Equipment & tips
There are two rather different schools concerning equipment:
1. I'm on vacation. Give me every comfort there is. I can afford it, and I can find a good mechanic.
2. I want to stay on vacation. I want the simplest boat I can get, so it will keep working (so I can go), and cost less (so I can stay away longer).
There are some areas of agreement. In general, try to arrange your boat to be safe, and so heavy weather or a faulty engine are interesting adventures rather than disasters:
- Major storms are less than 1% of the time that cruisers spend on the water, but still be prepared.
- Plan routes to avoid heavy weather. The British admiralty has pilot charts designed to help sailors plan.
- Choose a strong boat, and have it surveyed by an expert who is aware that it is going offshore. Both monohulls and multihulls are available that are safe and comfortable. Which you choose is largely dependent on your personal preferences.
- Inspect your boat before each sea-passage. A formal checklist makes it very fast. If nothing else, check for leaks, running rigging, standing rigging, lifelines and safety equipment, anchor and rodes, the engine, and navigation equipment. Check the rigging for cracks in metal, corrosion and chafing. If it's doubtful, don't go.
- Keep a watch in ocean passages. Almost all trouble is visible before it becomes serious.
- Make sure you can navigate, run lights and communicate without engine power- i.e. have battery powered GPS or celestial navigation as a back-up.
- Have an anchor ready to go at all times. If you can hear or see surf, and you should be in mid-ocean, set the anchor! Then figure out where you are! Anchors can prevent most groundings if it can be set quickly.
- Anchor well. More yachts are lost when the anchor drags than to any other single cause. Use lots of scope (extra rode) (five times depth is good, although three is theoretically enough). Test the hold before you trust an anchorage. Use a "fully tested" chain rode on your main anchor. Nothing cuts chain. Many cruisers swear by a CQR anchor. Set an anchor light while anchored. Set an anchor watch during storms, at least one full tide cycle in a new anchorage, and whenever it's easy to be in the cockpit - if you drag even a little, panic and set another anchor!
- Prevent man-overboard: Have a toe-rail, non-skid decking, perimeter life-lines, and run interior lifelines from the boom gallows up to the bow at about chest-height. Make sure everyone has harnesses to clip to the lifelines for heavy weather. A low bulwark, 8 to 12 inches, is immensely helpful because it provides footholds, and keeps gear from slithering overboard. Some persons mount the life-line stanchions on the bulwark (which lets them use u-bolts and pipe!) and use a larks-head around the bulwark as an adjustable jib track.
- Have man-overboard equipment, and practice with it.
- Consider rudder steps or a stern ladder so a person (like you!) can reboard.
- Learn to heave-to, and heave-to when you first think of it. Carry a parachute sea-anchor, which permits one to heave-to in any amount of wind to survive storms. Basically, put the bow 50 degrees off the wind, let the wind push the boat slowly backwards, and don't sail out of the "slick" your drag vortices make on the water. The sea-anchor prevents sailing out of the slick in very high winds, which would otherwise force a bare-poled boat to sail. The slick calms waves. Really. Most boats lost in storms attempt to "run with the storm" or "lie abeam." Heaving-to is a safer way. See the book "Storm Tactics" by Larry & Lin Pardey.
- Get good safety and salvage equipment. U.S. Coast guard requirements are minimums. Practice a man-overboard drill with a dummy that weighs like your heaviest crew. Include an EPIRB (emergency position-indicating rescue beacon), which will get you out of many types of trouble- If you possibly can, don't trigger it until the weather clears and an aircraft could reach you. The salvage equipment is stuff to make emergency repairs: good bailers, plywood covers for broken port-lights, softwood cones to block pipes spewing seawater (tie them to seacocks), a spare spinnaker pole to jury-rig a mast, plastic tarps or CO2 bags to cover hull breaches, etc.
- If things look really bad, stay with the boat until it sinks. Prepare to abandon ship if you get worried, but don't actually abandon ship until the boat sinks. Often a boat is located, empty, by rescue personnel, and the crew in their much smaller, less-visible little life raft are never found.
- Consider a sailing lifeboat instead of a stationary liferaft.
- Practice sailing and anchor-warping maneuvers for docking, which don't need an engine, and are salty-skills fun anyway.
- Have at least a hand-held VHF marine radio. If you have a fixed-mount radio, have a spare aerial. This lets one talk to authorities (like bridgemasters and lock managers) and other marine vessels (like the ship bearing on you).
- Use multiple methods of navigation: a GPS or two, a plastic sextant, a copy of the Nautical Almanac, sight reducton tables, a rated watch (for celestial navigation), and a short-wave radio (backs up the watch from time broadcasts and gives weather reports).
- Minimize through-hull openings. E.g. share the salt-water tap with the motor inlet, and consider sharing the toilet and engine outlets. Use windowed junction box that lets one look out at the ocean through the sea-cock (one can see blockages!) Run the depth sounder over the side or transom.
