INSIGHTS: Sailing Away – Top 10 Tips

Welcome to INSIGHTS – Noonsite’s new feature for 2020 where we share a variety of viewpoints on nautical-related topics. Guest contributors will share their cruising knowledge with the Noonsite community on a broad range of subjects from how-to tutorials and equipment reviews to cruising single-handed and voyaging with a conscience.

Published 4 years ago

a woman and man smiling at the camera wearing white shirts and blue jumpers with land and sea behind them
Nicola and John Rodriguez in Gibraltar about the sail the Atlantic.

Launching Insights is Nicola Rodriguez, author and long-distance cruiser who started blue water cruising as a newlywed, had two children en-route (exploring Europe, the Caribbean and the US Eastern sea board) and wrote a book about it eight years later.

Nicola shares her top ten tips to set you on the right course if you are planning on sailing away anytime soon.

Sailing Away – Top 10 Tips

1. Deadline

Set a deadline, an immovable, non-negotiable deadline for sailing away. Perhaps joining a Rally will give you that concrete date you need.

a white beach palm tree wooden dock and brightly coloured pink flowers in front of a reed umbrella with a yacht in the distance at anchor
Moonshine in Antigua where we sat for six weeks. We now have this print in our bathroom. It is worth putting a picture like this on your fridge to helping you focus on setting off.

Several cruisers we know flew home within months of having “sailed away”, returning for weddings or significant celebrations, but they had already made the break. Procrastination is the thief of time and sailing dreams. A season slips by, financial circumstances change, knees give up, and the dream of letting-go the lines slips into the past tense.

Make sure it’s what you want. Focus, chutzpah and bloody mindedness will get you on your way, but you have to really want to go. Some talk-the-talk but set up the trip wires years in advance so when the “time” comes the reasons not to go seem valid.

2. Children

Our children were eight-month-old babies when they joined the crew. We found living aboard with two boys under five was a stretch but one for which we are grateful. We had ‘the best of times, and the worst of times’ because we were with them 24/7. We had time though, which is priceless.

a little boy smiling up at the camera holding onto the lifelines at the bow of the boat with a dolphin under the water below him
Jack on the bow of Seraphim, aged 10 months. Note he is wearing his harness attached to the boat.

Even if the boys have hazy memories of our time together, they learnt a huge amount through ‘osmosis’, just being with us and experiencing sailing through Europe, the Caribbean and US Eastern sea board.

Help your children document their memories. Our most precious possession was Jack’s (aged 5) ‘log book’ in which he drew, then wrote of his travels. For example, in his chart of the Caribbean a canon depicted Antigua and a volcano St Lucia.

3. Crew

A voyage can be blighted or delighted by the crew. Once on a long passage there is no escape. Choosing a good crew is a complex game of mixing sailing skills, social compatibility and experience. One skipper quipped that his best crew was an engineer who could cook. Your best friends may be a hoot in the cockpit over cocktails but do they have the skills you require? Will they take instructions from you as skipper? Will they form a cohesive team which can work together in a storm?

a smiling lady in sleeveless top and shorts with sunglasses hanging around her neck down below in the saloon of the boat surrounded by white nets hanging from the roof containing fruits and vegetables
Emony, one of our crew with the fruit in nets. Beware of loading the nets too full. Another crew member Ashley coined the
phrase “death by cantaloupe”. Also one night we heard running water … it was onions rustling in the nets!!

If you discover that your crew are not working, can you fix it? Or, ask them to leave? Where possible test out your crew by taking them for a week-long cruise including at least three or four full days and nights at sea, not just a jolly weekend, or a week with evenings ashore.

Be clear on what you expect of your crew, and vice versa.

4. Guests

The popular saying, “Like fish, after three days guest stink”, can sometimes be truer on a yacht. Make sure guests bring small, soft bags, not suitcases. After the safety briefing, introduce them to water and power efficiency, especially if you are going to be at anchor. Long hair washing sessions are for the shower block, (ditto hair dryers). Whilst lounging in paradise, limit expectations to reality. If they want to spend an extra two days in this idyllic far away anchorage, they might have to pay for it by sailing into the wind for a day.

4 people standing on the foredeck of a boat with their arms around each other
Our crew, my cousins Ashley and Emony, before we sailed from Tenerife to Antigua.

Guests can be a delight and a drag. Always encourage guests to make their way to your location, rather than you to the nearest port to the airport. For them it adds to the adventure and for you it can save difficult passages.

We fell into this trap in July in the Chesapeake Bay, near Washington DC, when we agreed to meet a friend of John’s in Nassau for Christmas. We seemed to have plenty of time, however, a side trip to Cuba and a series of cold fronts meant time ran out and we had to sail on Christmas Day. As it turned out we were sailing with five other boats which had been waiting for the same weather window. One boat had a mother-in-law pounding the Nassau dock for five days.

