SAILING
Vicki learned to sail on Lake Union in Seattle. The boat was the 20 foot sloop Gladrielle that she rented whenever the opportunity was available. She still has an old friend who was one of the other women in her sailing class. Art got into sailing because the price of fuel went through the roof in the early '70s and because his 24 foot Bayliner sucked water into all 8 cylinders during a night crossing of the Santa Barbara Channel. We met because Vicki was crew on a Seattle boat named Coasters sailing south to Mexico and Art was living on Diver Down in Moss Landing, CA.
You can get the full story in the book Diver Down: A Sailing Saga. We ended up living on Diver Down for 11 years. Diver Down was purchased through a broker in Santa Cruz and delivered to Hoge Brothers Marine in Feb. 1983. Art moved aboard immediately and shortly thereafter sold his home in Coopertino. The next summer, Diver Down was moved to Moss Landing. In Sept. 1984, Art met Vicki on the beach at Pebble Beach south of Monterey. One thing led to another and we ended up living aboard Diver Down. In 1985 we moved the boat to Seattle where we lived aboard and worked until setting sail for a full time adventure as blue water cruising sailors.
Diver Down took us to as far north as Desolation Sound in British Columbia and as far south as Cabo San Lucas. She was a wonderful live aboard vessel and we spent a small fortune bringing her up the snuff for offshore sailing. But after sailing to Australia as crew on the motor sailor Nordlys we concluded that it was time to move on to other things. Diver Down was never a very good blue water vessel and the cost of upgrading to a more comfortable vessel was more than we cared to take on. We sailed her back to Santa Cruz, gave her over to the same broker who sold her to us and she soon became someone else's dream.
We would quickly consider open ocean sailing again but our conditions would probably require winning a lottery. Based on our experiences during the 11 years we lived on Diver Down and the 3 years we were full time blue water cruising, here is our list for the ideal cruising sailboat:
Anything under 50 feet is not very comfortable in high seas. Of course, finding a slip for a 50 foot vessel is expensive and problematical.
Only a full keeled hull will sail comfortably down wind in steep seas.
Steel is probably the most easily maintained and repaired hull material.
Twin, shoal draft keels allow beaching for hull cleaning and a bit of safety margin when sailing around reefs.
We would prefer twin screws, each with its own engine. One can continue on with only one engine and maneuvering with two screws is vastly preferable to the single screw.
ALL systems must be redundant. While 2 mainsails are not practical, twin forestays are. Has anyone engineered 2 hydraulically actuated mainsails even though only one at a time could be realistically operated?
All sails should be hydraulically reefed and hoisted but roller reefed only if the swaging is at least 3 times the recommended strength. Nordlys had double strength swaging and we broke two of the buggers getting to Brisbane.
A yawl is probably the safest rig to sail simply because the mizzen is aft of the wheel and a mizzen adds stability both underway and at anchor.
The vessel must have an autopilot along with GPS control and an automatic warning alarm on the radar.
In short, unless we can afford to hire a crew to assist us, we would like to be able to go aboard dockside, turn on the computers, program the voyage, push a button to retract the dock lines and head out under computer control, pushing buttons in the cockpit to raise and lower sails. At our age that is probably the only sensible arrangement. We have also concluded that no company is building a vessel that would meet all of our specifications so a custom design would be required. Without that large lottery win, such things are not available to us. We suspect that sailing is now in our memories, not in our future unless we are invited on board someone else's vessel. May we call that a hint?
We are truly grateful for the opportunities we had to enjoy sailing and to the good Lord for taking care of us while learned enough to take care of ourselves. Our only advice is that if you intend to do any blue water cruising, do it as young as you can so that you will have the strength and stamina that are required. Offshore sailing can be very hard work as can be the maintenance of your vessel. We met numerous folks on their way back home with medical problems that killed the sailing dream. If you wait for retirement you may be left with only the dream and no memories at all. When you are ready to buy your boat, insist that the dealer or owner take you out in bad weather and show you how wonderfully safe and comfortable the vessel will be when NOAA blows the weather forecast and like the crew of the Diver Down, find yourself hove to in 20 foot seas and 60-70 knot winds. (August 1991 off the coast of Washington State. The winds reached 80 knot gusts along Vancouver Island resulting in the loss of at least one fishing vessel.)