- Assure that every through-hull opening has a sea-cock. Close them when the boat is unattended. Assure that toilets, engines, propeller shafts and sinks won't siphon water inboard. If your boat needs a bailer to keep afloat, it's broken!
- Have the biggest radar reflector that will fit your boat.
- Have more than one large fresh water tank. In some areas, they limit how long you can stay out, and how safe you are. Engine-powered watermakers should not be essential to return safely.
- Consider using oil navigation lights. Most sailboats with electric lights don't run the engine enough to keep the battery charged enough to keep the running lights lit. This is unsafe. Oil lamps aren't bad, especially if the boat has an oil tap (from a gravity tank) to fill them.
- If you have an engine, prefer a diesel (economical, safe fuel, with no spark to short) with a hand-start option (i.e. it can be started wet with the battery run down- standard on workboats).
- If you have an engine, include an engine-driven mechanical (not electric) bailing pump. This is one of the most powerful arguments in favor of an engine, because a mechanical bailer can save a boat. In a pinch, an engine's cooling inlet can be rigged with a screen and serve as a bailer- just don't let it run dry!
- Tiller-steered external rudders are hokey-looking, but easy to repair, have no cables to break, and cost thousands less than wheel steering. The rudder should be cabled.
- Many long-term cruisers dislike roller-furled sails. They claim that the furler tends to jam exactly when it is most needed, in high winds. Furler companies claim that their new designs solve these problems. Roller furling is substantially more expensive than reefed sails.
- Guns and drugs are far more hazardous to you than to anyone else. If you declare them, friendly customs officials can become very unpleasant. If you do not declare them, your boat can be confiscated.
Some conveniences are widely praised:
- Many cruisers install labor-saving rigging. Some favorites are self-shipping anchors, lazyjacks to help reef sails, jib downhauls, and tracked self-erecting spinnaker poles. Spinnaker poles in the rigging is a classic sign of a cruising sailboat. Many cruisers consider boom gallows to be essential safety equipment.
- Get a reliable automatic steering system. They free the person on watch from the tiller. Electronic systems use large amounts of power. If this makes them dependent on the engine, that's bad. Wind-vane systems need a well-tuned, easy-to-steer boat.
- Have a set of sails for light airs. Most places with good weather have a lot of time where the wind is force 1.
- Consider using reefing sails rather than carrying a sail for every occasion. Not only will the total cost of a sail suite be reduced, but changes of sail are more convenient- the sail stays in place.
- Gravity-fed fresh and salt water taps are more reliable than hand-pumps, and hand-pumps (with spare parts!) are more reliable than a pressurized water system run off the engine. Some people have manually pressurized water systems.
- Saltwater washes dishes and decks, saving water. With coconut-oil soap you can wash yourself in sea water, as long as you sponge off with fresh water afterwards. Clothes washed in seawater look dingy and feel damp.
- Get a stove with at least two burners, that's easy to light. Many people like liquified propane. Avoid electric stoves run from the engine.
- Get the simplest toilet system that's legal in your area. Carry spare parts for every seal and moving part. Be sure that the outlet is on the opposite side and downstream of any salt water inlets.
- Consider charging the boat's batteries with solar cells, wind turbines, or water-turned generators, as well as or instead of an engine. They're much more pleasant. Many people consider it rude to run a motorized generator in an otherwise quiet anchorage.
- Consider leaving off the engine. They cost thousands of dollars and break, often in the middle of a cruise, wrecking the fun. The propeller slows down a sailboat, (it's literally a drag). The motor and prop shaft add three holes through the hull (inlet, outlet and prop-shaft). A sculling oar can move a 6 ton, 30 foot yacht around a harbor at 1.5 knots, with only mild effort. The hard part of sculling is holding the oar at the correct 40-degree angle- rig ropes to hold the oar.
- If you must have an engine, consider using a long-shafted marine outboard. They can be repaired and replaced much more cheaply than in-boards.
- If you must have an inboard engine, arrange the prop shaft and rudder so either one can be removed and repaired without removing the other or dismounting the engine.
- Put things away, especially sails. They last longer, and if a storm comes up, your sail will already be stowed.
- Metal dishes can be pretty, and break-proof. The stainless-steel goblets for wine come to mind.
- If you want an engine-powered anchor winch, consider using hydraulic, rather than electric. They can't short out, or stop working when the battery fails.
- Manual anchor winches are slow, but safe. If you don't have one, remember to place a manual sail winch with a chain tail so that it can back-up the anchor winch.
- Bronze and stainless winches seem to have fewer corrosion problems than aluminum winches.
One humorous (but true!) way of thinking about a luxury yacht's equipment is to start at the icemaker and work out what's connected to it to make it work.
