Circumnavigation with infant/small child

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by Krabimike

dsdphoto, thank you so much for the info! We are both kindle readers and not much of TV watchers so we will dig into those books. Also I welcome any private message for contact info that might steer us in the correct thinking.

Sent from my SM-N920C using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

Voyaging with kids is an amazing book. I bought it on kindle, but it is such a visually stunning book, I then bought another hardcopy as well.

We've decided to wait until both kids are out of diapers and reasonably competent. For us, that seems like when the youngest (due in July) reaches 4. That's a very personal decision, though. Plenty have done it with infants, we just want to make it a bit easier on ourselves.

This article has some more thoughts on cruising with kids and some links to some great blogs to check out.

[Scotty Kiwi]

We coastal cruised with our daughter when she was aged 2 till starting school at 5.
She's now such a fearless and outgoing 21 year old, which I put largely down to this start. We still so enjoy recounting the times we had, or for her, recounting the stories we have repeatedly told of those experiences.

One late evening in the Queen Charlotte Sound (NZ), under full Main and just half a dozen turns in the Genoa roller, the wee girl stacking blocks in the saloon, the adults commenting to each other as to disbelief of the windspeed, showing 30 - 35 knots from astern (south), no sea, just running on rails steady and stable as you can get for several hours. We should reduce sail, but we're going perfectly!. In the euphoria we overlooked that the area is famous for gusts from widely varying directions, specially (of course) as headlands or bays are passed. The wind can be funnelled down the steep glacial gulleys and then it accelerates.

And that's what happened approaching Endeavour inlet. Bang. The wine glasses fly, the tips of the spreaders shining in the dark just clear of the drink, lapping around the Genoa sheet winch.

We both scrambled to make the companionway, with blind visions of our daughter being tossed and injured. Once we made it inside, we saw her, looking truly thrilled. She was standing underneath the now vertical saloon table, with her we feet on the now horizontal piece underneath bit where legs and feet go.

"Hey, stick MORE rag up Dad" she yelled. "MORE Rag ... Then I could slide on the ceiling!".

Great times.