Getting started the right way?

[Hieuhuule]

I've got absolutely no experience with boats or the water at all. But I am an avid arm chair adventurer who wants to take this dream and make it a reality. I'm working my butt off and I expect within the next three years to have enough saved up to comfortably cruise and not worry too much about money. I don't have a boat (yet) but I plan on getting one by then.

What can I do during those three years to prepare for a cruising lifestyle and be a competent sailor? I've read post after post about people setting off on a whim to follow their dreams and met a pretty tragic end. I don't want to be "that guy." What's the right way to get started?

***If this question has been answered before, sorry for repeating it and could you please provide a link to the thread?***

[seahag]

Cool. Glad you're into it, it's fun to have a dream.

So, get some experience sailing. Lots of ways to do that. I think a great way is to sail small boats, because the principles are the same on the big ones. Get some confidence, and have some fun. If you have a marina nearby, and any kind of personality, you'll have no problem getting to know some people there who would show you many things. Getting onto boats is interesting, as they are pretty different and you can learn a lot just looking at them and talking to sailors. I think reading lots of books, even old ones, is mostly better than reading posts on internet forums, but if you have questions, that's different. Youtube videos are great too.

But messing with boats, even really little ones, is the best thing.

[PortClydeMe]

Originally Posted by Hieuhuule

I've got absolutely no experience with boats or the water at all. But I am an avid arm chair adventurer who wants to take this dream and make it a reality. I'm working my butt off and I expect within the next three years to have enough saved up to comfortably cruise and not worry too much about money. I don't have a boat (yet) but I plan on getting one by then.

What can I do during those three years to prepare for a cruising lifestyle and be a competent sailor? I've read post after post about people setting off on a whim to follow their dreams and met a pretty tragic end. I don't want to be "that guy." What's the right way to get started?

***If this question has been answered before, sorry for repeating it and could you please provide a link to the thread?***

1) If no experience with water, then learn how to swim ... and well.
2) Schedule a sail on a 30'+ boat, on the ocean, away from calm shores.
3) Save up a 'boatload' of cash.
4) Cast off.

[Don C L]

my usual answer is, well, first: congratulations! You are on your way to bliss and high cash flow... but seriously, it's all good.. I recommend getting a fast, fun and simple boat like a Laser. It is so easy and fun you'll want to go sailing everyday! And you'll learn quickly and from there the germ will grow... Good luck and keep us posted!

[Stu Jackson]

Read and boat.

For reading, do a simple search on BOOKS and there are tons of posts about recommended reads. Many include just your situation.

Welcome and good luck.

[Hieuhuule]

Thanks for the advice! I just finished reading "Alone Together: Sailing Solo to Hawaii and Beyond" by Christian Williams and I'm starting Joshua Slocum.

In "Alone together", the author runs a through several unexpected problems sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii. He's an experienced sailor and was able to use his know-how to fix his boat each time and avoid almost certain tragedy.

What books should I be reading?

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Hieuhuule.

[reed1v]

Go live in a closet for a week; or better yet, try living in a crawl space under some old house. Gives a good simulation of what it's like to live in a sailboat. Cramped, damp, smelly, and moldy. You gotta be desperate for adventure to go the cruising route.

[bwells79]

I agree with Don C L that a Laser is a great boat to develop sailing skills, but if you are going to go that route as your first boat / sailing experience, understand that it is very different from a boat you would live on. Depending on your agility, the first time you tip over might be while getting into the boat. And depending on your size and strength you might find it extremely difficult to right and get back in.

To put it in perspective, I grew up in the Midwest and there was the story about a local legend, world class and Olympic medalist sailor who took his son to a Laser regatta on San Francisco Bay. His son was quite young and it was very windy and he did not want to sail. The legend was goaded into to giving it a go because the son was not going to. He tipped over four times on the starting line before he got acclimated to the boat and could keep it upright. He did go on to win the race, but with decades of sailing experience, that was his start in a Laser!

You might want to find a local yacht club, sailing club or park district that has classes and their own boats that are not as "fun". After you have had some success and basic skills get a laser and challenge yourself! Don't give up on your dream!

[Tessellate]

The right way to get started is to get out of that armchair - as soon as possible! The sooner you get a boat, the sooner you'll get on the path to figuring out what kind of cruising you actually like. If you really have to wait 3 years, then get on other people's boats.

And this may be heresy, but I’d advise you stop reading those books (Alone Together, and Joshua Slocum, etc). They’re excellent books for entertainment, while sitting on your boat in a beautiful anchorage. But they’ll likely have little in common with your cruising experience. Or maybe they will, but the fact is you don’t know that yet. Reading books like that before buying a boat misled me a bit because I thought that the books (especially Capn Fatty books) were representative of what everyone’s cruising experience is like. And that most people do what they do (cast off and sail around the world).

