Experience required to cross the Pacific

[Lawnmower]

I have the goal of sailing solo across the Pacific and then around SE Asia. I particularly want to visit remote and uninhabited atolls and islands to photograph wildlife.

I currently have almost zero sailing experience and zero knowledge of systems on a boat and how to fix them.

My current plan is to get some experience crewing on boats in the Caribbean before buying my own boat there and continuing my education on that before going through the canal.

I'm looking for any tips on the types of things/trips I should be doing to get myself in the best possible position to do this. It would also be good to get an idea of roughly how long it could take (dedicating all of my time to it) to become a competent enough sailor/boat mechanic to complete the journey in relative safety.

• What kind of sailing experience did you have before you felt comfortable crossing the Pacific?
• What types of smaller adventures should I be undertaking to get prepared?
• What types of skills do you think would be most crucial for such a journey?

[BlueH2Obound]

Suggest you check out the blog: https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/
They did just what you are suggesting. Had little or no sailing experience. Enjoy!

[boatman61]

An ocean crossing is fairly simple by and large, the difficulty will come locating and entering/anchoring at the atolls and avoiding the Reefs..
Good seamanship/navigation skills, ability to 'read' the sea and sky plus enough mechanical knowledge to keep your engine serviced and running.

[Lawnmower]

How do you personally go about plotting a course through reefs?

[team karst]

Originally Posted by Lawnmower

How do you personally go about plotting a course through reefs?

Earlier this year, i launched the dink with a handheld sonar, and set up a route using Navionics. We usually will also find coral heads that get special obstacle icons.

[Lawnmower]

Originally Posted by team karst

Earlier this year, i launched the dink with a handheld sonar, and set up a route using Navionics. We usually will also find coral heads that get special obstacle icons.

Do you use a satellite image overlay to find the coral heads or just visual from the dinghy?

[SailingHarmonie]

Inexperienced people focus on the sailing aspects, but honestly, that part is not rocket science. Without a lot of training and experience, your sailing skills will be weak, but that mostly means you get there a bit slower.

You need to have the mechanical skills to keep a boat working. I see a LOT of people these days buying complex boats, thinking it is like buying a Honda off the dealer lot, expecting it to just work for the next 100,00 miles. That is not the reality of boat ownership. Things break all the time.

Understanding modern weather tools is also extremely important. The deeper your understanding of this topic the safer, and more comfortable, your passages will be.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by SailingHarmonie

Inexperienced people focus on the sailing aspects, but honestly, that part is not rocket science. Without a lot of training and experience, your sailing skills will be weak, but that mostly means you get there a bit slower.

You need to have the mechanical skills to keep a boat working. I see a LOT of people these days buying complex boats, thinking it is like buying a Honda off the dealer lot, expecting it to just work for the next 100,00 miles. That is not the reality of boat ownership. Things break all the time.

Understanding modern weather tools is also extremely important. The deeper your understanding of this topic the safer, and more comfortable, your passages will be.

This. Cruising around the world is doing boat repairs in exotic locations.

[Lawnmower]

Originally Posted by SailingHarmonie

Inexperienced people focus on the sailing aspects, but honestly, that part is not rocket science. Without a lot of training and experience, your sailing skills will be weak, but that mostly means you get there a bit slower.

You need to have the mechanical skills to keep a boat working. I see a LOT of people these days buying complex boats, thinking it is like buying a Honda off the dealer lot, expecting it to just work for the next 100,00 miles. That is not the reality of boat ownership. Things break all the time.

Understanding modern weather tools is also extremely important. The deeper your understanding of this topic the safer, and more comfortable, your passages will be.

How long you reckon it could take to go from zero to competent in terms of boat mechanics if dedicating all of ones time to the task?

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Lawnmower

How long you reckon it could take to go from zero to competent in terms of boat mechanics if dedicating all of ones time to the task?

I would say at least a year of living aboard and sailing. The second half is important. Plenty people live aboard sitting at the dock and know very little about repairing the mechanical systems of the boat.

Understand ocean crossing is a significant endevour and the pacific is just massive. You don't really fully apreciate the concept of how much of the world is ocean and just how huge they are until you are in a small boat and there is nothing not even other vessels in every direct all the way to the horizon.

In the pacific recuse/help likely means commercial veseel and if you have moved outside of normal shipping lanes to chase favorable wind help could be days away. It is not an environment that is forgiving to a lack of knowledge on how your boat works. I recommend reading a lot but there is no substitute for experience. Having stuff break on a boat and learning how to fix it and then ficing it is a huge confidence booster.

[CrispyCringle]

These type of questions come up often. My question is how do you quantify experience? Usually it's in the form of "a lot", "none", a certain amount of years, etc. Maybe quantified with ratings or a license or something.

Question- "How much experience required to cross the Pacific?"

Answer- None. But it will probably suck in multiple ways. People do it with little to no experience quite often with varying results.

How to do it with reasonable safety, or how to do it well is probably a better question. And the answer is you need more than "none" in your experience bucket.

Buy any cheap little day sailor boat and learn how to sail it. Fix it. Stay in it a few days. Go to a different harbor and anchor in unfamiliar places. Just go out there and do stuff that are reasonable, safe, and not beyond your limits. If you have no experience, you dont even know what you dont know. By actually doing you will expand your bubble. Talking about it and reading about it is nothing compared to doing it.

[leecea]

IMO most of the learning that helps keep you safe is related to avoiding problems and dealing with problems that you can't avoid. If I were contemplating what you are trying to achieve, one of my goals would be to develop a list of everything that could go wrong and learn what I could do to prevent it or deal with it. Then I'd try to get some experience related to each area.

[carstenb]

there are boats that regularly look for crew for a passage in the pacific. Sign on for panama to marquesas or even further. >You'll learn a lot in a couple of months. Then go figure out what else you need (now you will begin to understand what it is you don't know.........)

[team karst]

Originally Posted by Lawnmower

Do you use a satellite image overlay to find the coral heads or just visual from the dinghy?

Visual plus soundings from handheld/submersible sonar. Sat not good enuf for isolated heads, plus no depth info.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by Lawnmower

How long you reckon it could take to go from zero to competent in terms of boat mechanics if dedicating all of ones time to the task?

Depends on complexity of the boat. While I'm not a big YouTube person, I find Wind Hippie Sailing interesting. Young gal who is currently in New Zealand on a 27-ish foot boat. Pretty basic boat. She keeps it moving - recently replaced her engine. She's not the most elegant mechanic, but demonstrates the old saying "Necessity is the mother of invention."

BTW - in my opinion, first 10-feet is the hardest part of any long distance cruise, not the coral reefs. Just cutting docklines can be amazingly difficult. Always something standing in the way