I believe that every guy (and I mean guys, not girls) has a curiosity about sailing.  We just want to understand how it works.  About 5 years ago I was that guy.  At first I was satisfied with reading about it.  I read several books…Joshua Slocum’s  “Sailing Around the World”.  Tania Aebi’s “Maiden Voyage”  Peter Nichol’s “A Voyage for Madmen”.  And of course anything by Bernard Moitessier.  That wasn’t enough so I moved on to actual sailing lessons, then ultimately my own boat, a J80 named Conundrum.

If you own a  boat you know that there’s always something going wrong with them.  “Marine Grade” means poor quality and 4X as expensive.  You’re always looking for advice on how to do this, fix that, anchor properly, or trim your sails.  Ultimately this quest for knowledge leads you to the online sailing forums.  You can usually find the answer to your question by searching through thousands of older posts. It’s probably happened to someone before…you just gotta find out what they did to fix it and your problem may be solved.  For several months I was a voyeur of these forums.  Then I started asking questions and even answering a few here and there

If you’re a registered user on the forums you generally post a profile picture and some brief information about yourself.  The different websites keep track of your activity online and other users, such as myself, can see if you are an active (or over-active) user of the site.  Some guys have responded to literally thousands of topics making them, in my eyes, veritable experts.

At first I believed these guys new everything.  They had answers for every question, from docking procedures to international cruising to fuel additives they knew it all.  I asked questions and they generally answered.  It was a good relationship.  Then one day the wheels began to fall off.

I began to contemplate actually hitting the open ocean and doing some real sailing-not just tacking back and forth across a lake but going somewhere…somewhere with blue water, dolphins, and sandy beaches.  One day I asked the question on Cruisersforum.com: could someone with my sailing experience possibly buy a boat and sail the oceans? The answer was something I did not want to hear.  Almost unanimously the respondents said I was incapable.  You needed years or decades of coastal experience before you could tackle such a thing. It might not even be possible, since I wasn’t born on a boat and didn’t come from 30 generations of sailors.  I was kind of crushed.  The consensus of these old Salts was that I would need to move to an ocean and practice, practice, practice for years before embarking on such a trip. I’d be irresponsible to myself, my family, other boaters, and the Coast Guard if we were to actually do it.

Anyway, as you know, we ignored their sage advice, bought a boat, and did it anyway.  So…were they right? Did the guy with 10,000 posts actually know what they were talking about? In a word, yes and no.  I’ll give them this: they do generally seem to know boats and boat systems.  But they’ve obviously not actually gone sailing.  I think most of those guys just sit at the dock and work on their boat year in and year out, trying to get it in perfect working order before departing…and any boat owner knows that they  never work perfectly all the time.

People think too much about this hobby.  Get a boat that’s not going to sink, make sure a few critical systems work, and go. Don’t overthink it.  Sailors are historically not the brightest bunch. This really isn’t hard at all.  It is occasionally uncomfortable.  Nancy’s been scared once or twice.  But I know 45 knots isn’t going to sink our boat.  There have been a few nervous moments almost always in and around marinas.  The logistics part is easy.  Anchoring has been a piece of cake.  Every other boater will do anything in their power to help you.  Sometimes it’s frustrating but not difficult.  Watch your weather windows, don’t take unnecessary risks, and just do it.  This isn’t rocket science.

Do you think Magellan would have circumnavigated (I realize he didn’t really) if he’d put too much thought into it? And there wasn’t even a Coast Guard to rescue him if things went wrong. If there had been an online forum they no doubt would have been naysayers.  Thankfully Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet…if he had I think we’d all still be living in spice-deprived Black Plague infested Europe.

Jeff