So, don't assume you know what you want to do until you've tried it. Getting started in small steps (but as soon as possible) will help you figure that out.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Hieuhuule

In "Alone together", the author runs a through several unexpected problems sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii. He's an experienced sailor and was able to use his know-how to fix his boat each time and avoid almost certain tragedy.

What books should I be reading?

First are you an accomplished mechanic? Real good with Diesels? Understand electricity?
Maybe some of that you can get from books, I don't know, I grew up tinkering with things all my life and I enjoy troubleshooting.
I think nothing can replace time on a boat. If you can get two boats.
A little boat to sail, and maybe a little later an older boat that needs work and fix her up, you will learn the systems I believe by rebuilding them.
That is when you buy some DIY type of books.
I'm assuming your younger and have time, maybe a little strapped for cash and are not an accomplished mechanic already.

[redhead]

Books - My start was Annapolis Book of Seamanship. It's like the cookbook Joy of Cooking it assumes you know nothing and starts from there - i.e. "the pointy end is called the bow". It progresses from there to hull speed calculation, reading wind, weather, etc. There are a ton of books out there (I've heard Sailing for Dummies is good, but I've not read it)

I was so eager I read the whole book before I owned a boat and you know what? I retained a lot. I still use it after 25 years and right now mine's on loan to a guy at the dock who bought a sailboat and doesn't sail yet. I told him to read it and then we'll do sailing lessons.

Good luck, this is so much fun I can't believe it's legal!

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by bwells79

He tipped over four times on the starting line before he got acclimated to the boat and could keep it upright. He did go on to win the race, but with decades of sailing experience, that was his start in a Laser!

But that's what makes them so fun! The challenge! And besides a few of those in the cold SF bay and you learn how to capsize a Laser and stay dry doing it! It's kind of fun when you get the hang of it!

[TrentePieds]

Lemme beat my old drum again - to do with pleasure and in safety what you say you want to do, you need to embark of FOUR learning voyages. The "skill-sets" you need to acquire are discrete. They are:

1: Leaning to sail, i.e to handle a boat physically.

2: Learning to "live small", i.e to live aboard. You will be gob-smacked when you discover how different that is from living ashore, and that it has NOTHING to do with sailing

3: Learning to be a skipper. Skippering is an amalgam of many, many diverse skil-lsets, prominent amount them: weather forecasting, piloting, provisioning, engine repair, sail making. hull repair, "people management", naval architecture, etc., etc, ad infinitum

4: Teaching - because at sometime you'll need crew, and even if they don't need to be taught the basics, they'll certainly need to be taught what your style of skippering is.


The first of the four is dead easy. Just get a SMALL boat, like a Chrysler 16 or an Enterprise, and go play with it. Then look for opportunities to crew in bigger boats so you come to have a feel for the difference. The basics are the same, but the consequences of messing up are not!

The second thing to learn is that living small is not everybody's cuppatea. Consider that the "flat floor area" in my boat less than 20 square feet. Even a SMALL apartment is 400 or more. So don't spend big money until you've verified by experience that your psyche can handle "living small" for long periods.

The third thing, Skippering, takes a lifetime to learn, if indeed you ever do, and you cannot force the pace, because becoming a good skipper is done through varied experience and cogent analysis of what varied experiences leave with you. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement, n'est- ce pas ? :-)

The fourth thing you can defer for now, but the time will come when you must consider how YOU induce people to do promptly and proficiently what YOU want them to do. If you have been a member of any serious organization that relies on teamwork, you will be familiar with the concept of "command presence". If you have it, people will learn, and you never need to "give an order" - suggestions will suffice. If you don't have "command presence" natively, or develop it along the way, you may learn all I spoke about in item 3, but you will not be a good skipper.

So there you have it. Doing what you are proposing to do is real easy ;-)!

But don't despair, none of this stuff is intuitive, none of us were born with it. Just go at it slowly and methodically. You can accelerate the pace by setting up a syllabus for your self, and within that syllabus, lesson plans based on what you read in the galaxy of books that are available.

And you can always come to forums like this and ask specific questions.

TrentePieds

[Kita]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Go live in a closet for a week; or better yet, try living in a crawl space under some old house. Gives a good simulation of what it's like to live in a sailboat. Cramped, damp, smelly, and moldy. You gotta be desperate for adventure to go the cruising route.

Wow,grumpy? Some people are desperate for adventure for sure..not for everyone to enjoy cruising....I am thinking you didn't. ...but for others,it can be a new lifestyle