{"id":131810,"date":"2021-05-12T16:13:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T15:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=131810"},"modified":"2021-05-13T11:16:57","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T10:16:57","slug":"bluewater-cockpit-conversations-expert-advice-on-choosing-a-yacht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/bluewater-sailing\/bluewater-cockpit-conversations-expert-advice-on-choosing-a-yacht-131810","title":{"rendered":"Join Toby Hodges for expert advice in ‘Bluewater cockpit conversations’ this May"},"content":"With so much uncertainty still surrounding travel, should cruisers still be sailing during Covid<\/a>? There is a moral quandary here. \u201cWe advise people to wait another year,\u201d says Janneke Kuysters who, along with partner Weitze struggled being stuck in the South Pacific for parts of 2020.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n

\u201cThe countries that are popular with cruisers are usually the poorer countries that will be the last to receive vaccines. You\u2019ll be heading to countries with weak and overburdened health care systems that are still a big infection risk. In 2022 a lot of that may be much more under control and will pose less risk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Some regions remain effectively out of bounds; most of the South Pacific<\/a> is either closed to new arrivals, or full, or both. Even yachts which have managed to gain entry into Australia<\/a> or New Zealand<\/a> have been faced with breathtaking mandatory quarantine and marina charges.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

You may be better modifying your country-hopping plans to reduce the risk if you plan on sailing during Covid. Elena Manighetti, spent 2020 crossing the Atlantic<\/a> and cruising the southern Caribbean aboard her Tayana 37 Skua<\/i> with her partner. \u201cI\u2019d take it easy in 2021 - the situation evolves daily and entry requirements change almost weekly. I\u2019d choose a big country (or two) I like and spend most of my time sailing around there, never venturing too far from a harbour.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\r\n

If you do go, Janneke Kuysters says: \u201cLeave a clean wake. We see that people get sick of the endless changes in demands and just go somewhere and sort it out on arrival. Usually it does get sorted out and people are let in. But if four, five or six boats show up unannounced, governments feel disrespected and start to make more and more demands on boats that are trying to do the right thing. <\/span><\/p>\r\n

\u201cKindness and compassion are at the heart of the cruising community: we all need to work on keeping that going for cruising generations after us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\nHaving to make a non-stop crossing of the Mozambique Channel<\/a> was not the only impact Covid had on Janneke and Wietze\u2019s around the world voyage, they also spent 11 weeks during the peak of the pandemic on anchor in the Maldives. We asked them, and other cruising couples, for advice on how to prepare for cruising in an ever-changing world:\r\n

Data<\/h2>\r\n\u201cThe most useful thing we did was to buy a lot of data in Maldives,\u201d recalls Janneke. \u201cIt was 40\u00b0C every day, with high humidity. We were not allowed on shore. Having lots of internet keeps your mind occupied: you can research possible options, devise plans A, B, C...\u201d\r\n\r\nThey also used it for WhatsApp groups in anchorages, so cruisers could share information quickly.\r\n\r\nJoshua Shankle, who spent three months on an uninhabited Pacific atoll mid-pandemic<\/a>, agrees: \u201cAfter Covid left us so isolated in 2020 we have a newfound respect for cell and satellite communication networks.\r\n\r\n\"We had a Garmin InReach on board that was helpful for communication and getting news updates while we were off the grid, and although we didn\u2019t mind the limited plan with only texts and weather, other cruisers preferred more feature-rich Iridium satellite phones.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\u201cBeing able to check in with loved ones is a worthy expenditure. For 2021, we are increasing our plan to include unlimited tracking and texting.\u201d\r\n

Power<\/h2>\r\nLiving full-time on board during periods of quarantine can put big demands on onboard power generation. Liveaboard sailors Phil Johnson and his partner were locked down at anchor in Antigua for over two months aboard their 47-footer Sonder.\r\n\r\n\u201cNearly 600W of solar panels, combined with a 3,000W Victron inverter, and 900Ah of lithium batteries enabled us to keep working full-time throughout the lockdown at anchor. This was enough to power our laptops for eight hours-plus a day, make water, and catch up with friends and family on Zoom calls.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis helped us to stay safely quarantined while still feeling connected \u2013 and keep our online business running. We used a local SIM card for internet data and topped up when venturing out to the grocery store.\u201d\r\n

