We all dream about it...
Leaving for a year or for ten years! But is it really possible? What is it like? How do we do it? How do we finance it? And is it really worthwhile? How will the children live this adventure? These are among many questions asked by prospective ocean cruisers.
Changing your life: myth or reality?
In 30 years of this magazine, we have seen several generations of prospective cruisers pass through. There are those who ‘just wanted to take a break’, and those who wanted to change their lives completely. They left, they returned; some of them are still cruising around the world and still send us photos and reports. Often the magazine’s journalists have been these adventurers’ confidants, and our photo collection is full of their memories, immortalized in the most beautiful places in the world. From these thousands of experiences, lived differently, according to the people involved, we can draw one conclusion: leaving to live on a catamaran, alone, as a couple, or as a family, is really worthwhile... And that is certain!
Setting out to discover anchorages like this… Are you tempted?
How to go about it?
All our readers who have ‘taken the step’ are adamant: the hardest part is taking the decision to leave...the rest is just organization! Certain people have to prepare their boss, with tact and consideration, and take a sabbatical break. Others quite simply resign from their job. Finally, the luckiest sell their business, or take advantage of their retirement and leave free of all constraints, for a period which depends on the sum they have available...
Potential ocean cruisers are all different and have followed several paths. The only thing that is common to them all is their desire to leave as a family (or a couple, and even alone) to live differently. On the water, we find representatives of all the socio-professional classes. From a lawyer to a manager of a multinational company, via a dentist who has taken early retirement, as well as employees or even journalists from Multihulls World...
Next, to leave aboard a boat, you will need...a boat! If you are reading this magazine, the choice of a multihull is your solution... Stable, comfortable, faster than an equivalent monohull, offering good privacy for each member of the family, easy to maneuver: catamarans are THE ideal solution for long-term living aboard. The best proof is that we all know monohull fanatics who changed to several hulls, while the opposite is much, much rarer. Once you have tasted the joys of the catamaran, it is hard to go back to a narrow boat which heels, and whose draft excludes you from the best anchorages...
But in the multihull family, the choice is vast: the catamaran and trimaran markets offer a wide choice. New or second-hand, production cat or one-off, in plywood, sandwich, aluminum, fast or slow, able to carry a large or small load: there is something for all tastes and budgets (from 50,000 to more than 3 million euros!). It is therefore above all a question of personal choice (see our dossier on blue-water cruising boats in this magazine) and it is certainly this part of the preparation which will require the most time and will cause you the most worries. Because during your cruise, the boat you choose will become more than a means of transport or your new home: it often becomes a member of the family in its own right. The proof? We often call cruising sailors by the name of their boat rather than their surname.
Your cat must therefore meet the wishes and needs of those aboard: a sufficient number of cabins, a suitable load-carrying capacity, but must also suits the crew’s sailing skills. There is nothing worse than having to drag your heels on a heavy boat if you and your family are sport catamaran racing enthusiasts. On the other hand, a family crew may soon get fed up with having to maneuver continually, and adjust daggerboards and spinnaker sheets...
To leave on the boat of your dreams, there are just two solutions: purchasing a new or second-hand catamaran or trimaran, then re-selling it, or long-term charter. This latter solution is only valid for quite limited periods, in any case, for a maximum of a year. Longer than this and it is best to buy. For your information, chartering a 60-foot catamaran in the West Indies costs from 50,000 to 60,000 euros per year... A tidy sum, certainly, but offering the advantage of not having to prepare the boat or deal with reselling it after your cruise.
The classic way, then, is to purchase, then re-sell your boat when you return. Here again, there are a few rules to be respected, so that everything goes well (see box).
Whatever you decide, new or second-hand, purchase or charter, your choice of boat will depend for a large part on your crew and your program. You must define it carefully so as not to make a mistake and spoil your dream!
So, a sabbatical year, or the big departure for ‘as long as the wind carries me’? A Mediterranean or Atlantic circuit, the West Indies, or a circumnavigation of the planet?
