I read the book with great interest. I am thinking that this is a
great adventure story where they took great risks. They got away with
it because the husband is a very great "fixer" After all how many
people would know how to rewire an alternator? They are also very
lucky. The third thing they did was that the husband taught the wife
how to sail all the way out from Ottawa. They first motored a long
way before they put up the mast and then they just did some costal
cruising before they went into blue water. The husband ceratinly knew
a lot about boating since they selected exactly the right kind of
boat.
Still I wonder would I have takem my two young kids and an
inexperinced wife on this trip? I probably would have considered far
too risky for my taste.


rhys wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 04:22:50 GMT, wrote:


I've just read "The Voyage of the Northern Magic" which
is about a Canadian family sailing around the world in
a 40-year-old sailboat. Their entire sailing experience
before taking this journey consisted of 6 afternoons in
on the Ottawa River. (See www.northernmagic.com)

Yes, and I spoke to Diane Stuemer shortly before she died, and she
admitted that this was in fact a foolish way to learn on a heavy
displacement boat. Her husband had some experience...she was
essentially the weak link, but learned quickly AND the hard way.

I think the tale of Northern Magic is very inspiring, but it is about
how the process of sailing with one's family and encountering foreign
peoples in distant places can be transformative...it is NOT in my
opinion a great book loaded with seamanship tips. The husband,
Herbert, seems to spend most of every chapter puking into the bilges
because he's trying to repair an alternator upside down in a heavy
following sea while his wife and kids hand-steer. Sorry, but if you
plan properly and don't insist on computers and refrigeration 24/7,
you don't spend much of your trip repairing expensive and dodgy
equipment. More than once they seem to have bought fifty kilos of
frozen meat, only to have the compressor or some related gadget fail
again. The Stuemers had a very interesting and memorable trip, but
their inexperience made it more difficult, IMO, than it needed to be,
if the book is anything to go by.

Give me a windvane and a can opener and maybe a Koolatron for the
beer, and I'll be a happier cruiser.

Having said that, I'm not a Luddite: radar and weatherfax and SSB are
the cruiser's mates, but more stuff means more complexity and more
crap that breaks in the middle of heavy weather.

R.

On 12 Aug 2004 21:25:43 -0700, (Rolf) wrote:

Still I wonder would I have takem my two young kids and an
inexperinced wife on this trip? I probably would have considered far
too risky for my taste.

WARNING: SEMI-TOPICAL RANT...

I have mixed feelings today.

I just got beat to the "offer" stage on a 41 foot steel pilothouse
ketch that was for sale at a reasonable price at my club...more or
less under my nose, but I didn't see it until another buyer was close
to offering the PO's price. Buying now is two years too early for me
(gotta finish the mortgage!), but when I start shopping, I'll have a
five year old son and possibly a one year old or younger. I plan on
going when Son No. 1 is six or seven, and to "boat school" like the
Stuemers until the boy is 12 or 13 and to circumnavigate in the
interim, living off writing (yes, I know, but I'm already a
journalist, so I think I have a shot at travel writing) and "diesel
and repair money" from renting out our house.

So that means a few things: I want a cutter-rigged ketch. I want
steel, stable and Perkins or similar "big iron" diesel. I want a
pilothouse or a hard dodger, and preferably center cockpit. I want a
skeg hung rudder, and a modified long keel. I want 38-45 feet, and
room for a small workshop. The hull must be super clean and all
structures must have unbroken epoxy or similar coatings to inhibit
rust...foam tends to disguise things.

After that, I'm not picky...the interior can be crap, nice or even
absent. I would prefer to modify than to build, but the fact is that
my best shot at something appropriate is a half-finished Roberts-style
boat done nicely by an old guy who had a clue but has lost interest,
gotten sick or died.

Surprisingly, there are dozens of boats around like this. Some are
superbly done and sail nicely, but have interiors of plywood and
outdoor carpeting over 2 X 4 benches G

That's the boat for me, as it would take two years and $20,000 to do
the interior to my tastes, which are more systems than entertainment
oriented.

