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SAILMAKER TO THE WORLD Page 68 •
Latitude 38
• June, 2014
⇑⇓CRUISING 'JUNK' AND THE OLD DAYS It never ceases to amaze me the amount of 'junk' cruisers think they absolutely must have aboard. Years ago we left England with a 4-year-old and a 15-month-old, and managed to cruise for 2½ years on a 37-ft boat. During that time we cruised the Med from one end to the other, crossed the Atlantic, traveled the Caribbean from Trinidad to Hispaniola, and continued up through the Bahamas and the Intracoastal Waterway to Virginia. Our boat carried 70 gallons of water and just 20 gallons of fuel. And we absolutely did not line the rails with jerry cans of fuel or water, as this was considered unseamanlike! There was no reverse-osmosis watermaker, no SSB radio, no GPS — although, when it worked, our SatNav gave us a fix every 90 minutes — no solar panels, and certainly no computers. The current crop of cruisers are more akin to gypsies than sailors, as their boats are festooned with all kinds of gantries, their rails lined with jerry cans, and their boats loaded down with unknown quantities of detritus. We didn't travel in a 'pack'. There was no Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, no Baja Ha-Ha, no Puddle Jump and no Caribbean 1500. We left Las Palmas by ourselves on an Atlantic crossing, so there was no buddyboating, and we were prepared to live by our decisions. We didn't have satphones, Spot messengers, SSB email, or EPIRBs. We were on our own, so to speak. It was exciting, and we felt we'd accomplished something on our own. I often wonder how many of the current crop of wanderers would be prepared to undertake such a journey. Leif Watson Dodger Too, Condor 37 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Leif — It seems to us there are very different types of cruising depending on people's interests and stages in life. At the two extremes are low-budget/high-adventure cruising, usually favored by the young because they can't afford anything else, and greater-comfort/convenience cruising, favored by older folks who often have accumulated some money and need more comforts. And naturally there is every gradation in between. When we were younger, cruising was all about the adventure and adrenalin. Even if we'd cared about things like SSB, electronic navigation or watermakers, it wouldn't have mattered because we couldn't afford them. So we did things like dead reckon to Mexico. Now that we're older and have owned a business for close to 40 years, we're more safety- and comfort-oriented. While our boats don't have many of the comforts and conveniences found on most cruising boats — we're thinking of giving Profligate a hot-water shower later this year — we have more than we did when we were young. Furthermore, a greater percentage of our 'cruising' now consists of sitting in a great anchorage, instead of being underway, and totally immersing ourselves in Nature. It's true that lots of folks who are currently cruising wouldn't be if it were not for modern safety features and conveniences. We're not going to hold it against them — or ourselves. In a typical month, we receive a tremendous volume of letters. So if yours hasn't appeared, don't give up hope. We welcome all letters that are of interest to sailors. Please include your name, your boat's name, hailing port and, if possible, a way to contact you for clarifications. By far the best way to send letters is to email them to richard@latitude38.com. You can also mail them to 15 Locust, Mill Valley, CA, 94941, or fax them to (415) 383-5816.