life...and cruising...need not be complicated

[Frank]

I was just looking at pictures from last winter and it struck me how overly complicated and excessively expensive some make cruising. Then, there are those that have a simple boat and are having a hoot with a lot less stress and expence. This topic is like anchors...we all have opinions. Personally, unless you are doing serious offshore passages, I feel fun can be had with far less equipment than we are programed to buy. A well found boat, a good anchor, decent sails with multiple reef points, a good VHF, hand held GPS, a set of explorer charts and your laptop is all one needs to cruise the southern states, the Keys and the quick hop over to Bahamas during winter. (repeat as desired) I say laptop because wifi is available in many places for good forcasts and to check into sailfar  ;) So...if this is actually all that is needed...why do 98.5% of cruisers make it SO much more complicated and take things SO seriously? 

[Captain Smollett]

why do 98.5% of cruisers make it SO much more complicated and take things SO seriously?

Because the magazines, their friends and most web sites tell them that is what is needed?

Needed to do it "safely" is generally how they sell it.  They push fear.  That's the marketing hook.

[w00dy]

We're programmed to want to buy things.

[Frank]

Another thought as I ponder how simple/inexpensive cruising can be is why aren't more young people out there? There are a few, but I always wonder why more don't give up a few years now for a lifetime of memories later. It seems there were more in the 70's n 80's....or at least more written about. Maybe it's the "written about" that inspired others. A lot of the old advertizing was targeted at the adventurous spirit as well. Some of the old Flicka ads were classic...little boat with pacific island peaks in the back drop. The old West Sail ads were similar. Both ads and stories have changed a lot. I wonder how many free spirits could get inspired if ads and stories were different?

[Tim]

Frank, I think you are right, so many ads tell you about all the things you "need", it looks (and is) overwhelmingly expensive to someone just starting to dream of those faraway places. Another factor I think is that nowadays travel to exotic places is more common place whereas before the only way one could realistically get there was by cruising.

[Captain Smollett]

I think there is a lot going on underlying those changes.

For one thing, a mental attitude of "instant gratification" has been hard sold to the current younger generation.  This sense of immediacy for "pleasure" is coupled with the notion that it should also come without work.  Young folks do not seem to be learning "you get from something what you are willing to put into it."

There has also been tremendous social pressure to "fit in," to do as everyone else is doing.  Look at the reaction to Rebel Heart, where a lot of the negative comments came from a position of ignorance about sailing, cruising, crossing oceans, living aboard, etc.  Living in a boat is just different, and that has come to be equated with being wrong.

I see this latter point all the time in a different context.  You should witness the horror I see on people's facing when my children are seen somewhere "in public" during school hours.  Homeschooling has become far more "mainstream" than the cruising lifestyle, and we still face the "you are different" reaction.

The fitting in / instant gratification programming works together...they are cut from the same cloth.  That is, they both work as the psychological underpinning for advertising.  You need this, because everyone else has it.  You need this, because it will make you safe | feel good | popular, RIGHT NOW.  Spend your money on this product, and all your problems will go away.

Our young generation has been acculturated into believing whatever the advertising says.  Without getting into too many particulars, this phenomenon has been studied. 

There's also another, related underpinning.  One social measure of "wealth" is having others do for you.  I believe this is why "eating out" has become so important for Middle and Lower class Americans...for 5-10x the price of the food, you can buy the illusion for an hour that you are wealthy enough to have servants...buying the fantasy of "Upper Crust."

This is true with travel as well.  Why have your own boat, with all the work it takes to get it ready, keep it seaworthy and actually SAIL somewhere (at a disappointing 5-8 knots for most cruising boats), when you can buy the luxury of being waited on hand and foot on cruise ships and resorts?

I'm sure there are many additional factors as well.  And they are all interrelated...no 'one thing.'  And Tim is certainly correct...the sold notion of 'cruising' is so expensive that many look at the "need list" and must just say..."no way I will ever be able to do this."  That very thing almost happened to me in the 1990's reading SAIL magazine every month.

Finally, the last thing I think is a factor - fear.  Fear in combination with false expectations.  People hear stories like Rebel Heart (both what happened and the post-event criticisms) and have to be thinking..."No way I want to subject myself to that."  The thousands of successful crossings, some even with children, don't get reported all over the news.  So, folks come away with the false notion that it's just THAT dangerous.

[Frank]

All good points. Funny you mention "fear".  FEAR...in a different context, holds many back from various things. Change brings about "loss of control" (devil we know/understand is better than the one we don't) Loss of control brings about FEAR!  Giving up a job, a lifestyle and or social circle that we are comfortable in to adventure out is down right scary to many. Yep...FEAR is an aweful thing!!
In so many ways and SO many situations, we allow "FEAR" to influance our choices. We must learn to chose wisely....our choices co-creat our lives!!