5. Spares

Take plenty of spares. Sitting on a hot bus searching for a chandlery as you watch the weather window close is a bad experience wherever it happens. I have given up my precious locker space to spares, and more spares, and more spares. Take as many spares as you can.

a man with a beard in an engine room holding a length of broken hose and a spring in his hands
Another sad story of ‘fixing boats in exotic places’. My mother brought a length of heating duct to Antigua when she visited!

On occasion, the wait for a spare part to be shipped can be fun. We had a ball at a fiesta in Northern Spain. However, you could find yourself grinding against a wall in port miles from a town, with aggressive fishing boats causing huge wakes twice a day.

Remember, depending on where you are in the world it may be cheaper to buy from your home port chandlery if you have negotiated a discount.

6. Shopping

In addition to a rucksack (and fold up bicycle), the “Granny” shopping trolley is an essential for easy shopping. Not the coolest look but certainly in many ways “use-full”. When wintering in Palma de Mallorca (Spain) we attached the Granny trolley to the back of the bicycle.

a man with his child in a pushchair, he crouching down and in front of them a wheelie shopping trolley like a suitcase packed with groceries
One of the many ‘granny trollies’ we used over the years.

On small islands such as in the Bahamas, be prepared to go to several shops to complete your full shopping list. Perhaps share a taxi with other yacht crew. And, don’t expect the same items to be stocked in the same shop each week – so get them while you can.

7. Fridays

It is said never leave for a long voyage on a Friday. “A Friday’s sail, always fail”. One of many superstitions for sailors but one which has proved itself not just for us but many sailors we have met. Controversially, some say it is because Christ was crucified on a Friday. Others are more practical pointing out that the skipper and crew are tired at the end of the week working on the boat. This is just our take on yet another sailing superstition, such as whistling (or not) for wind. Who knows if they are really true?

horizontal lines of bright blue sea of varying shades topped by a pale blue solid colour sky not a cloud in sight
We have this picture up in the bathroom taken from Bimini over the
Gulf Stream. We call it ’Stairway to heaven’.

8. Foul Weather

It is worthwhile keeping easy-to-open tins and chocolate in an accessible locker should bad weather hit while on passage. If the cook is incapacitated the crew can keep their strength up by heating up soup or mince or baked beans.

9. Bounty

A wooden fish from Antigua. A painting and a small steel drum from St Lucia. These items were expensive birthday presents at the time, but worth the extra expenditure to bring the memories back home.

My first article for Yachting monthly was about our Wedding List which was at a chandlery – ‘For Wetter or Worse’. The Wedding list was an extremely useful way to acquire all kinds of boat equipment as well as a way to take friends and family with you whether it is the barbeque or the anchor ball or money towards communications equipment.

an inflatable dinghy with its outboard raised in a narrow mangrove river with dad in the middle rowing and 2 children with blonde hair accompanying him
John, Jack and James on a ‘mangrove safari’.

Some gave money with instructions to buy something ‘special just for us’. Incredibly our decorated china (!) cups and saucers from Portugal sailed 25,000 miles and in Martinique we bought wonderful prints in the “How Boats are Born” collection by “Heron” in which a dolphin, a swan, and an eagle turn into a variety of yachts.

Sharing your travels: If it is someone’s Birthday back home, a real treat is a postcard. Very few people send postcards these days which makes a Birthday postcard from your latest port of call even more special.

10. Expect the Unexpected

Expect the unexpected and learn to adapt. Time and again, we would say “Just because it’s not going to our plan, doesn’t mean it’s not going to The Plan”. I saw a sign in the Florida Cays, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape”. Very, true.

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a lady sitting sideways on a hammock hung on the foredeck of a boat holding some papers
Nicola writing an article for Yachting Monthly in Honeymoon Bay, George Town, Exhuma.

About the Author

John and Nicola Rodriguez sailed 25,000 miles from the UK to the Med to the Caribbean and USA, twice, over eight years. During their sailing adventure, two young crew members, their sons Jack and James joined the ‘crew’. They are now based primarily in the Solent on the south coast of the United Kingdom.

Nicola is the writer of “Sail Away, How to Escape the Rat Race”, a book which had guided and inspired many to sail away. The second edition was published by Fernhurst Books in January 2019. It has been described by Yachting Monthly as ‘A must for all aspiring ocean adventurers’.

John is a specialist yacht broker for blue water and high-quality cruising yachts.

John and Nicola are members of the OCC and RCC.

Read their cruising blog at http://theyachtseraphim.blogspot.com/

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The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of Noonsite.com or World Cruising Club.

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  1. January 31, 2020 at 10:53 AM
    Scubamicha says:

    Thank you for the 10 useful Tips.
    Some of them I know, some was new, but all of them were true and helpful.
    It’s a good start to the new information area.
    BR Michael

  2. January 25, 2020 at 4:42 PM
    twikman says:

    Your insights page keeps popping up when I am entering comments. REALLY ANNOYING! You will not get any cruisers comments if your web site keeps misbehaving like it is.

    1. February 3, 2020 at 6:46 AM
      ashgoodman says:

      Hi Tom

      Our website doesn’t use any popups anywhere. Can you send us a screenshot of what you are seeing to [email protected]

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