Round-the-world research

[absit_omen]

I would respectfully disagree with tcm on length for often with length comes much more, and heavier, gear. For example, take winch servicing (not my favourite job). Our previous 36 ft sloop had four winches, our current 46ft ketch, has nine. The additional work takes up a lot of drinking time!

Our sloop had two sails and an easily handled cruising chute. We never had to pole out. This boat has main, mizzen, yankee, staysail, mizzen staysail, cruising chute and spinnaker with two enormous poles requiring several gorrillas to set! Sooner or later all of these require mainaining at significant expense and inconvenience.

We have eleven pumps (eight of them electric). In the past two years three have been replaced and four serviced.

We have a weatherfax (never used), a chartplotter (never used), an SSB (never used), a satellite phone (never used), a forward looking echo sounder (never used), a loud hailer and foghorn (never used), an electric saltwater deckwash (never used) and a multiplicity of repeaters for every imaginable instrument.

Great if you like that sort of things but, in my experience, the happiest liveaboards are on the smallest and simplest boats!

Give me back my old Vertue with some solid ground tackle!! (but don't tell SWMBO).

 

[gfbalduc]

Hi, I'm new to the Forum, but being on the same path myself (i.e. preparing an RTW cruise to be completed over a relatively short time) I could not resist the temptation... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Trying to avoid repeating what has been said already, I have two considerations to add:

1) budget: I have the strong feeling that your budget is not consistent with an ocean-ready 50' newish boat: even if you go for a little-used mass production boat, this figure would probably be barely enough to buy the boat, but that's just half of the story, as you will most likely need to spend about another 50% to refurbish the boat and equip it for long distance sailing.

There is obviously a lot of leeway here and opinion varies widely.
Just to relate my own experience, I started budgeting about 130k GBP for a mass-production 37-footer equipped for extended Med crusing plus maybe an ARC, and gradually had to expand it to about 200K for a seagoing (used) 40-footer equipped for a circumnavigation.
So far, I'm in line with my budget, meaning I have spent almost the full figure and the boat looks nearly ready! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Concerning the choice of boat, I agree with others that a modern mass-production boat would probably be adequate for such a voyage, and I would have had no problem in buying one myself for extended Med-cruising, but what worries me most of these boats is "solidity", i.e. their ability to withstand the hardships that an extended voyage in poorly charted areas may bring. Both the dimensioning of the standing rigging and the thickness of the GRP hull in modern boats looks to me to be quite marginal.

Interestingly, my choiche was one that others have mentioned, and I ended up with a 40' OVNI (aluminum hull, cutter rig, lifting keel). It's a radical and somewhat controversial choice, but so far my only gripe is that 40' was the biggest I could reasonably afford, not the biggest I could handle!

2) two-years with a 6 months interruption: one aspect which has not been mentioned yet is that the timing of a circumnavigation (I'm talking of a cruise, not a sporting event!) is dictated by seasons, more specifically by the need to avoid hurricane seasons.

The typical 2-year circumnavigation would be something like this:
- september to november: sail to the Canaries before the weather deteriorates (and maybe fly back home for a month or so)
- november to may: cross the pond, enjoy the Carribbean and then reach Panama before the start of the hurricane season
- may to november: cross the Pacific, enjoy the islands and reach NZ or Australia
- november to next June or so: cross the Indian ocean and reach the Med
- june to august: sail back home

As you can see, there is no way to carve out a six-month stop without missing the weather window: if you really must come back home, then what most people do is they leave the boat in an hurricane-proof location somewhere, spend home the bad season and then enjoy another 6 months of the favourable season before continuing their trip. ...but in this case, forget the 2 years, 3 become the absolute minimum.

Go on with your dream though; I've spent so many years dreaming myself, and now that I'm beginning to prepare for real, I'm having as much fun in the preparation as I'm looking forwards to have in the actual voyage! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[ajkgordon]

This is brilliant stuff, thanks all.

I have sailed on many 40'-ish boats and they all seem a little cramped for a family of five for more than a few weeks. (All our family sailing holidays have been on 32'ers but that's different!)

I suppose I mis-posted the two year thing. It would be two years' sailing plus a six month flyback. But to be honest, we will take as long as we're comfortable with and if my research, including threads like these, shows that three or four years is a better option, then we'll do that.

In that case, we would probably have a more flexible crew and so a smaller boat might be better anyway.