All this is to make a safe and comfortable passagemaker that will
mitigate somewhat a less-experienced wife and small kids, who
nonetheless will probably stand half-watches and do navigation by nine
or ten years of age.

The wife is already a keen Great Lakes sailor, but is weak in
terminology, brute strength and familiarity with engines. All that can
be remedied with time and drive, and she's the daughter of a boat
builder and fearless about the foredeck and going up the mast.

Here's a suggestion: let the wife helm and dock as often as possible.
It's good confidence building, and the real art is in sail-tweaking
and navigation, anyway G.

Everything's a risk, including going nuts and driving yourself to an
early grave in a compromised office job. My wife and I have decided
that the risk of taking kids offshore during our "prime earning years"
is very much worth it when compared to the regret of not doing it at
all, or not being able to do it in our sixties due to age, illness or
family duties. I'm 43, she's 30...we want to be gone by the time I'm
47 and she's 34 and back (if ever) when I'm 53 or so.

My mother died at 68 in 2002, never having travelled much, despite
having had the money, because there were always obstacles, real or
imagined. My father at 80 is now alone and pretty much fixing to die.
I suppose if he leaves me their estate I could buy a house or two and
become a land-locked tinpot slum lord, but I think the best tribute to
their memory is to "carpe diem" and get a steel boat and give my
kid(s) the kind of childhood very few children experience, one full or
learning, adventure and real responsibility.

The late Diane Stuemer may not have been the best sailor, but she
learned enough to survive, and her kids had an enviable few years at
sea. Her husband, maybe less so, but I doubt he'd trade it for all the
fixed alternators in the world.

Don't give your kids Gameboys. Better a sextant!

So get the boat and go, my friend.
R.

rhys wrote:
...
So that means a few things: I want a cutter-rigged
ketch. I want steel, stable and Perkins or similar
"big iron" diesel. I want a pilothouse or a hard
dodger, and preferably center cockpit.
...

So if I want to sail to Tahiti and South East Asia
one day (would it be a bad idea to get a fiberglass
boat (like a Tayana) or is this what most people do
anyway ?

Plenty of people sail all over the world in fiberglass boats, wooden
boats and steel boats, and have wonderful trips.

There are/is a school of thought that is focused on the steel or
aluminum boat as the "ideal" because it might survive an encounter with
a reef. The odds of testing that theory, if you are a careful sailor
should be fairly small, hence the success rate of other types of
construction.

What you do want is a boat built sturdily enough to take a fair amount
of abuse. In the Sydney/Hobart race that got hit hard, a couple of boats
essentially collapsed under the weight of waves breaking on board.
But that too should be an uncommon rather than a common occurrence. The
Hiscocks sailed thousands of miles in various boats, and claimed they
never hit a survival storm because of good planning. Dave Martin
circumnavigated in a reinforced Cal 25, starting a family on the way. He
and his wife Jaja cruised for years with infants in arms and toddlers.
Check out the Martin chronicles on SetSail.com:
http://www.setsail.com/s_logs/martin/martin.html

Check out the cruising logs at: http://cruisenews.net/index.php

All kinds of people, all kinds of boats and materials. The common
denominator? They all managed to take in the docklines and go......

Have fun,

Jonathan



wrote:
rhys wrote:

...
So that means a few things: I want a cutter-rigged
ketch. I want steel, stable and Perkins or similar
"big iron" diesel. I want a pilothouse or a hard
dodger, and preferably center cockpit.
...


So if I want to sail to Tahiti and South East Asia
one day (would it be a bad idea to get a fiberglass
boat (like a Tayana) or is this what most people do
anyway ?

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 23:29:22 -0400, Jonathan
wrote:

All kinds of people, all kinds of boats and materials. The common
denominator? They all managed to take in the docklines and go......

