I have been giving sailing instruction now (May 2011) for 27 years; it is true to say that most of the people who have done sailing courses with me have a long term ambition to buy a boat and go cruising. Most don't ever realise that dream because there are so many components that must be right in our lives before we can set off.
Firstly the right boat that is suitable is not going to be cheap, then the time and the funds to support a long period of unemployment! If we do have a job that we want to go back to then we need an understanding boss who will allow us to go off for several months or years or have we have our own business then we need someone who we can trust totally to run it efficiently in our absence.
It is therefore not surprising that few people who keep their boats in Britain are able to go off for more than a one month summer cruise and this normally restricts people to cruising in the English channel, or with good weather perhaps Holland, Ireland, Brittany and the north coast of Spain. There are some of course who keep their boats in far flung exotic places, who fly out to their boat for their summer cruise but even they are restricted to the cruising area in the immediate vicinity of where they keep their boat.
There are however a few people who began their sailing with me who have set off on long cruises with no definite plans to return I am at present in touch by email with a few of them and it gives me great pleasure to follow their progress. I am very grateful to them for allowing me to share their cruising experiences with people who read this web site. I for one can learn a lot from their experience and advice.
To read their stories click on the headings / links below:
1. Little Ted – Which is the 'nomme de plume' for two people who did several courses with me starting about 13 years ago with RYA 'Competent Crew'. As will be understood from their articles they have been in the Caribbean now for 6 years having sailed there from Gibraltar in November and December 2004.
Their boat is a Bowman 40, which I found for them in Portugal in 2002. It is exactly the same as the one shown in the photograph to the right and they could not have a better boat for long term / distance cruising.
Their first long passage ever was from Gibraltar down to the Canaries when they encountered strong winds and then their next long passage was their Atlantic crossing which they achieved in good time and arrived in the Caribbean in good shape but had experience unseasonal bad weather.
Their landfall in the Caribbean was the Island of St Maarten, they have since cruised south visiting most of the islands en-route to Venezuela and then up to Guatemala. In the summer of (2008) they sailed to Cuba and then to Guatemala for the winter. They are now (May 2009) in Belize.
2. Elsie and John Oliver - who I first met in July 1999 when they came to do a ‘Competent Crew’ sailing course with me; in 2001 they did ‘Day Skipper’ with a sailing school in the Solent and in 2002 they did ‘Coastal Skipper’ with me in the Algarve. In 2004 they bought 'Ichi Feet' a brand new Oyster 56 and by way of a 'sea trial' immediately set off on a circumnavigation of England and Scotland with a brief visit to Norway on the way round. In September 2004 they sailed down to Portugal and stayed in Lagos for a short time, where of course I saw them, from there they sailed down to the Canaries and then across the Atlantic to St Lucia. I joined them in St Lucia and spent a very enjoyable 7 weeks on board, firstly cruising up to Antigua over a month and then for the last three weeks giving them tuition for their Yachtmaster Exam, which they passed extremely well. To read about the 7 weeks that I spent with Elie and John cruising in the Caribbean click here.
Since then the have cruised north in the Caribbean to the Bahamas during the remainder of 2005 and in 2006 explored the east coast of the United States. In 2007 they brought their boat over to the Mediterranean where they are still cruising. Very recently they have added to their occasional crew with the birth of their first grand child. Congratulations Elsie and John! They are now (May 2009) in Malta preparing Ichi Feet to cruise on the Croatian coast this summer, to see their own excellent web site with lots of photographs of their trips ashore to both exotic and historical places click here. To read more about their cruising on this site, click on their name in blue above.
3. Steve Burrows who did several sailing courses with me in 2000, he has Masters Degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and worked for many years as a commissioning engineer, overseeing the installation and service entry, worldwide, of microprocessor controlled electric traction drives and auxiliary equipment for rail vehicles of all types from LRVs (light rail vehicles) to very high speed trains. So Steve is very well qualified to go sailing on his own, he can fix all the things that the rest of us need to call in a professional to do.