I too cannot wait and while I often imagine it is just round the corner, in reality it's likely to be more ten years away than five.

 

[gfbalduc]

Well, 10 years is just about what it takes to be ready! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

OK, I'm kidding, up to a point.....
But it really takes a lot of time, expecially if you have to buy or replace your boat.

My schedule worked out like this:

- first year: get documented, read all that's available on subject, talk to people who did it, start putting together a rough plan of the cruise and make up your mind on the boat and the equipment.

- second year: get practical, buy boat, sell old one, buy and install a zillion things from toothbrush-holder to SSB, and finish off with an extended cruise to test if all works.

- third year: fix (or jettyson) what did not work, add what was forgotten, take necessary courses (LRC, first-aid, diesel maintenance, whatever) and organise logistics (from medical kit to arrangements to handle your taxes while you are away...).

I'm currently about halfways in the plan (somewere between the toothbrush holder and the SSB....) and it looks like I will never be ready on time while I will most likely exceed my budget...

 

[charles_reed]

OVNI

Well Jimmy Cornell chose one of these for his high-latitude cruising.

Tough boats - I know someone who spent a night bouncing around on a coral reef in the Marquesas and only had to replace the antifouling.

certainly, and providing you take the necessary precautions against galvanic corrosion, aluminium appears to be the material of choice for RTW cruising experts.

One of those I spoke to definitely felt a mass-production GRP boat was preferable to a one-off steel boat (in which he started off).

My experience, 5 years into cruising longterm, is that boat mintenance and replacement works out at about 15% of the boat purchase price/value and most people underestimate that cost.

 

[ajkgordon]

Re: OVNI

Is that 15% an annual figure, Charles?

 

[Wansworth]

Kelloggs Cornklakes

Is it not possible theses days to set off with the basic stuffand when you get to somewhere like America Canada or some European destination have fitted what you feel you really needEspecially with astrong pound stuff would be cheaper,or maybe you will discover it is possible to sail with less stuff and have more fun.

 

[ajkgordon]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

Gian, I won't be planning this too carefully to start with! What I'll probably be doing is buying the boat well before we're due to depart and then selling up a year or so before departure. Somewhere in there take a mini-cruise, probably from the Med to UK and back again, take all the courses. The year preparation will then be free from work (mostly) and allow us to be more flexible for a departure date.

I'm still concerned that people feel that a 50'er is too big for short-handed crew. There could be moments when no kids are available for a leg. Would we have to sit there or is a modern boat more manageable?

 

[Mirelle]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

Well, my answer to that is "yes and no". Modern gear makes handling the boat easier, provided it all works!

Memories of fighting a well regarded fully battened mainsail "system" and more than one well regarded headsail reefing system, dead electric windlasses, etc., make me a bit cautious; when these things go wrong they seldom choose to do so on a sunny afternoon in F3. It always seems to happen on a dirty night with a lee shore too close for comfort - and when they do go wrong you are left with very heavy gear and sails to deal with. Even big winches, which seldom play up, in my experience, make sail handling slower, and sometimes you need to do things fast.

Big headsail reefing set ups, for example, are slow compared to the small ones, and you may need to set or dump a headsail in a hurry.

My forty feet is not an absolute limit - I would stretch to 43 or so, and a lot depends on the hull form and displacement.

Perhaps I can put it like this - if you are not absolutely confident that your wife can handle the boat singlehanded, (and that's the test - you may be incapacitated!) you will, at some point, find yourself short of crew and be dissuaded from making a passage that otherwise you would have made, or worse, take on someone wholly unsuitable at the last minute, which is a well known recipe for absolute hell on board.

(I know Ellen McArthur singlehands very big boats - but how many of us are that good? I know I'm not!)

 

[gfbalduc]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

Like I said, I'm having fun also in the planning stage, so I gave to the same considerations you're making a lot of thought....

Boat size: personally, I had in mind 50' as a practical maximum for short-handed sailing (and you certainly can find couples happily sailing bigger yachts), and settled for a 40-footer because that turned out to be the biggest size where I could afford a newish boat and its maintenance costs (I was worried of the yearly maintenance costs that an older, possibly worn-out bigger boat could have entailed).

Actually, it looks like underestimated costs are the single biggest reason for aborted long-distance cruises!
Also the boat I purchased is an almost-unused, 4-year old OVNI which was sold by the original owner, a perspective circumnavigator, as he decided he needed to work a few more years before setting sail.
From what I've seen during my searches, this is by no means an isolated case!

