Four years seems like a long time, but as Judy remarked to me the other day “we are not going to have time to do everything we want to do before we go cruising”. She is quite right. One year has passed since we made the decision to go cruising, we have a little less than three years to go before we head out, and although we accomplished a lot last year, we are beginning to feel a bit of a time crunch.
For others thinking about cruising it might be a good lesson to understand that time passes very quickly. In retrospect, we accomplished a huge amount in our first year.It is interesting to note that the list consists of “soft” accomplishments. We didn’t focus on any
hands on skills. We didn’t learn to speak Spanish (in my case re-learn), we didn’t brush up on Celestial Navigation, we didn’t focus on any hard skills so necessary to the cruiser. We did however focus on refreshing all of our knowledge of boat systems – and this took a surprising amount of time – the technology of boats and systems has progressed amazingly since we bought Perigail 15 years ago.
The Commitment
I remember clearly the moment when the time bomb went off that triggered this journey. We were at a party in the apartment of a dear friend of mine in New York City chatting with a long time business associate. This associate greatly enjoyed the time he had spent with us on Perigail and casually asked Judy and I if we had done any sailing lately. After explaining that the complexity of our lives made that difficult right now, he stared me straight in the eye and said, “You two belong out on the water”. Given that we are now work for different companies it would be easy to think that this was a not so subtle tactic to take out a competitor, but the sincerity with which he said this was so genuine Judy and my lives were changed in that moment. The next day, on our drive back from the City a dialogue started, and ever since we have been on a path to return to the sea – because my competitor was right – we belong on the water.
"Cruising" Defined
Cruising is a term that has as many definitions as there are people who have ever dreamed of casting away from shore. For some it is a break in their lives characterized by a breakneck 2 or 3 year circumnavigation. For others it is a form of retirement characterized by lazily exploring every harbor and cay in the Caribbean. In our case the definition of what it means to go cruising has been slowly percolating in our minds over the last twenty years.
We had once contemplated calling our boat "Where The Wild Things Are" with due respect to Maurice Sendak. We have never seen our cruising as either a breakneck race or being confined to familiar waters but as an opportunity to slip away from the "standard" cruising routes and explore off the beaten path. Although this might seem irrelevant or a nice flight of fancy, when it comes down to understanding what kind of boat you need or how much it might cost this definition becomes very real.
Financial Plan
A long time ago I purchased “Planning Your Escape” a book written by Katy Burke in 1984, which was an overview of the cost of cruising and managing financial and personal business complexities. Back then a “typical” couple could go cruising for as little as $6000 a year. Since then things have changed a lot including the cost of cruising. I have looked at every piece of data I can find and it seems that the typical cost of cruising today (assuming you own your boat) is between $25000 and $50000 a year. The important word here is typical – there are doubtless boats out there cruising on $5000 a year or less (notably Fatty Goodlander and his wife Carolyn) and there are others with budgets well into the six figures.
Prior to going cruising it was necessary for us to have a detailed understanding of what the cost of cruising was going to be, how long we planned to go cruising, how much the boat was going to cost, and what kind of a nest egg we wanted when we came back. Understanding this, I prepared a sophisticated “what if” financial model that allowed us to weigh the pros and cons of all of the above factors. As boring as it might sound, this model has been the subject of a huge amount of conversation between Judy and I as it ultimately dictated the boat we could afford and when we could cast away from shore.
As it stands today we are holding very closely to the financial plan I put together, and give or take a few ups and downs in our investments, going crazy with optional equipment on the boat, or impatience with land based life we are right on track with our projected departure date.
Schedule
Once we fully understood the “financial parameters” we were able to put together a comprehensive schedule from "Now", whenever that is, to the moment we cast off, with all the tasks that need to be accomplished between now and then. We call this our "Exit Plan". To give you some sense of what this involves the excerpt below gives you an idea of some of the elements we needed to consider.
Research
Sound decisions require reliable, factual information on which to base the decisions. Research provides this information. Research can take many forms such as Internet searches of vendor sites, reading cruising magazines and books, pouring over yacht builder literature, picking through discussion board postings (e.g. the SSCA discussion board), talking with experts, chatting with other yacht owners and once a particular vessel design is identified actually getting on one and sailing it if at all possible. We used all these avenues of information gathering and took lots of time to do it. In the end we felt we had, between our own considerable experience on the water and the experiences and expertise of others, arrived at a point where we were well equipped to make the decisions that we have. As noted at the start of this log we are beginning to feel a bit of a time crunch, which is in no small part due to the degree we underestimated the amount of research that was necessary. Again, a cautionary word for the would be cruiser.
