This One is Good

A little while back I ran across a blog that had a very similar story to ours.  A couple with no sailing experience that heads off cruising.  Sound familiar?

I've been going through this blog "from the beginning" and have finally caught up with the current postings.  Thus far it has to be one of the best sites I've found for both information and inspiration related to our plans.  As of today their site states they have been cruising for 718 days and they make posts just about every day (where do they find the time?).

So, if you have some time, check out Mike and Rebecca's story on Zero To Cruising.  And for those that think my wife and I are crazy...we are definitely not alone.

Options, options, and more options.

As mentioned in my last post, we need to decide on the class(es), location for those classes, and the type of boat we want to learn on for the next step after we complete our current course.

So, starting with the last one first, what type of boat.  For lesson purposes the size should be similar to what we intend to own, but a few feet shouldn't be too big of a deal.  The number of hulls, on the other hand, is a bigger question.

or

Of course, not having any significant experience on either type of boat, we are not sure which way to go here.  Each has advantages and disadvantages.  Ideally, we would like to be able to spend a little time on each in hopes of helping us decide.

As far as location is concerned, we definitely want a course that spends all of it's time on the ocean.  While learning on a reservoir was fine for basic sailing skills, it just isn't realistic for our intended goal.  To get a better feel for living aboard a boat, we want the next course(s) to be multi-day and live-aboard.  For these options, there seems to be two main locations, either Florida or the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

And finally the classes.  Beyond the minor differences between the two competing sailing organizations, there are multiple classes that can be taken from where we are now:

• Intermediate Coastal Cruising (ASA 104) / Bareboat Cruising (US)
• Coastal Navigation (ASA and US)
• Offshore Passage Making (ASA and US)
• Celestial Navigation (ASA and US)

Various schools offer multiple class options.  Of course, they are usually starting with the two courses we have already taken (101, 103, and 104 combos are common).  If we want to do multiple courses starting with the Intermediate/Bareboat Cruising class, it seems we will be doing a more custom (read: expensive) option.  At a minimum we definitely want to go with the coastal cruising course, and I would think the passage making course would be the next logical choice.  I've got some experience with navigation, so I'm thinking those can be learned at home or online.

Choices in schools seem to range from large schools run by famous sailors to smaller mom & pop operations.  Most are smaller classes between two and six students per boat with the smaller operations typically having the smaller class sizes.  Since it will eventually just be the two of us (and the dogs), I would think the smaller classes would be better.  Of course, more students may present more situations leading to more learning.

Lots of choices...what to do...what to do.

Not All Sailing Instructors Are Created Equal

We should have completed all of our on-the-water lessons for our ASA 103 course by now, but due to a few lessons where the wind failed to show up, we had some items we still needed to accomplish.  We were able to do that, for the most part, on Saturday.

There was another couple with us, and it was their first on-the-water lesson.  We got to talking while waiting for the instructor and found out they were looking at an early retirement of living aboard and cruising the Caribbean too.  Hopefully we'll run into them once we both make it out there.

As for the actual lesson, it mostly focused on what my wife and I needed to get done.  The instructor had us explaining how to raise sails, reef sails, execute the man overboard procedure, heave to, lower sails, and dock.  The winds were variable for most of the class, and the class was cut just a bit short due to weather that was moving in.

The problem I was having during this lesson was understanding what the instructor wanted.  He often asked unclear questions or made unclear statements, and given all the sailing vocabulary one needs to learn, it is important to be as clear as possible on the rest. One of my favorites was asking us what we should do "when a telltale on a sail was busy"...um, tell it to keep up the good work?  I'm sure we would have understood "fluttering" or "streaming back with the wind" or pointing in any given direction...but busy...sorry.  Oh well.  My wife and I know the stuff, so no big deal for us...but I ffelt sorry for the other couple.  I'm sure our explanations wouldn't qualify us as being good teachers...but I don't think the actual instructor was helping the situation either.  So to Mike and Jennifer, if you are out there, I hope things made some sense and sorry if it was overly confusing for your first lesson.  Hopefully the tips on the good teachers we had will pan out well for you guys.

We have one lesson left.  It is on the bigger boat, the J/30 (above), and my understanding is that this is essentially the graduation exercise.  Then we need to decide the next courses, where we are taking them, which boat type (monohull or catamaran) we want to take them on, and what testing we really need to do to reach our goal.

Sailing Does Work Better With Wind

I know it is a great mystery of sailing, but it is true...sailing does work much better with wind.

We booked an afternoon lesson instead of a morning in the hopes of finding some wind.  Well, it worked.  On Sunday, in addition to our 5th consecutive day of record breaking temperatures, we had wind.  It wasn't always consistent, but it was there and it wasn't hurricane force.

So, we practiced all the usual maneuvers.  Sailing the various points of sail, tacking, jibing.  Then we practiced something I think will be a very important maneuver to us, heaving to.

Heaving to is, in essence, a means of "parking" a boat.  It is a maneuver that comes close to stopping the boat while leaving it in control.  In the middle of the ocean, if you just drop the sails to stop, the boat is at the mercy of the waves and currents.  Heaving to leaves sails up and keeps the boat pointed in generally the same direction relative to the wind.

