{"id":157000,"date":"2025-03-20T06:21:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T06:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=157000"},"modified":"2025-03-20T06:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T06:21:11","slug":"does-anything-ever-go-completely-to-plan-at-sea-nikki-henderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/comment\/does-anything-ever-go-completely-to-plan-at-sea-nikki-henderson-157000","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Does anything ever go completely to plan at sea?\u2019 – Nikki Henderson"},"content":"Being a professional sailor, I realise how stupid this is, and I really should know better. From working for owners and using their credit cards to pay the bills, I know full well that the saying \u2018owning a boat is like standing in a shower and ripping up bank notes\u2019 rings true.\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve now learned that process begins right at the purchase stage, because apparently it\u2019s a rite of passage to buy a boat that\u2019s triple your original budget...\r\n\r\nLike any sensible sailor, I called upon the advice of trusted friends, colleagues and clients. Should I buy the boat? Am I crazy?\r\n\r\nNaturally, I picked my advisers carefully: all people who would say \u2018YES!\u2019 Romantics, who don\u2019t care for details. Remortgage my house? Sure! Spend a significant proportion of my income on berthing fees? Dreams are priceless!\r\n\r\nBoat infatuation is intoxicating. I\u2019m coming to realise that buying a boat is like embarking on a new relationship. The first stage is the dreamy honeymoon phase. Your love can do no wrong! Even their flaws are endearing. Looking up at the deckhead, I saw some water damage. \u201cHmm, it looks like the deck is leaking. I\u2019d probably enjoy replacing the teak.\u201d Right...\r\n\r\nWhat happens next? The sugar coating will wear thin. Flaws become irritating, infuriating. Lesson 1: just like people we can\u2019t expect boats to change. Especially older ones \u2013 they really get stuck in their ways.\r\n\r\nArticle continues below...<\/em>\r\n\r\n[collection]\r\n\r\nSo, the second stage is one of realisation. Realising that her slow acceleration upwind wasn\u2019t just a bad day; it\u2019s who she fundamentally is. Understanding that she will never be as tidy as you want her to be. And, disappointingly, she will always \u2013 always \u2013 groan and creak in her sleep at anchor.\r\n\r\nFrom realisation to withdrawal. After a time, all those flaws are going to feel too overwhelming to cope with. Maybe you made a bad call? You want out? You might be getting frustrated, angry even. But you\u2019ve committed now. There\u2019s no easy \u2018out\u2019. No-one wants to buy an unloved boat. So, defeated, you\u2019ll resort to apathy.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow\u2019s the boat going?\u201d your enthusiastic advisers will enquire, excited at the prospect of onboard sailing holidays (the real reason they all encouraged you to buy the boat).\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t even ask,\u201d you reply, as you dream of dry earth, a house far from the sea, possibly becoming a farmer...\r\n\r\nSo why go through this pain and misery? There are thousands of repeat offenders, who are into their second, third, even fourth boat marriage. There must be a good reason? Ah, the final stage: true love. To pull in another clich\u00e9: \u2018stormy seas make better sailors\u2019.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156468\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" The first phase of owning a boat is the 'honeymoon phase'[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe conflict, the aggravation, possibly depression, are all a necessary and unavoidable part of the process. If you do it right, out of fury emerges an honest acceptance of one another and a sense of deep almost connection and love. Now you have the boat of your dreams.\r\n\r\nBut dreams are never quite as imagined. The final stage: heartbreak. You lie awake at night worrying about her in a storm. You feel guilty for not maintaining her better. You reluctantly have to say no to other opportunities to spend time with her. She\u2019ll be a tether, constantly pulling on your heart strings. And for many, many people this all gets too much to handle. And the boat goes up for sale.\r\n\r\nSo, if the economics of a boat never add up. If owning a boat is painful, slow and full of bad surprises. If there is an exceptionally high neglect and divorce rate, then why buy a boat? Why risk the heartache?\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019re reading this you probably share my dream of sailing off into the sunset \u2013 perhaps on your own yacht. But is it worth it?\r\n\r\nIn the end, to buy a boat or not comes down to the \u2018why\u2019. The \u2018why\u2019 must be greater than all the costs. And those costs are great. So identify what that reason is. What are your deep psychological needs that a boat can fulfil? For me, it\u2019s freedom, adventure, and beauty.\r\n\r\nI hope the boat I end up buying will align with my values, help me be my best self, and be an extension of my soul. So, ask yourself: why? And if you have an answer, if it comes from a passion that runs deep in your veins, then welcome to the club. We share the same problem!\r\n\r\n
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Back in December I reminded myself what \u2018too close for comfort\u2019 feels like. After 18 days at sea, my crew and I finished an Atlantic crossing and parked up in Rodney Bay, St Lucia, with around 5lt of usable diesel left \u2013 barely a couple of hours run time for our 60hp Volvo. You could look at that and consider it an example of exceptional seamanship and precise fuel management \u2013 a perfect plan. Barely a drop in the tanks more than needed! Or you may judge it a reckless \u2018near-miss\u2019. Just one unexpected variable such as a messy sea state or dirty fuel, and we\u2019d have been stuck, windless and embarrassingly fuel-less, in sight of land. Whether you judge it good or bad; two things hold fast. 1) Cut it fine and get away with it and you have a great story in the bar. 2) Dig deeper, and there\u2019ll be lessons to learn. So, was it luck? Or a masterful plan that came together? A month earlier, I joined friends of mine on their new home: a 45ft catamaran. The boat was brand new. They\u2019d sailed her straight out of the factory to the Canaries. By the time I joined them they had a few thousand miles under their belt, and the very short list of warranty issues meant a crossing before Christmas was viable. Good news! We prepared together for almost a week, at which point a brilliant weather window awaited us. As is my routine on joining a boat, I gathered data. On the fuel specifically: the crew had been monitoring rpm and engine hours from new. From always running the engines in gear at 2,000rpm, and then cross referencing their logged engine hours with the diesel they added to the tanks on their first fill up in Tenerife, they knew the engine was burning 3.8lt\/1gal per hour, which matched the fuel consumption curve as per Volvo\u2019s manual. So, we made an educated assumption that the graph could be used to accurately predict fuel consumption for lower rpms and assumed a 2.2lt\/hr burn at 1,800rpm. At 2,000rpm the boat made 6.2 knots in a flat sea; at 1,800rpm it was 5.4 knots. The power generation was similarly significantly more efficient at lower rpm. On a cloudy day at sea, the power draw on the batteries required five hours of running the engines at 1,800rpm to bring the batteries back up to 100%. According to the manufacturer\u2019s manual the boat had two diesel tanks of 250lt each and 90% of the fuel in each tank was usable in practice. So, we had 450lt of usable fuel. We then added four 20lt jerry cans as an emergency reserve \u2013 which would offer us 125 miles range at 2,000rpm or 160 miles at 1,800rpm. Assuming a 28-day crossing in which every day was cloudy, we\u2019d need 308lt [28x5x2.2] for charging, and would have 142lt remaining [450-308] for motoring. That would mean 40 hours, or just over 200 miles of …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4389,"featured_media":156864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[969],"tags":[1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157000"}],"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\/4389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157001,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157000\/revisions\/157001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157000"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=157000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}