Are You Ready To Bareboat?
Judging your own readiness is never easy. Th at goes double for chartering and running a yacht on vacation. What I hear most often from first-time charter guests is that they’ve been sailing for decades, so how different can it be to charter? The truth is it’s very different because managing a weeklong charter is a far cry from things like dinghy racing or daysailing a 30-footer on a lazy summer afternoon. Th is goes double if you’ve never sailed a large catamaran. If you’d like to get a better idea where exactly things stand with respect to your own sailing, try asking yourself the questions below. And don’t worry if you find yourself coming up short. There are plenty of ways to obtain the requisite skills!
CORE SKILLS
Sail trim may come to mind first when you’re racing round the buoys, but it takes a very different set of skills to manage a yacht 24/7 on charter.
Sailing and reefing: You may daysail every day of the year, but as the boat and systems get bigger and the wind picks up, loads also increase and things can get out of hand quickly. Do you know how to hoist the main aboard a 50ft cat with lazyjacks that will inevitably snag the battens? Do you know how to get a sail down when there’s friction in the system or the sail gets stuck in an in-mast furler? Do you know how to reef and when? Cats don’t heel much, making it tricky to know when the boat is getting overpowered.
Anchoring: Do you know how to pick a safe anchorage based on the depth, bottom contours, bottom composition and expected weather? How do you assess swinging room in a crowded anchorage? What scope will you use? Usually a ratio of 7:1 works, but what if you have all chain, the weather is expected to worsen or you find yourself with other boats nearby to either side? Do you know what to do if the windlass has tripped the breaker? Or how to use the manual override? How’s your anchoring etiquette when entering in close proximity to others?
Moorings differ around the world in
