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Subject: RE: [world-cruising] New Member pt 2.
From: Rick H Kennerly (rick@XXX.XXX)
Date: Sat Apr 05 2003 - 07:12:16 EST
5. you need to pay your dues. To my mind there are few more dangerous than
cruising tyros who have the money to substitute gadgetry for experience,
wishing for judgment and hope for knowledge. I really don't care if they
drown themselves or wreck their boat on a charted reef and then drown
themselves. However, I mightily resent them being able to buy all the
latest electronic safety devices designed to summons young Coast Guardsmen,
naval sailor or merchant mariners out in a storm and risk their lives to
come get them because they're in over you're head, they're scared, they're
too tired to go on, or they've decided it just isn't fun anymore (at
millions of tax payer dollars per search and rescue effort). It happens
more and more often, I call it the 911 mentality. I want to make it clear
that blue water passagemaking is some of the hardest, most demanding work
I've ever done (as well as some of the most rewarding). But we also worked
up to it over a decade or more experience. And to answer one of your
questions directly: Yes. If there are just the two of you on a passage,
you'll have to monitor and tend to the boat 24-hrs a day, 7 days a week
until you arrive, which means shift sleeping.
5a. So my advice is to sell out and head east, where boats for sail are
plentiful and you can build year round experience while covering vast
distances along the east coast inside the protected waterways and bays from
Maine to Florida, following the thermometer. Above 70 degrees, head north.
Below 70 degrees, head south. And when you're ready, begin making overnight
passages in open water, like St Augustine, Fl, to North Carolina. Later,
after you've tested both yourselves and the boat, you can jump off from
Florida to cross the 70 miles to the Bahamas and even work your way up the
islands to the Caribbean.
6. Aside from the sailing side of it all, you'll need to read up in several
areas. a. eyeball navigation & chart reading as well as any electronic
navigation and charting you're interested in and can afford; b. weather
prediction, weather fax & charting; c. oceanography, tides, & currents; d.
emergency medicine; e. a bit of radio theory; f. diesel maintenance; g.
canvas repair; h. anchoring and storm tactics; i. a little Spanish and
French goes a long way toward helping you along in a foreign country.
more...
Rick NH2F
Westsail 32 Xapic
Cabo San Juan, Puerto Rico
www.mouseherder.com/xapic/sleep.html
www.westsail.org
Sail like a Kiwi
Anchor like a Canadian
Live like a Texan
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