That in sum is the crucial point. I have my preferences, but if time
passes and all I can afford is something merely adequate, I won't
hesitate.

R.

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 17:33:13 GMT, wrote:


So if I want to sail to Tahiti and South East Asia
one day (would it be a bad idea to get a fiberglass
boat (like a Tayana) or is this what most people do
anyway ?

No...no...not at all. Let's face it, most of the boats under 50 feet
today are fibreglass, particularly out of North America.

There is nothing wrong with fibreglass per se. When done correctly (as
can be said of ANY hull material, including the much disparaged
ferro-concrete). a fibreglass boat can be safe, fast and reasonable to
maintain.

However....G

If you look at the boats that ACTUALLY TRAVEL THE WORLD, as opposed to
those found in crowded Carribean anchorages, you will find a
substantial portion of them are metal, usually steel, but frequently
aluminum. By this I mean WORLD travel (including the far less popular
high latitudes).

From this, you can draw a couple of obsevations, not conclusions:

Metal boats are popular with people in oceanic cruising, long-distance
passagemaking and high-latitude travel. For the sake of argument, if
95 out of 100 boats *capable* of passagemaking are fibreglass in a
given anchorage, with the rest wood or metal, the odds are much
stronger to my knowledge that of those boats ACTUALLY PASSAGEMAKING,
perhaps 30 to 40 per cent will be metal or wood (cold-molded, etc.)

This does not necessarily mean that metal boats, for instance, are
more appropriate for passagemaking than fibreglass.

It could mean, however, that whatever causes an owner to choose metal,
also drives the decision to travel the world and not drop anchor in
Margaritaville. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Metal has some severe disadvantages relating to coatings, maintenance,
weight and design. Metal boats (not aluminum) can be slower and uglier
to some eyes.

Advantages include ease of repair (if steel, the owner can self-repair
after learning basic welding) ease of customization, brute strength,
potential safety margin, and so on.

Finally, I own a cored deck, fibreglass boat which I enjoy. But I am
sourcing steel boats for world travel. That's me. If you GAVE me a
Tayana, which is one of the better offshore plastic boat names to my
understanding, I wouldn't sneer for a moment. But a lot of the
fibreglass boats sold new today I wouldn't take into a 40 knot wind,
so suspicious am I of the design and construction decisions (wide
companionways, huge drinks-friendly cockpits, low lifelines, unbacked
deck gear, lack of handholds below, overly complex wiring and
plumbing, etc.) of many of today's "showboats". They look great, and
maybe they will survive a storm, but I would have better peace of mind
in something Dutch, steely and built for the North Sea or to survive a
hard grounding in coral reef.

Your mileage may of course vary. I love Dudley Dix and Robert Perry in
fibreglass, and Wallstrom/Brewer in steel, and Kanter in
aluminum/steel. There are others, but those spring to mind.

R.

If you look at the boats that ACTUALLY TRAVEL THE WORLD, as opposed to
those found in crowded Carribean anchorages, you will find a
substantial portion of them are metal, usually steel, but frequently
aluminum.

no, you will not find "substantial portion" to be metal. The vast, vast, vast
majority of them are fiberglass. You will find a higher % of them to be metal
than compared to the general boat population, but by no means a "substantial
portion".

The real advantage of a metal boat is that it is cheeeep on the used market.

From this, you can draw a couple of obsevations, not conclusions:


one can not *draw* an observation.

ACTUALLY PASSAGEMAKING,
perhaps 30 to 40 per cent will be metal or wood

I seem to recall the recorded data shows of boats ACTUALLY PASSAGEMAKING about
2% - 5% or so will be metal, and a % or so wood. Far and away fiberglass is
most common if for no other reason than fiberglass boats are far and away the
most common.

of course, for a given strength boat, a fiberglass boat will weigh less, carry
more stores, be less top heavy, and carry less sails to go faster, but what the
hey.

whatever causes an owner to choose metal,

irrational fear of dying is the usual reason. looking for a bargain in a used
boat is another.