After having sailed my new toy from Brittany back to my home port in the Med, I tend to reconfirm my original thoughts: from an accomodation point of view, 40' are barely ok for a couple (plus the occasional hosts when coast-sailing) and definitely on the small side for passage-making with more than 2-3 people on board.
Also storage becomes an issue (spares, food, water, fuel...) and a 40-footer is again on the small side to digest all that is needed and still have not-too-cluttered living spaces for more than a couple.

From a boat-handling point of view, I have the impression that the issues with short-handed sailing are more or less the same at 40' or 50': you definitely need to arrange your short-handed sail handling, reefing and anchoring procedures in a way you are comfortable with, and you will certainly need mechanical help (BIG winches, or even electric ones, power windlass...).

My own biggest concern is being able to handle emergency situations (a dragging anchor in a blow, taking down a broken sail in a storm, maneuvering under sail if the engine fails or, god forbid, single-handed MOB maneuvres, that kind of situation where the forces at play can simply be too much for two people....).
This is where, the smallest the boat, the easier it is (or, if the worse comes to the worst, repair costs will be lower....).

Obviously, as in all compromises, a lot of different considerations are at play and entirely different choices will work for different people: personally, I'm more for the "buy the biggest boat you can realistically afford and maintain" approach than for the "buy the smallest boat where you can live" one.

 

[ChrisE]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

I maybe stating the blindingly obvious but if you are concerned about handling about a 50' boat with two up why charter one for a week with your better half and see how you get on? Not cheap but better than finding that the boat is too big to handle.

BTW, I thoroughly endorse Mirelle and Gian's comments about being comfortable handling the boat singlehanded esp in MOB situation. Our craft is 38' and a couple of times we had our work cut when we had to manhandle the boat out of marinas that had become untenable due to swell, sometimes you can only rely upon your own grunt to move the boat. We have friends with a 43' that has overwhelmed them a couple of times. Once when a lively crusing chute sent my 18 stone pal 10' off the deck and secondly when a sharp movement on a mooring line trapped my pal's wife's hand under a line crushing it badly.

 

[ajkgordon]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

Yes the 50' charter is a good idea and we may well do that. We might even be able to borrow some two-up time on one but she's a very heavy older Camper & Nicholson, which probably doesn't give a good idea how a newer 50'er might be like to handle.

As we all tall (1.90m for me and two sons and 1.75-ish for SWMBO - young daughter also has my height genes) this does make a larger boat very attractive.

Gian - I envy you getting to this stage. For us it's no more than a dream at present!

 

[David_Jersey]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

Interesting thread this. Part of me would love to do the RTW thing, but I am not sure if a large part of this is just to be able to say that I had done it.

I have been round already (on several jumbo jets!) and also have been on many extended holidays to a few countries far and wide so the travel itch has been well and truly scratched, as has the novelty of "exotic sunsets" and palm trees - for me what makes a trip enjoyable is the people you meet, plus being in total control of your own destiny and being solely responsible for your own welfare and I have discovered (?) that for me the distance travelled does not make a blind bit of difference.

My plan is that in a few years or so I will end up around the med for a few years on and off........to see how it works for me, and then take it from there. I am not a big one on planning ahead /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif and will definately be on the small side with 30 foot, but I figure that if I am based somewhere for a while their is no reason why I HAVE to live aboard all the time.........no reason why I cannot live ashore (even if it not overlooking the boat) or even go on holiday far away like "normal" folk - all of course bank manager permitting /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Wansworth]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

David Jersey.I think you have hit the nail on the head,the people make what we do worth while,whatever we do but sailing lends that edge,that colour as a background.My reference to Kelloggs Cornflakes was just a hint that iys possiblle to get most things once home has been left behindIwas a bit miffed when I found cornflakes in some out of the way shop.....just like home!

 

[David_Jersey]

Re: Kelloggs Cornklakes

[ QUOTE ]
but sailing lends that edge,that colour as a background.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I agree - for me it's about being self contained with the ability / possibilty (no matter how unlikely in reality) to go anywhere at any time - maybe something primeval /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif - but IMHO this does not mean also being "married" to the boat or a plan, but of course each to their own - which is what makes the world a more colourful place /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I know exactly what you mean with the cornflakes thing!

 

[Abigail]

Re: handling alone

We live on 40' and find this is plenty (though no teenagers to think of), and after three years aboard we are still steadily getting rid of stuff we find we don't need.

