For most sailors, preparing for an Atlantic or round the world voyage typically takes between a year and three years. According to the surveys we carry out annually with ARC rally skippers, that is the average time it takes to choose and buy a suitable boat, equip it, train up and get all the moving parts of work and domestic life aligned.
Right now, almost everyone’s plans are on ice, but this uncertain period of enforced stasis may actually be a good opportunity to take stock of your life goals and what you need to reach them. If you’ve always dreamed of sailing away or of a long voyage and a break from normal, striving life ashore, this could be the time to create more serious plans.
To find out how other sailors are planning their journey along the typical three-year ‘runway’ and what their challenges have been, we spoke to a five sailors at different stages. What follows is a snapshot of their choices and approach.
FLEXIBLE PLANS
TOM AND CLAIR CREAN
Tom and Clair Crean are from the UK but living in Switzerland, where Tom works as an IT consultant. Tom is from a sailing family – his father used to work for Westerly when they built cruisers and cruiser-racers in the UK. They have been thinking and planning to leave for the last two years and when they came to look for a yacht for a budget of £50-60,000 it was Westerlys and Moodys from the Eighties and Nineties that Tom thought of, boats with a “centre cockpit for a decent aft cabin and solidly built.”
As with everyone we spoke to for this article, finding a good and well-maintained example of a particular type of used yacht was not easy and soon the Creans concluded that they “would never get 100%”.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2020 من Yachting World.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2020 من Yachting World.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
TAKING OWNERSHIP
WILL BRUTON ON UPSKILLING ON BOARD
SPECIAL REPORT
DAN HOUSTON ON CHANGES TO THE SHIPPING FORECAST
NAVIGATION BRIEFING
TOM CHENEY ON RACING ACROSS THE CHANNEL
NEW YACHTS
SOME EXCITING, AND VERY DIFFERENT, NEW 40-FOOTERS
21ST CENTURY TWINS
RM'S DISTINCTIVE NEW FLAGSHIP OFFERS AN ENTICING COMBINATION OF GOOD SAILING QUALITIES, SPACIOUS ACCOMMODATION AND TWIN KEELS AS STANDARD
UNLIKELY HERO
A CROSS-EUROPE ADVENTURE IN A 10FT DINGHY SEES SANDY MACKINNON NEARLY COME A CROPPER OFF WHITSTABLE’S MUD FLATS
HER OWN WAY
COLE BRAUER IS THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN TO SAIL SOLO NON-STOP AROUND THE WORLD. HELEN FRETTER FINDS OUT HOW SHE’S SHAKING THINGS UP
THE MIGHTY ESSEQUIBO
JAMES AND JAYNE PEARCE DISCOVER THEIRS IS THE ONLY YACHT IN THE COUNTRY CRUISING REMARKABLE GUYANA
CAPE NORTH
CRUISING BEYOND THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, JANNEKE KUYSTERS AND WIETZE VAN DER LAAN ENJOY A SURPRISING SUMMER IN NORWAY
DOWN WINDING
WHICH DOWNWIND SAILS ARE THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR YOU? AND HOW DO YOU TAKE THE STRESS OUT OF SAIL HANDLING ON A TRADEWIND PASSAGE? TOBY HODGES QUIZZED MORE THAN 240 SKIPPERS IN LAST YEAR'S ARC TO FIND OUT