Shore contact<\/h2>\r\nMore paperwork is inevitable, and with regulations changing frequently being able to complete documentation at sea is important. Having a back-up shoreside contact could be invaluable.\r\n\r\n\u201cOn our way to Sri Lanka, our agent (mandatory in Sri Lanka) started sending us all sorts of forms while we were at sea,\u201d recalls Janneke Kuysters. \u201cWith limited satellite connections, this became a problem. No forms, no entry in the country. A cruising friend who was still in Malaysia received the same forms and filled them out for us.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe took a picture of our signatures, added our boat stamp, decreased the file size and managed to send it over the satellite link to him. He pasted it into the forms and sent them off on our behalf.\r\n\r\n\u201cSince then we always have a shore contact who can handle unexpected forms for us. We make sure our shore contact has copies of our passports and the boat papers.\u201d\r\n

\"\"Cash<\/h2>\r\n\u201cHelp comes at a price. If a country goes into lockdown, the rules are clear. You will not get in. But there is always an opportunity to buy fuel, food and water. Expect to pay a lot of money for that, cash in US dollars or Euros. So it pays to have a stash of money available, in small notes,\u201d says Janneke.\r\n

Water<\/h2>\r\nThanks to high volume tanks many cruisers have not previously relied on having a watermaker \u2013 until 2020. Everyone we spoke to flagged this as an important upgrade or maintenance priority for future cruising.\r\n\r\nAnna Caroline does not have a watermaker on board. \u201cIn all those years of cruising we never had an issue with water, so we decided against it,\u201d explains Janneke.\r\n\r\n\u201cBeing stuck in a very hot anchorage showed us that 10 litres per day for the two of us is doable, but we missed water for laundry. We bartered with other cruisers \u2013 teaching their children etc. for water or loads of laundry.\u201d\r\n

Stocking up<\/h2>\r\nPhilippa Steventon is cruising the Med with her family on their Bowman 40 Bella<\/em>. Like many cruisers she modified her provisioning plan: \u201cWe kept the boat stocked with more food than we otherwise would have done \u2013 just in case we would need to do a longer passage or stay out at anchor for a longer period of time.\r\n\r\n\"We also opted to do a few big stock-up shops rather than lots of smaller little trips to multiple shops.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"\"\u201cIt pays to have lots of food on board, enough for a minimum of two weeks [quarantine] after your arrival date, even if you know that the country will take all your fresh products once you are cleared in,\u201d Janneke adds.\r\n\r\nBasic rations might suffice. \u201cWhen things started getting bad in March, we stowed a 10lb bag of rice and a few other dry provisions on board, just in case,\u201d recalls Phil Johnson on Sonder<\/em>.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was enough to get by on for 14 days\u2019 sailing if we were caught between borders in the Caribbean and had no choice but to sail straight back to the US.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not just food, buy fuel and water when you can, advises Janneke. \u201cWe have seen that the food supply to countries was disrupted; you compete with the locals for the available food. When you are quarantined in an anchorage, you will be the last to be able to buy something. Make sure you have enough to last longer than you think.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe same applies to things which you usually think are available everywhere; a broken phone charger cable can become a big problem if you haven\u2019t got a spare.\u201d\r\n

Testing and Insurance<\/h2>\r\nPCR testing on arrival and\/or departure is likely to be a fact of life for some time, and needs budgeting for accordingly.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nHealth insurance may also become a condition of entry. \u201cWe expect that countries will demand proof of health insurance in case of Covid and\/or insurance for repatriation. We\u2019re seeing the first countries (Malaysia, Ascension Island) making those demands already. Make sure you have the necessary paperwork,\u201d says Kuysters.\r\n

Staying informed<\/h2>\r\nFacebook cruising groups and WhatsApp chat groups are often faster at updating on latest situation changes than official channels. \u201cKnow before you go. It can\u2019t be overstated how helpful noonsite.com<\/a> is for checking the latest border\/quarantine rules as related to seafarers,\u201d advises Phil Johnson.\r\n\r\nPhilippa Steventon recalls: \u201cWe monitored local and UK news online as obsessively as we did the weather. This meant that when we heard rumblings of Mallorca going back into stricter measures in the middle of the summer, we could take the chance to sail out before getting stuck.\u201d\r\n

