Crew

It doesn’t matter how much you read and who you talk to, your first multi-day (and night) passage at sea will be nothing like what you imagine. And your first experience of a gale at sea will be ten times as intense as you think it will be.

I’m not saying this to put you off, far from it, being at sea is one of the most wonderful and fulfilling experiences there is—although it’s not for everyone—but there is no way to prepare yourself and your boat for offshore voyaging if you have never done it.

One of the strangest exchanges I have ever had occurred in my days as a sailing instructor. My manager sidled up to me one day and asked, “Do you demonstrate all of the manoeuvres to your students in advance, before asking them to do it?”. Thinking this might be some kind of trick question, I thought for a moment, before replying that of course I did—how else would they know what to do? He then floored me by loudly proclaiming that “I never do—what if you get it wrong?”. I could have told him that surely that was the whole point of it—it would show that we can all make mistakes. That it’s how you recognise your error, take the appropriate action to stop it getting really messy, draw breath, and then go round again and do it right that matters. Mistakes are what we learn from, and that in itself was a valuable lesson for the students. But somehow I recognised that I’d be wasting my breath.

Question: I’m planning a five-year circumnavigation. While I grew up as a live aboard cruiser, two of my crew have limited sailing experience. We have cruised the Chesapeake Bay extensively together and both are becoming good seamen but neither has been on a blue water passage.

Phyllis, I understand that you had little or no sailing experience before you started cruising in 1996, do you have any personal advice for them (or for me and how to coach them) about acquiring sound blue water seamanship for our planned five-year circumnavigation?