[Captain Smollett]

Yep.  Fear is one of the main themes in Debra Cantrell's Changing Course.

Fear comes in many forms and shows itself in many ways.

The thing I often ponder, however, is how much "control" and "safety" are illusions anyway.  It seems kind of odd to me to let 'fear' run so many of life's decisions, when one opposite state is not real, either.  That may not make sense the way I worded it...

[lance on cloud nine]

I feel too many people think a boat needs to be a small house to cruise anywhere. it needs to be much less, if you want it to be much more.

[Travelnik]

it needs to be much less, if you want it to be much more.

I like that! Here's a grog for ya!

[Captain Smollett]

it needs to be much less, if you want it to be much more.

I like that! Here's a grog for ya!

I like that, too.  Another grog.

[lance on cloud nine]

Hey! Thanks for the Grogs! It got my weekend off to a happy start. My wife and I have our first race of the season on Sunday. Small boats on an Indiana lake. We will be racing an AMF Sunbird 16.  And then get to spend about 4 days on our O'Day 23 in Florida. Hope you all have a great weekend as well!

[Sea Rover]

Equipping a boat to cruise, especially coastal cruising does no have to be costly at all. With the exception of self steering, my boat was ready to go when I bought her. It truly is a shame that advertising has people convinced that it costs so much.

Fear really is the biggest issue though. People buy every gizmo recommended to them just to expand their comfort zone, only to later realize that experience and confidence are the only two things that will do that. I literally just wrote getting out of one's comfort zone if you ever want to advance your dreams or better yourself. Comfortable is lazy and suffering builds character.

As for why you don't see young people cruising as much anymore, I think everyone already hit the nail on the head. The only thing I would add is the massive amount of debt that most young people have now, much of which can be attributed to both fitting in and instant gratification.

[Leemolou]

Hi people, first post here... 

Another thought as I ponder how simple/inexpensive cruising can be is why aren't more young people out there? There are a few, but I always wonder why more don't give up a few years now for a lifetime of memories later.

I am getting wiser now and I am asking these questions about my own path too... Why did I not do this or that at that time or another...BUT I never did when I was younger... Ehhh I mean when I was not as wise...

Another possible factor, I think, could be that sailing is not perceived as being extreme... Lots of people are hooked on extreme sports... Triathlon, parcour, climbing, all the Redbull games.

Just my opinions

Leemolou


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Tim]

Welcome aboard Leemolou, and I agree, when you are talking about the truly younger crowd sailing at first glance does not have much pizazz! But I also feel that the impression given typically by media is that it requires big bucks to even begin to sail, which of course is not true.

Starting with a trailer sailboat allows minimal upkeep costs. With experience gain from that, one can map out how to take the dream on forward.

[Mario G]

Frank its so they can pay me to fix there over complicated boat systems so I can cruise all winter in my nice simple, yes smaller boat. Three nd a half years out and we haven't hand any thing go wrong on our simplified boat that has stopped us from cruising along. 8)

[Captain Smollett]

Another possible factor, I think, could be that sailing is not perceived as being extreme... Lots of people are hooked on extreme sports... Triathlon, parcour, climbing, all the Redbull games.

I think this is a good point.  It fuels the "instant gratification" mindset as an expectation.  Sailing / cruising is anything but "instant gratification" most of the time.

I'm reminded of the time tied to a private dock and a dude fishing toodled by.  He came over to chat about the sailboat race that was going on nearby, and asked about sailing.  After a very brief conversation, he said, "I could never do that.  It's just too slow."

Relating that idea to "cruising," I remember reading in a backpacking book a couple of decades ago that one thing that gives a lot of first-time backpackers "trouble" (psychologically) is the slow pace.  They go to the woods used to the trees whizzing past at 55 mph and a 20 mile trip being made in some fraction of an hour.

On foot, the situation is far different.  A 20 mile trip is a long day.  You can see individual trees, and see them approach for parts of a minute (that same minute that covers nearly a full mile at 55 mph).

Cruising is, I think, like this for some.  We've talked about it a lot here from different angles...boat size, boat appointment, etc.  "A boat is not a house" and similar ideas come to mind.  Folks come to this with expectations that it is like other things they've already done.  The pace, the travel times, the "comfort" (I hate that word in this discussion, because simple does not have to be uncomfortable) are all compared to a faster paced life.

It's worse that that faster paced, dare I say "shallower," life is the one actively sold by magazines and web sites pushing the 'fun' and 'excitement' of cruising.  The other day I was reading a "cruising" related web site where the guy was extolling the virtues of "fast boats lets you see more."

