Define Bluewater

Minn said:
I’m surrounded by stuff that I can’t fix. Radar, AIS, VHF, chart plotter to name but four.
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For all you nostalgic peeps out there why do you all have the new tech , AIS, radar , GPS ,LED etc . I always say this to my Wife who loves old history sites that I have to plod around the world looking at , and I always so the same thing I bet the poor buggers living like this would have prefered central heating and double glazing and ice in there G AND T ,
Ah the hard old days yellow oilskins and wellies and a map from the Petrol station looking out in a pee souper as the rain and wind smash into you :D
 
Minn said:
You had a Seafix! And an echo sounder? You were gadget obsessed. I dare say you didn’t even have deck leaks...

Ex RAF grid compass, ex RN hand bearing compass, lead and line, sticky PVC oilskins, kapok life jackets, Number One Manila halyards and sheets... no nav lights cos they didn’t work but a torch to wave at steamers and read the compass with... oh, and damp cotton sleeping bags...
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Haha, you must be older than me. Our boat was built in the 60s of that new fangled stuff GRP! The Seafix used to verify our position down to an area about the size of Anglesey........we have oil lights in the saloon at night. No power to run lecky lights. No such things as a battery bank, just a battery! No furling headsail but a furfling main. It wrapped around thr boom and made such a poorly reefed sail you had to throw a sail bag in to help take up the baggy mess.
We had lots of leaks! Going to IOM felt like crossing the Atlantic.....
 
Minn said:
You had a Seafix! And an echo sounder? You were gadget obsessed. I dare say you didn’t even have deck leaks...

Ex RAF grid compass, ex RN hand bearing compass, lead and line, sticky PVC oilskins, kapok life jackets, Number One Manila halyards and sheets... no nav lights cos they didn’t work but a torch to wave at steamers and read the compass with... oh, and damp cotton sleeping bags...
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You must be slightly older than me: most of my early equipment list was the same but I preferred an ex-RAF Mae West, and at least some sails and running rigging was polyester, though still some cotton sails and lots of hemp warps. Now I love plotters and AIS, though I rarely look at the other instruments. And I can do without all the toys if needed. Though not sure I'd be happy these days without guardwires and stanchions on deck.
 
AndrewB said:
This thread is all about KIT KIT KIT! However did we do it in the bad old days? ...
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Very true.
Having delayed our departure from Panama to the Marquesa Islands last year because the sat-phone and laptop wouldn't 'talk' to each other we subsequently realised that if we'd related that problem to a gathering of yotties only 8 or 10 years ago, they wouldn't have known what we were even talking about.
Fail due to violating my own favourite rule: If you don't fit it, then it can't break .
 
FlyingGoose said:
So here goes I am off to the big Blue after the Wife save;s the Planet
hopefully in 2 years if she pulls her finger out :p
Now my Question is what defines a boat as Bluewater ready , mostly all boats now have decent Navigation, AIS, Radar fitted , yes extra chain but I ve got 80m's of that . yes Solar or Wind but again this has become the norm for weekend Crusiers , water Maker !:confused: has anyone seen those videos of the ARC start were the lovlies have more bottled water than Scotland.
Heavy Duty rigging , come on who upgrades all their rigging , if it can handle the channel it must be able to handle the Atlantic milk run

Extra spares , but we all have then somewere ? and unless going to the back of beyond, most spare availble
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Hm, as someone with extensive offshore sailing experience incl round the world and planning another trip, I can tell you that easily your biggest issue is the wife. You skated over this FAR too quickly. Is she going too? Your text is ambiguous. You are delaying the trip until she is finsihed with work, so I assume so.

See, there are VERY few true bluewater wives and the fact that yours prefers working “for another two years” is very telling. A real bluewater wife would chuck the short-term job obligation, wouldn't she? Well, maybe.

And anyway, even if she really IS a bluewater wife, not many last more than one ocean crossing, maybe a few if you are lucky. I see some cite examples of RKJ and Capt Cook. Note that neither of these took a wife on blue-water sailing trips. NOT taking the wife was a key common approach, and same applies to almost all explorers.

The rarity of bluewater wives explains why there are so few boats in super-far-flung places like the Pacific. Wives might do an Atlantic circuit, but heading off even further away? Meh, no thanks.

