How to Prepare the Best Sailboat for Cruising

I’ve written this book for those who are dedicated to their dream of sailing their very own sailboat to destinations near or far. Whether it's crossing oceans or coastal cruising, this book is your manual to knowing your yacht and properly fitting it out for safe, comfortable passages. To cross oceans or to sail to near destinations, you must know your boat intimately. You need to be sure she is prepared to the best of your ability and knowledge, which is where this book comes in. I see many take to sea in boats ill-prepared for the task. And not because they're ignoring to what level their boat should be prepared, but because they're simply ignorant of "to what level" their yacht should be prepared. They don't know what it is they should actually be preparing for, what "the task at hand" actually is or entails. A yacht needs to be built and prepared for taking her crew safely and comfortably to any destination, in any conditions, and that is the operative term here: any conditions! People sail for fifty years and never run into that "once in a lifetime" storm, like The Queen's Birthday Storm, or The Fastnet Storm of '79, but I always say that everyone's yacht should be prepared as though they might.

Over the years, I've read many, many books on voyaging. Books that cover almost all the subjects a wannabe, or even a seasoned ocean voyager would need to know. But in all my research, and with all my years of interest and devotion to preparing yachts for ocean voyaging, I've never found a book that is a stem-to-stern comprehensive manual solely dedicated to only that. A manual that is all and only on the subject of yacht preparation. And that's what I'm hoping to accomplish here.

Early in my sailing career, I had the good fortune to meet a brilliant and renowned sailor. He was quiet, mysterious, and a loner. At the time he was preparing his own yacht, a Bruce Roberts 34 flush raised deck that he had found sunk. He raised it himself, and was preparing it for his next voyaging expeditions; he lost his Westsail 32 in The Queen's Birthday Storm four years earlier. He had been sailing since he was 17 years old, he was almost 60 at the time, and he had been living on his own boats all those years. He hadn't had a land address since he graduated high school, and had done every single bit of fit out on all his boats, himself. He was a genius at fitting out yachts, backed by many, many years of off shore experience. Throughout his over 40 years on boats he had taken on many solo adventures, including sailing an open lifeboat from Norfolk, Va. to the Bahamas, and sailing through The Queen's Birthday Storm. From Greg's experience in The Queen's Birthday Storm, and the preparation of his yacht Pilot, he helped rewrite the NZ Category Two Regulations that NZ mariners intending to sail offshore are required to meet before casting the lines.

Greg took me under his wing as he was building and fitting out "Scout" for her adventures. What followed was an intensive, three-year apprenticeship with this renowned sailor, mentor, and friend. What I learned from this education, and the wisdom I gained from simply hanging around with a sailing giant like Greg was a priceless gift for which I will always be grateful. And the most valuable and powerful thing of all I learned from this experience was that I had no idea what it meant "to prepare a yacht for crossing oceans"! I was humbled to my core, and to this day, twenty-five years later, I have yet to cross paths with another sailor, though I do know of some, that had the experience, the knowledge, the wisdom, the know-how, and the ability to fit a yacht out to such a degree as Greg. And it is this humbling that I received from this experience, this realization that I didn't know crap about fitting out a yacht, that made me realize so many others thinking of sailing the world are in that same boat, with no idea how much they don't know. And that is what has made me so determined to share what I learned from Greg, and from my own experiences combined. I am committed to safe ocean voyaging, and the proper fit out and preparation of yachts intended for bluewater sailing, or coastal cruising. I want to see everyone that is intent on adventuring on the world's oceans to return home with only the tales of their adventures to tell.

As for my own experience, I have literally been on the water since I was in the womb. I grew up on The Chesapeake Bay, fishing, boating, and by the mid seventies, working in the marine industry, and commercial crabbing. I then moved to Boston and eventually to Cape Cod where I continued both commercial and sport fishing. On The Cape in the mid eighties I was introduced to racing Lightnings, a fast class sailboat, and I began learning the ropes of sailing. I continued my life on the water there for fifteen years. In 2000 I moved to St. Augustine, Florida where I met Greg, and bought my first sailboat, “Nomad”, a Rhodes 32 Chesapeake. I fitted out Nomad while under the tutelage of Greg, and later Christina and I sailed her from St. Augustine to Norfolk, Va. Shortly thereafter I sold her and bought a Contest 31, designed by Uus Van Essen, fitted her out as well using all the knowledge I learned from Greg, from the fit out and sailing of Nomad, and the skills I’d acquired over the years of working on boats, and being a custom woodworker for 30 years. We sailed the Chesapeake Bay for several years on Adélie, she was the second sailboat I’d prepared for ocean voyaging, and she was a beautiful sailor. However, realizing she wasn't going to be enough boat for both me and my wife to cruise comfortably, we sold her much to my wife's dismay (she loved Adélie) and bought our Crealock 37 Bella Sera (hull #15 of 16 built). After a partial refit of Bella Sera in 2019/20 we sailed her for two years on The Chesapeake Bay, before putting her on the hard in preparation for our move to Mexico. Bella is now with us in Mexico and nearing the completion of a full refit including a complete electrical overhaul as I’m a certified NMEA and Marine Electronics Installer (MEI), and we'll be voyaging with her in the near future, starting in our local sailing grounds The Sea of Cortez.