SAILING THE WORLD

A blue water passage is surely one of the reasons many of us go cruising. The idea of a yacht booming along before the balmy trade winds is the dream. Yet a happy pasage can only be achieved by good skippering and a sensible onboard routine

PART FOUR On Passage

Start your voyage by choosing a weather window that offers at least two days of easy sailing with wind strengths of 10-15kts if at all possible. If a big blow has just gone through, allow a couple of days for the swell to die down. The first consideration should be ensuring the crew to settle into an ‘at sea’ pattern, overcoming seasickness, eschewing the nine-to-five routine and acclimatizing to cooler temperatures, all problems that one should expect with a crew that haven’t regularly been to sea. I’ve been told many times ‘Don’t worry I never suffer from seasickness’ only to discover that person hanging over the rail on the first day. Most people that aren’t regularly at sea suffer varying degrees of mal de mer during their first two days or so at sea and virtually all people get over it after a couple of nights at sea. It isn’t a competition and it’s just a question of taking your time to get into the routine rather than trying to rush