Since sailing with me, when incidently he was extremely helpful, he has since worked on three megayachts (from 50m to 138m l.o.a) as an electrical officer and spent most of his free time sailing on friend's boats, before buying and moving in 2006 aboard Cheng Feng a Nauticat 40 ketch, heavy displacement motor sailor, designed by Sparkman & Stephens. After completing a very thorough refit in Portugal, he set off down to the Canaries and when on passage between Gran Canaria and Tenerife he was struck by lightning and had to replace most of his navigational equipment. He arrived in the Caribbean in March 2009. You will notice in his account of his Atlantic crossing he uses the term 'we' on several occasions, this might lead one to think that he had crew, that was not the case, he was single handed and 'we' refers to Steve and Cheng Feng. In December 2010 he completed his single handed circuit of the Atlantic when he arrived back in the Canaries, to read about Steve's single handed circuit of the Atlantic click here.
Steve made a decision at this point that he might now have some crew and having found 3 crew who were all good cooks he set off with them on his way down to Brazil, on arrival in Brazil Steve decided to continue cruising single handed. To read Steve's reports on his cruise to Brazil, and his passages north to Trinidad, Bonaire and Curacao click here.
It gives me great pleasure to know that Steve has been reading the reports on this site from Ronnie and Glenis (see below), in their report in November 2011 their cruise was severely restricted by 'technical issues', Steve as you will have read above has a Master's degree in Electronic and Electrical engineering, plus as an experienced cruiser he has suffered many similar problems. Steve sent me an email recently in which he offers advice to Ronnie and Glenis which can be read by clcking here.
4. Ronnie and Glenis Kingston started sailing with me in March 1993 when Ronnie came on a 5 day course from my base in Poole to the Solent. He must have enjoyed it despite the maximum wind strength of force 7 that I recorded in his log book, because he came back the next year in March and went on a 7 day course to France and the Channel Islands when we again experienced winds of force 7. Undeterred he came back three months later in June of 1994 for another course in the Solent when we had much gentler winds.
In February 95 Ronnie & Glenis plus their two boys Daniel and Peter joined me in Gibraltar for a 7 day course and according to their log books we enjoyed winds of up to force 8, Ronnie sailed with me again four months later on a 9 day course to Brittany when we had good weather with winds of no more than F5. The next year in February of 1996 they all joined me in Gibraltar for a 7 day course and we experienced Easterly force 10 on our passage from Malaga to Gibraltar, the story can be read on this site be clicking here.
In 1996 I changed Henry Morgan my Rival 34 for Navicula a Rival 38 and the following year in February 1997 Ronnie and Glenis came again with their two boys for a 7 day course from Gibraltar. Once again we experienced force 10! but this time in the relative shelter of the Strait of Gibraltar.
During the four years described above Glenis did three additional courses with me on her own and Daniel during the next few years did two long delivery trips with me, one being across the Bay of Biscay and down to Vilamoura and the other from La Coruña to Sicily.
In addition to all the practical courses described above, Glenis did the RYA Day Skipper shorebased course and they both completed the RYA Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster shorebased course.
Glenis also sailed recently for 9 days on voyage on the tall ship Stavros S Niarchos- a brig. It sailed from Tenerife to Cadiz to Gibraltar in March. She thoroughly enjoyed being part of a watch doing 4 hour watches with 8 hours off, though still needed to man sails etc during off watch periods. One day was spent in the galley, and one day was spent with the bosun doing maintenance jobs. She climbed to the top of the rigging (43 metres) and out to the end of the yards to handle the sails.
Soon after their last course with me they bought a Westerley Oceanlord and they are now sailing a Najad 391 called Quarante. She is a 12 metre sloop with a fin keel with a mini bulb. They bought her in February 2007 and spent the summer of 2008 sailing up the West coast of Ireland. They could not have bought a better boat for cruising, but having sailed with me in my two Rivals they knew the value of a well built blue water cruiser.
I don’t think that anyone who has sailed with me has prepared themselves so well for cruising than Ronnie and Glenis. When I heard early in 2009 from them that they were planning a cruise down to Brittany I asked if they would send me the story of their cruise and some photographs.
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading their story of their 2009 cruise which you can read by clicking here or on their names above.
June 2010 - Ronnie and Glenis are now on their way down to Portugal and are sending me regular reports of their cruise. To read the story of this 2010 cruise click here.
May 2011 - Ronnie and Glenis are sailing again, to read the story of their 2011 cruise click here.
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