SailWorld.com : Heaving-To

It is useful if you just want to take a break, if you need to stop the boat quickly in the middle of the water where an anchor cannot be deployed, or to ride out a storm.  As the picture above indicates, it doesn't completely stop the boat...it causes the boat to very slowly slip sideways...turning slightly into and then away from the wind as it goes.  I assume with a crew of two, this will be very handy.

Even in the heat of the day, out on the reservoir with some wind made for a very enjoyable time.

The Other Money Question

After the "how much will it cost?" question, the next money question people usually ask is "how will you finance this?".  Well, the truth of the matter is that we aren't quite sure.

While I like to call this my retirement plan, the truth is that neither of us will be able to completely retire.  So, the real goal here is to not spend 50 weeks of our lives each year sitting in a box just for a 2 week vacation.  So, assuming we will fall under the "moderate" category in the Beth and Evans Cost of Cruising example, the question is how we will be able to generate $20,000 a year while living on a boat.

One thought we had was to purchase some property that we could then rent.  With the sale of most everything we own plus some savings that we have, we might be able to purchase some property in addition to the boat.  If we can find the right market, either long term or vacation rental may provide some income.  Of course, the question is where...

Another option we have considered is doing what the couple that sparked this crazy idea in us was doing...chartering.  We could make some money taking people on dinner cruises or maybe even overnight excursions.  This option, of course would require licensing...and since we don't have much sailing experience yet, this is probably more of a longer term option than one we could do starting on day one.

My wife and I both have skills that could translate into contract work.  So if we need to, I think we could probably pick up some short term contract work that would be sufficient to pay the bills.  The key here would be to not make it a full time job, even for a short term.  I will not go back to sitting behind a computer 40+ hours a week.

The last obvious option is finding local part-time work.  I'm reasonably good with electronics and electrical systems, maybe helping out a boatyard with upgrade and refit work would be an idea.  Or I'm sure there are other odd jobs around a boatyard.  If not, I'm sure we can find part-time work elsewhere in various ports, even if it is simple retail.

In the end, we are talking $10,000 each per year.  That's just not all that much so I have confidence that we will be able to do it.  If you have any ideas, feel free to leave a comment

I can do better than this...maybe they'll need part-time help.

Hello? Did the boat sink?

Sorry.  I'd like to apologize to the very few folks that are currently following along for the lack of posts.  My wife had I have had some other obligations we've needed to deal with over the past couple of weeks.

Today I expected to be writing about our next-to-last sailing lesson for our current course.  Unfortunately the school seemed to miss the fact that it's Fathers Day and we got a call yesterday afternoon that our class would be cancelled.  So, nothing new to report other than we are still trying to make progress and we have to reschedule a lesson.

While working out these other obligations, we did have a chance to stop by another semi-local reservoir and we inquired about options for renting sailboats.  The rumors I've heard on the requirements for chartering boats in the Caribbean seems to similar to what we found for renting a boat at this reservoir.  The most important credential seems to be a valid credit card.  They did say they had a quick and easy verbal quiz...and the example question was pretty basic.  So, the good news is we should at least have the ability to practice our newly acquired skills this summer.

I've also been working on a little more research...but nothing worthy of a post yet.  We haven't given up and more will follow...I promise.

Competing Sailing Associations

In a couple posts I mentioned that we needed to take tests to complete our sailing courses.  This isn't really true, we only need to take these tests to prove to others  that we've taken the classes (for things such as daily rentals or bareboat charters).  You can go buy a boat and set sail yourself without any training or licenses (regardless of how foolish it may be to take this approach).  Did I mention it costs money (not included in the class fees) to take the tests?  Well...now we have a dilemma that makes me wonder if we should take the tests.

There are actually two different sailing associations in the United States.  One is the American Sailing Association (ASA) and the other is US Sailing.  Our current school follows the ASA curriculum. Up until now I hadn't been worried about this since they are the only school in town.  But now that I've been looking into options for continuing our education with a school capable of an oceanic classroom, the tests may or may not be useful.

VS.

Both organizations seem to have a similar curriculum.  US Sailing, born from the North American Yacht Racing Union, may have a bit of a racing bias where ASA may be more cruising/recreation oriented...but everything I've seen thus far seems to indicate that they are very, very similar.

Naturally, they do not accept each other's credentials.  Of course, being businesses, each one will allow you to pay their fees to take their tests to "challenge" the need to take their particular version of a course.

I kind of doubt one is technically better than the other but I'm sure elsewhere there is likely a "religious war" raging between the two that is just as heated as the whole Macintosh vs. Windows computer one.  My only concern is that we get a good education and my bet is that there are both good and bad instructors under each organizations flag.

So, my goal now is to find the best school that meets our needs without having to retake classes we have already completed.  If it is a US Sailing school such as Colgate's Offshore Sailing School, then taking the ASA tests just wastes money on a test we will likely need to retake.  So, we may postpone the testing depending on which school we end up going with.