For us, the key consideration was size of anchor, having read the Pardey's article about the hurricane at Cabe St Lucas that wrecked Motissier's Joshua. We wanted the maximum size an oversized anchor would weigh in at something we felt we had a hope in hell of managing if the windlass failed. That meant 65lb, which meant, for a long-distance, heavy displacement, loaded liveaboard yacht - 40'. We also share the concerns about size of gear (particularly mainsail, which is why we like a ketch), the time and effort needed to fix things rather than travel and so on.

We have not travelled the miles that many people on this forum have (yet - off next spring!) but are on our third british winter aboard. Once you move out of a house, the number of things you do not need is enormous. And you will never get a boat that takes everything your house has (unless you can afford something a lot bigger that 50') so you need to get very touch about space. So - in addition to chartering,courses, lifeplanning etc - start looking at everything you possess (books, clothes, kitchen equipment, workshop, pictures) and asking whether you would try to stow it with you on an RTW sailing cruise ...

 

[David_Jersey]

Re: handling alone

I have gone for a Ketch rig for the same reason, perhaps not the most efficient rig, but it gives choices and breaks down the sails into more manageable “chunks” (possibly a non-nautical term here!). I also went for a stern cabin on the basis that I can leave my “bedroom” as it is 24/7 in port (I have never been the tidiest of folk!) and can also use it as a separate storage area at sea – I will just have to see how all this works in practice and whether it is a compromise I can live with.

I have only ever lived aboard when I was kid on my fathers boat in France for a month or two a year (up to 5 of us on a 27 Foot Fairey Fisherman!), but have since then spent a lot of time on extended trips effectively living out of a suitcase – started off with a backpack (cos it seemed the perceived wisdom) many moons ago, but found that in fact a Samsonite with wheels is more practical for me……..as I am not actually trekking through the jungle………indeed I try and avoid carrying it any distance at all!

What I guess I am trying to say is that I agree that it is amazing how little you actually need and that what you expect will be useful does not always turn out to be the case in practice and that many things are a compromise – and it is learning to live with that, rather than constantly seeking perfection before doing anything.

For me I have always been happy to trade a degree of comfort and convenience (but within reason!) for the benefit of not having the constant company of the smiling faces of co-workers and bosses whilst I (slowly?!) go insane………

The things I have found to be the most useful on my “travels” over the years are a bottle opener and corkscrew and a method of getting “home”, if push comes to shove – even without this last bit as a European I know it is unlikely that wherever I go and whatever I do (and get myself into), that I am not going to end up being hungry or homeless for any length of time……..anything in addition is therefore always a bonus.

Finally, I figure that after 3 winters aboard in Ipswich you have more than “paid your dues” for some extended cruising in warmer climes! (I presume you will NOT be heading north!).

 

[Abigail]

Re: handling alone

Well - we were going north, but then Pip did a weeks sailing in Greece and September, and well! Let's just say that the current plan sees us in Cadiz next winter!

And we'd always said that we would replace the standing rigging before going across Biscay, so our job list - carefully constructed before Greece - changed dramatically. Since then we (well Pip) have rebedded all the chain plates and put new bolts throughout the shroud supports. The masts are back in, and maybe we'll do some sailing before Xmas

(Sarah's just being the wage slave to pay the rigger's bill.)

 

[Ariadne]

Re: costs and stuff.

The cost issue is the one to watch. We are buying our boat 3rd hand all ready kitted out for blue water sailing. As she has recently come back from a RTW trip, vessel and gear <£60K, it pays to take your time and find the right boat for you.

 

[tcm]

Lazy test

Obviously not really lazines as a test, but I identified that "being happy on the boat hardly going anywhere" as perhaps one quality of long-time cruising. No, we haven't done it for months at a time, but we did charter a boat in antugua and took the thing from Nelson dockyard to jolly harbour. The free pool was great, the weather was unsetlled, the log and gps didn't work and we only had a week so i didn't much fancy passages to other islands... so we hung about in jolly harbour for two days, another day went north a bit and came back for another two or thre days days whereupion we were befriended by some long distance types who had seen we were "obviously taking things easy not like these charter types rushing about and which way are you heading eventually?". They invited us to a rubber duck party, 5pm sharp, all lashed together dinghies and drifted around the harbour for an hour or so, very jolly. Hardly any of them seemed to have plans to move too far antime soon...