Antifouling<\/h2>\r\nYou may spend longer in the water, possibly stationary. \u201cGo for the harder antifoulings,\u201d says Janneke Kuysters. \u201cChances are that you\u2019ll be sailing less miles than you think. Especially in tropical waters, the marine growth is very rapid.\u201d\r\n

\"\"Official help<\/h2>\r\n\u201cMake sure your embassy knows where you are and what you are doing. We found our foreign representation very useful,\u201d advises Janneke Kuysters. But, she cautions, \u201cThey may expect you to hop on a repatriation flight, while you have no place to leave your boat behind.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor British sailors in Europe, Brexit combined with the pandemic has created considerable bureaucratic headaches: \u201cWe are currently working with an agent here in Sicily, from Luise Yachting, who is doing a great job making sure that we stay on the right side of the authorities,\u201d explains Philippa Steventon.\r\n\r\n\u201cOur planned trip back to the UK over Christmas became impossible due to the pandemic restrictions and cancelled flights. As such, on December 31 we were British Citizens in Europe and our Schengen clock began to tick.\r\n\r\n\u201cDue to the lockdown both here in Italy and the UK it is looking very likely that we will need to apply for an extension to our allotted 90 days \u2013 but that visa doesn\u2019t yet exist as something you can just apply for. Our agent has been told four completely different versions of what we should be doing to satisfy the authorities.\u201d\r\n\r\n
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\"\"<\/a>If you enjoyed this\u2026.<\/h2>\r\n
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ARC rally organisers World Cruising Club are running a unique series of events from 25-28 May, which should be essential watching for any aspiring bluewater cruisers looking to buy a yacht or make the leap to liveaboard life. The event will be called ARC Bluewater Cockpit Conversations and will feature Yachting World‘s own Toby Hodges. Bluewater Cockpit Conversations, will be forums held online and will gather previous ARC skippers, yacht surveyors, brokers and refit specialists to share their expert advice. Toby Hodges, Yachting World‘s boat test editor, will be among those passing on expertise on how to choose the right yacht for you, and there are also sessions on buying and refitting a yacht, as well as inspiration on amazing places to cruise from couples who have done just that. Jeremy Wyatt from ARC organisers World Cruising Club explains further: \u201cI am often asked by aspiring bluewater cruisers \u2018what is the right boat for the ARC?\u2019. This is a very broad topic and it is not easy to give a short answer. So instead we\u2019ve brought together a cross-section of experienced bluewater cruisers and industry experts to share their knowledge and help people focus on what will be right for them and their style of sailing. “We know from previous live events held with our partners at Berthon International Yacht Brokers, that people really enjoy the chance to hop-aboard our open-boats and have face-to-face conversations with our ARC skippers and industry experts. This year we are creating a virtual cockpit and inviting curious cruisers out there to grab a seat and enjoy our special cockpit conversations.\u201d Expert advice The ARC Bluewater Cockpit Conversations is a free to attend event running over four consecutive evenings from 25-28 May. Each will feature a theme, with different skippers and industry experts in the Cockpit to chat and answer live questions from the online audience. Article continues below… The four sessions are based on real experiences around the topics of: how to choose the right yacht for bluewater, how to buy a boat, planning your refit, and cruising amazing places. Supporting the live sessions are a series of pre-recorded webinars that the sailors can watch at their leisure, and some well-chosen inspirational videos from real-life cruisers enjoying their adventures and sharing further experiences and viewpoints on how they achieved their bluewater dream. The programme also includes a chance to look around some select offshore sailing boats, both from the hand-picked bluewater cruisers featured from the Berthon brokerage, and the boats sailed by the previous ARC sailors. Yachting World boat test editor Toby Hodges will be sharing his experiences with an update on some of the new boats currently available which represent typical family offshore cruisers. Brokers and ARC skippers will share their thoughts on features and functions important for bluewater cruising, whilst the surveyor and refit experts will discuss aspects of boat ownership and budgeting that are not usually found in the sales brochures. World Cruising Club have been organising the ARC for well …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":447,"featured_media":123076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[767,977,972],"tags":[208,836,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/447"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131810"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131872,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131810\/revisions\/131872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131810"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=131810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}