The classic sabbatical year is an Atlantic circuit: leaving from the port where you prepared the boat, you cross the Atlantic via the Canaries, sometimes the Cape Verdes. You then spend 9 months in the West Indies before returning, by crossing the Atlantic for the second time. The other solution is to buy your catamaran in the West Indies and spend your year there: you re-sell the cat locally, or in Europe after a return Atlantic crossing. Generally, the choice will be made according to whether you want to cross the Atlantic, as well as the opportunity of finding the right boat in the right place.
The Mediterranean circuit is rarer, but offers unquestionably a more varied destination. The only drawback is the weather during the winter months, which is harder to live with than in the West Indies, and the temperatures stick at around 30°C...
Then, for those who leave for at least three years, there is the mythical round-the-world trip via the trade winds. A really beautiful adventure, made up of ocean cruising, wild and isolated anchorages, unique encounters and destinations to be pioneered.
Whatever your program, you will have to adapt it to your boat (it is difficult to envisage crossing the Atlantic on an 8-metre catamaran...), as well as your crew. Why impose a crossing on your family if your wife suffers from chronic seasickness, or is terrified once the land disappears over the horizon? It is better to sail round the West Indies and please everyone than to impose a schedule that your crew cannot follow...
Antoine has been sailing his cat around the world for over 30 years… And he’s still loving it!
The price of the dream…
However much we say you just have to dare, you must also have the means. A sabbatical year (or more) aboard a cruising cat has a price, that is for sure! So, let’s look at the reality: how much does it cost?
Whether you are leaving for a year or for five, whether you have chosen a new 70-foot catamaran, or a second-hand 35-footer, your budget will be organized the same way around four main headings: the purchase of the boat, its preparation, the crew’s personal expenses during the voyage, and those for the boat...
For the boat, we use to say that it will cost from 100,000 euros to...no limit!
You have the boat – perfect. Now you have to equip it... In general, it is considered that you must allow between 10% and 15% of its value for preparation. But beware, if you want to leave with new engines, a watermaker, a washing machine and a diving compressor, and have high-speed internet access, etc., the bill can (very) quickly reach nearly 50% of the purchase value. And you should know that although this equipment may help negotiations when re-selling, it will not give the boat real added value.
So now you are the captain of a beautiful catamaran, perfectly equipped for living aboard. All that remains is to know how much you will spend per month aboard your boat... Begin by taking into account all the expenses linked to your life ashore. Taxes, possible loans, insurances, etc... These expenses are fixed, and all you have to do is look at your bank statements to see how much they total. Then comes life aboard... Under personal expenses, you should count provisioning for the whole family, leisure, marinas and clearances. Here again, the sums to be allowed depend on how you envisage life aboard your boat... Renting cars, visiting the islands, and eating in restaurants can quickly become quite expensive. Along the same lines, clearances in the West Indies can make a big hole in your budget. To these personal expenses should be added expenses linked to the boat: insurance, diesel, and the ‘special unplanned’ budget (which by definition is difficult to predict!). Our readers onboard a 40 to 45 feet catamaran generally spend between 1,500 and 3,000 euros per month, while having a special ‘war chest’ for possible repairs, of from 10 to 25,000 euros, depending on the boat.
Even little kids love it, and adapt to it straight away.
And the children?
The children aboard...so many questions on this subject. How will they adapt? Safety? Schooling? The great majority of children adapt to life aboard much more quickly than the adults. In a few days, they assimilate the safety rules, find their place aboard and take real pleasure in this new life with their parents, who are finally available... Leaving with your children is offering them a real opportunity; opening the world to them, showing them things that others will never see, and above all, quite simply living with them.
Although adaptation presents no problems, you must remain vigilant in terms of safety. On this level, the catamaran’s stability is a real plus. You must however keep in mind the fact that a young child must be supervised by an adult all the time. When sailing, limiting their movements to the interior, or the cockpit, and getting them used to always asking an adult before leaving this area, is the basis of safety. Fitting safety lines aboard, and having a harness which is easy to put on and does not hinder them is also essential.