Ugh.

(Not saying that's not right for some people or criticizing those that choose that...just saying it's not ALL there is to cruising).

The point is that there is near constant inundation with "go fast, go extreme, go WILD, go fancy" in society at large AND within large segments of the "cruising community."

[Frank]

Great posts!
On the lighter side....
Anyone thinking cruising is not an extreme sport has never been caught out in a full gale!!
:o ;D :o :D :o ;)

[Captain Smollett]

Great posts!
On the lighter side....
Anyone thinking cruising is not an extreme sport has never been caught out in a full gale!!
:o ;D :o :D :o ;)

That's a great point, Frank.  It further feeds into the "wrong expectations" that the rags and pop sites "sell" as cruising.

How it's sold:

Crystal clear blue water under perfect blue skies, girls in bikinis laying in the sun or jumping into the water, smiling folks sipping drinks at sunset, wide angle photos (to make the interior look huge) of spit-n-polish boat cabins, marketing copy like "enjoy" and "relax" and "worry free" ...

The reality:

All of that listed above DOES exist, but it's not all the time.  Add to that:

Boat maintenance and repairs, days waiting for it to stop raining, storminess in general, paperwork hassles, everything in the cabin strewn about and/or wet, part of the crew seasick, etc.  The list goes on.

The idea that is sold is that "cruising" is some sort of vacation from life.  For a sailing vacation (like a week charter in the VI or something), it can be that.  But full time cruising (or even just a full time 'cruising lifestyle' if shore based) *IS* real life...with all the realities of that.  There are great times.  There are times that it's work.

It took a year of living aboard for this to really soak in for me personally.  "Living aboard" sounds romantic, but the reality of it is that one deals with a LOT of the same types of pressures and stresses as any other "living."  Home repairs, earning a living (for most of us, anyway...those of us not independently wealthy), medical issues, family matters, etc don't magically go away just because our home is on the water.

I've read a LOT of 'cruising blogs' where a couple "went out" and cruised for a few months, maybe a year or two, and gave it up with a similar theme.  They set out believing this was to be their "lifestyle" forever.  They quit because "shore life" was more convenient.  Their expectations from the beginning were wrong, and that, in my opinion, is what defeated them.  They had incorrectly calculated the amount of time spent waiting on weather or doing boat chores, for example.

(Defeated may be too strong a word...just making a point).

I'm not trying to paint a "negative" image of "cruising."  Quite the contrary. I'm trying to paint a realistic one.  As your comment shows, there's more to this "lifestyle" than blue skies and overly sweet cocktails. 

What I believe is that if one is realistic about the expectations and moves forward from there, the rewards are tremendous and more than make up for these costs.  The thing is, 'regular life' has all the same hassles, but without the reward of sunrise at anchor, hanging with the crusty sailor with a million stories, walking a secluded, pristine beach, etc.

Bringing it back to the tread title, it my firm belief that 'not complicated' is part of the key to keep those expectations realistic and to "properly" (as individual as that gets defined) balance the 'work at life' time with the 'seems like vacation' time.

[Chris]

Good points Cap'n...got me thinking about my own situation and putting some disappointments in perspective...
"need not be complicated" can be an economic thing as well in that all the gadgets can make the sailing more pleasurable for some when that some can throw all the money they want at problems... Parts and labor, marina stays, days at resorts and hotels ashore while somebody else sweats it out in the engine compartment installing the new starter that took weeks to get while you were wading up to the pool bar just up from the beach. I got to talking to a cruiser at the local WM who had just finished a south seas tour in an Aleutian 50. I asked what her biggest surprise was and she said it was the expense.  She said they went through 10,000 in two months of the trip not counting outfitting. She didn't seem to concerned about it but I was gobsmacked...just said wow, that's a lot of money and moved on.
My girlfriend, who has decided not to go cruising had a good, well paid job for 30 years and never met a problem she could not through money at to fix and her idea of cruising was based in a sensibility that the boat contain all of those things she had in her house and that there was no room for any sort of hardship or deprivation. I used to think that her storm management techniques would include dumping pillowcases of $100 bills on the water to calm the waves. ::) Now she will stay home and me and my little Badger will go off adventuring for a couple of a months while she fly's around to catch up with me. Badger and my travels are all mine and I will have the pride of accomplishing much with little. I wouldn't mind being able to be a deep pocket checkbook sailor even if my sailing heroes like Knox Johnston and Web Chile's never had/have much to spend and am happy to put the voyaging together the same way. I only wanted to comment that with enough money the sailing can be very simple  ;) :D ;) :D