Here are some major comforts, eschewed by minimalists; the trade-offs are given in the way they look on the water. If there's a compromise, it's after the extremes:
- Air conditioning. Even most power boats can't afford this. The cruise ships are painted white to minimize the load, and built as floating generator plants: They actually run their propulsion as a minor load off the air-conditioning circuit. A few sailing yachts (the Albin Vega is the only mass-produced model) circulate air from the cockpit, past the sea-cooled hull, where it cools and condenses excess humidity into the bilges, into the front of the cabin. In the Vega, the air circulation is driven by solar heat on the hollow mast, and a wind-powered ventilator on the rear cabin top. Vegas are said to be 5 degrees cooler than outside in most summer areas. Everybody else rigs canvas sunshades and a fabric windscoop over the forward hatch.
- A bigger boat- gives you room for all your stuff, and you can have big parties! Alas, how will you get crew who want to go where you want to go? Also, in the U.S. many marinas charge $50 per foot per month. The price of the boat, and its maintenance costs, go up as the cube of its waterline length (it is the volume that costs, not the length). Think really hard before you get anything much over 35 feet.
- An engine- real convenience when you have to get home on Sunday night. Real safety equipment, expecially if you get a diesel (no spark system to short, more km per liter), with a nonelectric starter (it can't short), and an engine-powered bailer (more safety equipment). Really expensive, $5,000 minimum, the propeller takes two knots from the ship's speed, and it's horribly inconvenient when it breaks down 8000 miles from the spare parts depot. Many trips are ruined by such an experience. A marine outboard with a generator gives most of the safety and convenience and can be unshipped for repairs, or replaced. Keep it locked.
- A hot shower- A real hot shower requires a waterworks powered from the engine ($5000), with watermaker ($2300 in 2002), water storage tank ($200), pressurisation pump & tank ($400), water heater ($300), assorted plumbing- ($1000), ($9500 total), for a small system. A dripping faucet burns quite a bit of diesel fuel. However, even minimalists miss hot showers, and rig inadequate solar-powered showers, smugly mentioning the thousands of dollars they saved. For those who cannot commit, there are little sit-down showers with hand-pressurized tanks that can be filled from a kettle or a solar water heater. These have been home made (with bincycle pumps). Everyone carries a kettle, washbasin and pitcher (people need to wash more when the engine breaks).
- A watermaker- envied by minimalists... who carry multiple-hundred gallon freshwater tanks where your boat has an engine (they call it "freshwater ballast"). Progressives top off tanks with a small watermaker run from a solar panel or windmill. Everyone should have a canvas "rain catcher" trough to rig under the mainsail. Always have at least two sources of water for a cruise (lots of plastic bottles, if nothing else).
- A refrigerator- iced beer is an amazing luxury in the tropics. Minimalists grit their teeth and smile thinking grimly of the extra half year they will be able to stay on vacation with the money they saved by not having a refrigerator. Everybody has an icebox, but ice, if it exists in the local economy at all, is probably only available at the fishing boat service pier. The Eastern Mediterranean, Mexico, South America, and Indian Ocean rarely have bulk ice available at any price. In the U.S. fill the box with dry ice and you can have colder stuff longer.
- Washer and dryer for clothes. The water-works problem, plus a washer and dryer problem. You're clean, and the minimalist is negotiating with a local washerwoman. This is a toss-up. Laundry is a wonderful excuse to meet and mildly enrich locals. Many people have had success with large sealed buckets towed in the wake, or rocked on the stern. In good weather it's easy to rig clotheslines.
- A dishwasher- the water-works problem, but you're watching a video instead of doing dishes. Everybody hates doing the dishes. Minimalists lose crew if the rotation is unfair. There's just got to be some trick with dishes in towed buckets of soapy water...
- A barbecue- There are little stainless-steel gas barbecues that clamp to a lifeline stanchion. In the tropics you can cook outside, which is much cooler. If you like the idea, the only downside is the rather large amount of fuel they use.
- A stereo/video system. The minimalist is in town dancing the lambada with the locals- what are you thinking? A little 12v boom-box eases life for music addicts. With nubile crew in bikinis, this can inspire heartening amounts of envy in locals.
- Radar and imaging sonar- genuine, though expensive safety equipment, when it works. Try to minimize through-hull connections, connectors, wires and moving parts. Some masters actually put a packing gland around the connectors and fill it with silicone grease, which is not extreme after you've replaced corroded connectors twice.
- A SSB marine radio, or amateur radio rig- very handy when you get tired of talking to your crewmates. There are insulators and antenna tuners to use standing rigging as the antenna. You have to have a license. The safety advantage is minimal now that EPIRBs exist. The minimalist loves his wife, plans short passages, talks to the locals and carries a short rack of great books...
- Satellite phones (most often Inmarsat or Iridium). The phones cost from $1000 (hand-held Iridium) to $20 thousands (Grostabilized permanently mounted Inmarsat). The calls cost $3/minute. The minimalist will wait seven hours for an overseas phone call to go through from Bora-Bora. If you need this, cruising might be a drag for you- why not charter a few adventures before you buy a boat? For $30/month, Orbcomm e-mail delivers messages a few times per day from satellites in low earth orbit. A hand-held e-mail terminal for Orbcomm is about $1000.