Specifying The Boat
Both of us come from a scientific/engineering background and as such have been exposed to, and developed a great respect for the need to precisely spell out what we want when building or buying something. “Specification” is an integral part of the engineering process and we are no strangers to this concept. It is thus no surprise that we constructed, using the results of our research and own desires, a comprehensive specification for exactly what characteristics and elements we wanted Makara to have. This was a living document that evolved and grew until it was a very detailed description of what we wanted to buy or have built. Our specification helped us communicate to the various builders what we wanted and helped us make sure we didn’t miss anything that needed to be dealt with at build time. While we wouldn’t expect everyone to be as detailed as we were, we would still recommend that before you get too far along to at least jot down the key characteristics of what you are trying to get in your next boat. As they say: “You can’t find what you are looking for if you don’t know what it is”!
Selecting A Builder
Why didn’t we say select the boat? If you only thought that choosing the boat was important think again. When you choose the boat you want to buy or to build you must also consider who has or will build it. The end result goes hand in hand. Even the best built boat may be a problem if the builder makes the process unpleasant or doesn’t give you what you really want/need. In the end, choosing the right boat and insuring the builder will in fact get it built the way you intend go hand in hand. After your research and once you understand what you really want in your next vessel, look at what is available, visit the builder's yard if possible to see how they build them, sail an example and then rank them by how each matches your key criteria for your new boat. Balance the costs against what you get (unless you have infinite cash, but who normally does) and then gently mix in your feelings. That’s right I said feelings. You need to feel “good” about the boat you will buy or build. You will know what we mean when you experience it. You really need to love your vessel to enjoy her and form the bond between man (or woman) and machine so critical to the delicate dance that the two of you will find necessary for survival at sea.
Lifestyle Reconstruction
Many have written about the transition between a land based “consumerism” lifestyle and the more modest eco-friendly lifestyle of the cruiser, but this isn't really driven home until you find yourself having to consciously change everyday habits.
As people who have been blessed to have a fairly affluent lifestyle, this really hits home when you find yourself making purchasing decisions about both big an little things based on the time you have left on land and whether or not it will be useful on the boat. The lease on my car is up very soon and ordinarily about this time I would be looking to trade in my three year old vehicle and trading up to the next thing - a year ago I was quite sure that when the lease on the Porsche was up that a Mercedes Benz was likely to fill my garage. Now, I find myself scanning around to see if we can find a reliable Toyota pickup truck. A year ago I was thinking it was really time to trade in our 6 year old projection TV for a sexy new flat panel screen with all the latest whiz-bang features - now I am wondering how much I might be able to get for the old one and whether or not it will pay for one of Judy's anchors. I had a much loved Cuisinart food processor, that I received in exchange for teaching some cooking classes twenty years ago, that recently packed it it. A year ago I would not have thought anything about buying the very best new one I could find, but instead I am figuring out how to live without a food processor because I know I won't have one on the boat.
The bottom line is that once you are really committed and on the path your life begins to undergo huge changes. We are now getting our bodies ready (diet and exercise) and it will be interesting to recap that journey a year from now.
Family Buy In
We have an awesome family who have been very supportive of us as we have moved from place to place and dabbled in everything from flying airplanes to deep water decompression wreck diving. Luckily for us when we announced to our family at a party last summer that within three years we were going to sell everything, move on a boat and go cruising their reaction was very supportive. I think because this is something that we have needed to do for so long, and because they have experienced our oneness with the sea on various charter boats this seemed a very natural step to them. Also because they understand how determined we get when we set a goal some of the incredulity that others might experience has been completely absent.
In the End
Now that we have clear direction and a plan, this year will be exciting for us. It will see the start of the construction of Makara, physical preparation of the crew, the start of polishing up rusty skills, an acceleration of cutting the bonds of our land based existence, and will move us 12 months closer to when we cast off. We are both excited and I look forward to reporting back on our accomplishments to you a year from now.