The biggest problem with children aboard is their education. The French CNED system is particularly well-suited to schooling aboard. The teaching is free of charge for children from nursery to secondary school, if they are resident in France... For children who are resident abroad, the cost remains reasonable: 113 euros per year for junior school, and between 134 and 238 euros for secondary. In return for which, your children will receive all the lessons for their school year, with exercises, homework, and if they work well, a certificate so they can go up a class and return to classic schooling when they return... The only problem is that although you are on a sabbatical year, they are not. They therefore have to work. In general, experience shows that by ‘going to school’ every morning, and keeping aside a few holidays for visits from friends or family, the program can be followed successfully. But it is sometimes hard to make certain children work when you are anchored in some corner of paradise... The price to be paid for living the dream!
Boat life: the joy of the children, the delight of the parents…
Invitation to cruising
When the home on land becomes your home at sea... Leaving for the other side of the horizon, the land of the albatross or the tropical birds, in the universe of chilly glaciers or azure lagoons and sunny beaches. Leaving, on 2 hulls, on 3 hulls.
Why leave? Because the call of the voyage is the strongest. It is a long way from the image of the lone sailor who left to flee from a society which he dreamt could be better elsewhere. Nowadays, we leave to discover the world, in the spirit of a home on the water, a shack, a floating den, a waterborne apartment, a place which is, at the same time, a school for the children, and a lounge for the parents, a kitchen and bedrooms for the whole family. A living area with the particular feature of taking you on the seven seas and to the four corners of the planet, from the north to the south and the east to the west.
Magical moments to share with your children…
“Tell me what multihull you have and I’ll tell you who you are...”
There are the fans of the spartan comfort, but which still smacks of adventures and the 70s, the joy of cruising aboard a simple boat. There are the lovers of comfort at any price, who cannot imagine venturing onto the oceans other than on the hulls of a 65-footer. There will always be those who roam the oceans at the helm of a 50-year-old English Snowgoose, which, if well maintained, will still satisfy potential ocean cruisers who are not performance-oriented. Because the question has to be asked: what do you want the most? Dreaming all your life of an improbably large boat, or living your dream come what may? Of course, those who are able to invest in a modern boat will have both performance and comfort.
The present trend seems to have stabilized at around 50 to 55 feet. But whether it is a Lagoon, a Fountaine, a Nautitech or an Outremer, Catana, or Leopard, or again a Neel, a Sunreef or a Privilège… no builder really stands out for long-term catamaran cruisers. It is above all a question of preferences, and the potential cruiser who has imagined ‘his’ ideal multihull will perhaps finally one day find himself at the helm of a boat which is the complete opposite of the one he had imagined. But isn’t the important thing just to set off?
From listening to the dockside gossip, one thing is certain: many people, after having crossed a sea, an ocean or even having sailed round the world on a monohull, when asked what kind of boat they would choose to set off again, answer unequivocally: ‘Happiness afloat is on 2 hulls’.
There are many reasons. As Phil Weld said at the time: “I much prefer covering 220 miles a day horizontally on a multihull, to 120 on a heeled monohull.”
West Indies, Mediterranean, Pacific, it’s up to you: wherever you go, you’ll discover some amazing places!
PREPARING FOR RESALE
The sale of a cruising catamaran is not necessarily as straightforward as it might seem, and demands careful planning. The ideal thing is to start advertising six months before the end of your trip, so you have time to make contact with potential buyers, for whom it would be difficult to come and see your boat while you’re sailing between Caribbean islands or Polynesian lagoons…
Before you have anyone visit your boat, make sure you give it a good clean, and do all those little repair jobs you’ve been putting off. Having a little budget set aside for this is a good idea! (See our Blue Water Special Issue #9 - Summer 2015)
From the youngest to the oldest, everyone enjoys their new lifestyle from morning till night! The sea provides a limitless playground!
A fast boat or a more placid catamaran, there’s something for everyone. What’s important is to find the right boat for you.
