your are voyaging right now. Thanks, Robert
Asking when are you ready or how much experience is enough is like asking how long is a piece of string. How long do you want it to be? There will always be people out there doing it with more and with less experience than you have, but that does not necessarily equate to doing it better/safer or having more or less fun. However, the fact you are asking the questions is a good start.
So our advice would be to cram as much experience as you can in to the time that feels right to you, and then go. If you have the right attitude you'll continue learning as you cruise and will never consider that you know it all.
On a more practical note here are a few thoughts from us, based on our experience of meeting cruisers who did much as you are planning to do, and with little or no previous experience.
LEARNING THE BASICS
When you take some shorebased and practical courses, consider doing some together with your wife and some separately. You'll both pick up different things from these courses, but if you do them separately, you'll both end up with a broader based pool of knowledge. (Though, for heaven's sake, do some sailing together, living in close proximity is more of a strain for some cruisers than the sailing ever is.) In particular, your wife might benefit from joining a women's sailing course, especially as you have some sailing experience, and she does not.
We think it is important that all of the various tasks that need to be carried out can be done by either of you. Of course, in time you will settle into a pattern, where typically one of you takes on specific tasks, but there are two reasons for being interchangeable. The first is the obvious one, safety, in case either of you is injured. The second is that if you know what it is like to change a headsail on a pitching foredeck, you will be more helpful when your partner is doing it and you are helming/handling sheets etc. because you will understand what is required rather than simply responding to shouted instructions. And the last is less tangible, but just as important, and that is that it engenders confidence. So make sure that in the rush to gain experience that one partner does not get left behind on the steep learning curve that those first few months of sailing will pose.
GAINING EXPERIENCE
Try not to think of crossing oceans as the hard part. Coastal sailing is tremendous experience and requires much sharper navigational skills and boat handling techniques. Mid-ocean you have plenty of sea room to play with, and executing a slick tack is not that critical, whereas in confined waters it might be.
Definitely take yourself out in some bad weather. You need to know what it will feel like in controlled conditions so that you can cope with it, without frightening yourself to death. Perhaps take someone experienced along with you the first time, but take control yourself. Also, get as much night sailing in as you can, and establish a watch keeping system that will work for you.
Practice man overboard so that everyone on the boat, including the children (if they are old enough), knows what to do without even thinking about it. Make sure everyone knows how to launch the liferaft, how to fire a flare, how to set or the EPRIB. You'll hopefully never need to do any of these things, but it makes everyone on board feel more competent and in control. As with most things, panic is the worst enemy at sea.
When you do a navigation course you will learn how to navigate without the aid of GPS, electronic charts etc. Then you'll go sailing and use your GPS all the time. For those of us who learned to sail before GPS, that isn't a problem as we spent many years sailing using dead reckoning, so when the electronics go down we revert to manual systems very easily. (Also we tend not to completely believe our electronic aids and often double check.) For you, however, the problem will be that having learned to navigate without electronic aids you will quickly lose the skill if you do not use it, and will never acquire a high degree of competence. So when you start sailing, force yourself to navigate without a GPS/radar/electronic charts or until you feel confident that you have gotten the hang of it.
The same is especially true of celestial navigation. Even we occasionally dig out the sextant and take a position in order to refresh our skills.
When you spend some time coastal sailing, try to anchor as much as possible. Few cruisers marina-hop around the world, and you will spend a great deal of time at anchor, so getting a secure night's rest is essential.
BOAT MANAGEMENT
Lamentably, cruising is not just about experience under sail; you also need to be a plumber, electrician, and mechanic. Buying a boat that requires some work before you set off will get these skills up to scratch and also familiarise you with the workings of the boat. And on buying a boat, don't rush into a new "dream boat". You may be better off buying a second-hand boat that has already done some distance. If the previous owner was any good--and you can usually work that out by a general look over the boat--hopefully most of the teething troubles will have been sorted.
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