There are significantly fewer sailing boats in the caribbean than there were 20 years ago - the reason I think is low-cost air travel. Flying and staying in exotic locations (by air) is lots cheaper these days and there's loadsa charter boats and then we can get back for gobshite's wedding or whatever - years ago sailing your own boat there and back was the only option for exotic sailing. These days, only a nutcase with delusions of exploring and derring-do chooses a few weeks of sailing offshore to get there and earn the non-existent badge of achievement, and mostly that means a bloke.

Hey, I am not being sexist here - just observing the facts: women don’t much go for high-altitude mountaineering (not never, just not much) or choose tyre-fitting or roofing or sky-scraper-window-cleaning careers, cos they would end up covered in cack and/or it’s dangerous. And neither do they see the sense in sailing ocean when planes are quicker and safer. They ESPECIALLY don’t see the point of sailing across an ocean again once you’ve done it once. But there are exceptions, of course.

So far offshore sailing has cost me two entire wives, both of which were in perfect working order before setting off. So I will probably keep it simple and won’t fit/take a wife on the next trip, or maybe try find an alternative. I think I may have been the bottle-savvy transat sailor in Las Palmas if it was 2008-2011, and although I know all about water bottles and kit and blah, the offshore wife issue remains one of very few issues that can’t be solved by taking along a complete spare unit. Actually that makes things even worse, of course...

“Sell up and sail” is the original book for bluewater sailors and perhaps a good maxim - selling the house means there’s no other option. Hah! The majority of bluewater wives don’t or didn't have a house. If they have a house, that's their preferred end-game, not the stupid boat. A friend refers to meeting sailing couples where the wife is "white anting" the adventure - kinda killing it from the inside, bit by bit.

You can TEST your wife (I didn’t, obviously) before the adventure, by suggesting that meh, maybe we just go chartering a lot? Or ship the boat to the caribbean? Is she readily agrees to these cop-out options, you made a brave reality check and you have your answer. A true blue-water wife would talk you back into the project.

I am writing with humour and jokes, but the issue is serious: divorce lawyers don’t spend all their time on too-hastily-married youngsters - their prime clients are those with money, married 20-30 years and the retirement lurch is big: you think you're doing her a lovely big favour "sailing into the sunset", but perhaps they only imagined it as a day trip - not miles offshore for weeks or months on end.

Perhaps check your wife more than any other blue-water issue. Good luck!
 
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t21 said:
Hm, as someone with extensive offshore sailing experience incl round the world and planning another trip, I can tell you that easily your biggest issue is the wife....

...divorce lawyers don’t spend all their time on too-hastily-married youngsters - their prime clients are those with money, married 20-30 years and the retirement lurch is big: you think you're doing her a lovely big favour "sailing into the sunset", but perhaps they only imagined it as a day trip - not miles offshore for weeks or months on end.

Perhaps check your wife more than any other blue-water issue. Good luck!
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Probably true.

Good to see the past master of such posts holding top form ;)
 
I have a perfectly functioning potential blue water wife but she knowingly realises I prefer day sailing in fine weather so doesn’t give me too much grief.........what ever you want to do ,dear!
 
How does it go....'Men marry a woman hoping she will never change... but she does.... Women marry a man thinking they can change him.... but they can't...'

Maybe the trick is to find a woman that comes with an interest in sailing.... trying to change one later may... or may not ... work.

The comment 'there are VERY few true bluewater wives' is at odds with my experience.... a very large percentage of yachts in the Pacific are manned by couples.... even in Patagonia maybe 90% or more are couples...

The OP's wife working another two years? There could be a thousand reasons for that... none related to a distaste for sailing.
 
I can imagine a lady of lesiure not wanting to go on a 30+ sailboat and live like that for a while . ;)
My wife thankfully is pretty hardcore. a mountaineer in her spare time , and her work involves getting wet and dirty a lot due to field work around the World , the time scale for 2 years is A to understand the boat better and B My wife is in the process of writting 3 scientifc papers to be published and it will take 2 years to finish and then she is free from her shackels

She is also a sailor and went to the Famed Lowestoft boat building College when she was younger , She even moors the boat onto the Marina Pontoon better than me .:o

And her Map reading skills are better than non :encouragement:
Shes pretty shit at the electrics and diesel and keeping the boat clean , but hey I have to do something:p

All in all I would feel safe and comfortable with my Wife as the Skipper on Watch at any time , shes pretty awsome , but then 19 years and I m biased :p
 
Much prefer plenty of onboard water-my motorsailer carrys 80 gallons in two keel tanks
I would also go for a proper rain water collection system-something very familiar to Oz and NZ residents living away from big cities.
 
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