One of the delights of coastal cruising is discovering and exploring new anchorages, harbours, beaches, towns and villages. A long passage at sea is fine if you’re voyaging from country to country, but you can’t beat sailing within eyeball distance of the coast, where the gulls and cormorants swoop and dive while seals lollop about on headland rocks or hidden beaches.
Cruising under sail can be exhilarating, demanding, and even a tad frightening occasionally, but ultimately it’s thoroughly fulfilling. While it sounds easy to the uninitiated, sailing along coastal waters is often more challenging than a simple A-to-B offshore passage where your main concern is wind and tide, not scary-looking rocks, sand bars, daunting harbour entrances and rocky anchorages.
However, with careful planning and a sound boat, the fun factor will undoubtedly overcome the fear factor and make the whole thing thoroughly worthwhile.
Fun close to shore
Day cruising in a small boat can be fantastic fun provided you have a good plan and fallback for the nights. Some anchorages can be idyllic in the daytime but distinctly uncomfortable at 0400 when the wind turns about and your insubstantial ground tackle starts to drag. Hobby horsing at anchor in a 20ft boat in the pitch dark is not quite as enticing as gently rocking in a 40-footer either, but that doesn’t mean you have to own a big boat to feel secure. I firmly believe as much, if not more, fun can be had sailing close inshore and finding a safe spot for the night in the smallest of boats, provided they’re seaworthy and adequately equipped.
Of course, if you have a family on board you’ll want a few more berths, a private cabin or two and enough luxuries to keep everyone happy, so a bigger boat is most likely the answer. But don’t be tempted to go larger than you feel safe handling, both in a strong breeze and choppy sea or entering a busy marina with little room to enter a berth.
Another piece of advice I’d like to proffer is, regardless of boat size, don’t overdo the tech at the expense of simple sailing. Chartplotters, MFDs, AIS, radar, wifi,
