The proudest recall I have of our journey, is of that of my young son, who at six years old immediately took to manning the yacht's dinghies, at all times. Usually so when we went off to shore, and he owned the job', & became super adept at the task! A task that included launching the dinghy , beaching, docking and restowing the dinghy in the evenings, by lifting it aloft , winched up on a halyard. And err bailing rainwater, whenever he forgot to debung it, etc.,
His job! Entirely his zone.
I have a singular perpetual memory of him that is riveted to my for-forever recall . I'd caught a side glance of him, making his 'dead reckoning' when we had to cross the mouth of the Panama canal. If I remember correctly why we needed to cross, is that we'd met yachts anchored on the North American side of the canal, while we had sat out on the South American side.
We'd been visiting.
A ship was bearing down onto the canal lock at that time - from the Caribbean (Colon) side. This was on the Panama City side of the canal and he had to make the decision to cross in front of that ship, or wait, and pass behind the ship's stern.
A wait that would have cost us about a quarter of an hour!
Instead of asking me of my opinion, he started making his own way to cross, but slowly at first, constantly aligning the ship's progress to the progress of the dinghy, knowing that if the angle remained constant, that we were on a collision course - dinghy and ship!
When it was clear that we were not, he opened the throttle and we comfortably made it from North America to South America! Thankfully too, we missed that ship.
There is a tourist deck, close to the vast Bridge of the America's where tourists are invited to vista the workings of the canal locks, and so as to watch the transit of ships!
They where suitably enthralled by our young ship's dinghy captain, and clapped and whistled & waved their delight at his gutsy young savvy!
He never even noted, acknowledged nor acceded to their attention. Such fawning was beneath him!
Real ship's captains do, what real ship captains must do!
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It's a ridiculously complex, and while yet an awfully simple decision to go out as an extended sailing family.
A decision confounded to a vast exponent or to a higher multiple when extremely young children are concerned. If only because those kiddies cannot make an informed consent at what could be an extremely perilous decision, - particularly so - for them.
It can also be a place of huge deprivation for them. There is no MacDonald's playpen mid ocean, or in the mouth of the Amazon.
We went sailing because of the children, and in and equal part, in as much as we almost didn't go sailing exactly because of the children!
For most parents and families, no matter how enthusiastic they are about sailing from points A to B, my advice to them would be to not take their kiddies sailing on an extended voyage or circumnavigation.
Not because of the kids, tho', but rather as for most yotties with an insatiable dream to sail, the dream of theirs turn out to be a dismal fail. A nightmare.
Most cruising plans will happily work for what I'd guess to be as low as 1 success in 40 failures. Yes that low!
But I guess.
The reason for failure are too many to reckon on.
But the principle fail, does not go to the conditions & life as sea, the loneliness & the deprivation, but the interpersonal fails.
There is a French psychiatrist (I was told), in Fort de-France, Martinique , who specialises on the counselling of marriage (and de facto) failures brought upon French couples who have successfully sailed across the Atlantic, and then immediately sought to break up or get divorced! Fort de-France, usually being their very first port of call!
(One sad yottie I know of, had his dream boat 'sunk' by his wife, just before shew flew 'back to the UK'. She ran a running hose pipe into his boat, while it was standing on the hard in a Trinidad boatyard, and it sank to the gunnell/brim, 30 ft above the sea level! She made sure that she would NEVER, ever have to some back. Not to the boat - but to her husband. That was THE END! )
The principle reason for that failure, is that;
- firstly it'll be for most married couples , in our very modern world, the very first time they have had to WORK WITH EACH OTHER on a clear, defined, onerous, and material yet reachable goal! This so - no matter how long they have previously lived together - secondly sailing is usually only the active dream of one partner, and not that of the other. In this modern age, it is not always correct to assume that it is the boys are the ones with the sailing dream! More often than not, the boys can't handle it, while the ladies do. - thirdly the two people tent syndrome - fourth most yachts are bought for the prestige & the privilege, not for the passage! Take a walk about any sailing yacht marina and 19 out of 20 of those boats will never be sailed anywhere! 1 Some great wine will be drunk in the cockpit, as the 'captain' with the pristine naval anchor embossed cap, gingerly fingers one of the many confusing gleaming self tailing winches, and tells, with raised chest, of how many bunks his proud boat sleeps. Annually the boats will be hauled to scour the hull, to rid it of barnacles, but as much to fend off the inevitable, and ultimately fatal harbour rot.
95% of the salt stains on yacht club member's docksiders, are from the piss stains gathered at the pub urinal, than are gained from the splash of an open sea.
1 There are something like 12,000,000 blue water ready boats registered in the world. Almost half in the USA, the rest in the UK & EU. Roughly 1700 odd yachts transit the Panama Canal annually. Of which only 300 or so are bound for the Polynesia's and beyond, & less than 200 plan to circumnavigate. Less do!
