Member Jonathan Lloyd s/v Sophia has prepared a detailed paper on the steps that aspiring world voyagers should take in preparing themselves and their boat for distance sailing. We are posting his paper in sections here and ask our very experienced members to comment, providing different perspectives and insights from their own experience. When completed, we hope to compile a paper on Best Practices in Preparation for Ocean Voyaging as a reference. 

Part I: INTRODUCTION

Undertaking a circumnavigation of the world in your own yacht is not only an activity, which takes a substantial amount of time but one which requires considerable planning and preparation. If you join a rally such as the World ARC, the feat can be accomplished in 15 months. However, most cruisers adopt a more leisurely approach and take up to 5 years and even longer. The more leisurely approach means that the vast majority of circumnavigators are retirees in their 50s and 60s, most of whom are double-handed married couples or partners of long standing. However, there are younger couples often with young children, who are able to take a sabbatical or break from work in order to achieve this ambition. In some cases, they break their circumnavigation and return to work in order to obtain the necessary funds to continue. There are also single-handers, who fall into both categories.

In our case, our circumnavigation started when we left the Solent on 1st June 2014 and finished when we crossed our outward track on arrival in Martinique in the Caribbean on 8th March 2018. Cruising up the east coast of the USA this summer has given us ample time to reflect on how well prepared we were for this challenge and the lessons we have learnt in this regard, which might be of assistance to those contemplating such a venture in the future.

While undertaking a circumnavigation had been a long-held ambition for both of us, the requirements of career, children’s education and caring for elderly parents meant waiting until these responsibilities were no longer a consideration before we could start the serious business of planning and preparing for this undertaking. With the death of my mother in 2012 the opportunity arose to do so. Once her affairs and estate had been settled I agreed to retire in April 2013 with my wife Anne following suit several months later. This would give us approximately a year to get organised. We reckoned that we would need at least this long in order to prepare both ourselves and also prepare and equip our yacht, as well as making the necessary domestic arrangements for a long term absence. At this point, we also set a target date for our departure, as it is all too easy to let your departure date slip if you do not have a target.


Vice Commodore, OCC 

Part VI: NEED FOR SELF RELIANCE

While the areas just listed above constituted the principal elements of our preparation activity and budget, they were by no means the only ones. We discovered that there were a plethora of other areas to be addressed before we would be ready to depart. Much of what follows centres on the importance of self-sufficiency; a point which had been seriously emphasised by our OCC mentors. When you have a problem at the midpoint of a 3,000-mile ocean passage there are no engineers, riggers or sailmakers available to assist or chandleries to provide the item of equipment that might be required to help fix it. You have to be able to deal with the problem yourself. Consequently, you must be personally prepared and have the right tools, equipment and spares to cover likely eventualities. I cannot say enough to emphasise the importance of this requirement! When we set off, even though we were forewarned and really well prepared in this regard, as a result, we did not appreciate fully just how many breakages and issues we would need to deal with during our circumnavigation and the ongoing nature of this aspect of ocean cruising. No sooner have you fixed one problem than another one rears it’s ugly head!

By way of personal preparation we both attended the RYA Diesel Maintenance course. I have been very fortunate that Anne quickly demonstrated a natural aptitude for this aspect of yacht maintenance and has proved to be a very capable engineer right from the outset. She has successfully tackled a multitude of problems along the way with a combination of skill, perseverance and improvisation. We ensured that we had a comprehensive set of manuals for both the yacht itself and all of the systems on board. We consulted manufacturers on what spares we should carry both for regular maintenance and also for dealing with potential breakages. In particular, we looked at what parts or items were particular to our yacht or might be difficult to obtain outside the UK, if we needed to replace them.

The list of potential spare parts can quickly grow to the size that would not disgrace the inventory of a small chandlery, so it is important to prioritise them based on their “mission critical” nature and the amount of storage space available. What I mean by “mission critical” is would the absence of the required spare part bring your circumnavigation to a temporary halt. It is also important to develop a stowage plan for spares so that they can be accessed quickly and easily; particularly in an emergency.

A very important element of preparation and developing self-reliance is acquiring a comprehensive and detailed knowledge of how one’s yacht performs and how the plethora of systems now to be found on a modern yacht operate. In our case, we took Sofia on a two-month cruise to the West Country in the summer of 2013. This was not a holiday, but an opportunity to learn as much as we could about how Sofia performed, familiarise ourselves with the newly installed equipment and develop an onboard routine. It proved to be extremely useful and revealed a number of shortcomings, which we were able to address in the ensuing months prior to our departure.

As well as preparing ourselves we realised that we needed to have the appropriate tools and equipment to deal with regular maintenance, minor repairs and major emergencies such as a dismasting.


Vice Commodore, OCC