Cruising Mindset

Cruising is not just the act of taking long trips on your yacht, it is an entire mindset that becomes you as you cruise. 

Maddie and I have cut the dock lines to society and set off as full time cruisers. We have no schedule, no itinerary, no nothing! We simply pick a place and start heading there. We get there when we get there is a good way to sum it all up. 

When we had taken "extended vacations" before that we called cruising, we had a set amount of time available to us. We had a destination in mind and a return date already set. Everyday that we weren't heading towards our destination was a day lost, because we did have to turn around at some point to return to work. 

While the trips were relaxing, they were still speckled with stress. If the winds were not right, or we didn't get far enough on a day, we felt like we might not actually get to our destination and we would be forced to turn around by our jobs. 

Now, we don't worry about these sorts of things. We wake up when we wake up, raise anchor when we feel like it, and sail until we decide to stop for the day! 

We were anchored in Harness Creek in South River when we decided to visit a little town called Easton. This town is located far up a river and was rather far for us by sail. We didn't care and we set off towards this new destination.  

After three days of sailing, we were nearing this town on the river and were only 0.3 nautical miles from the place we want to anchor for a while when we ran aground. 

Running aground is never a fun time, but the truth is it isn't that bad for us.  Wisdom, our sailboat, has a full keel. Running aground simply means that we are sitting on the bottom of the river with no worry about damage to our undersides. 

We checked the tide table and found that it was nearly low tide, and the tide was going out. We tried to heel over with the sails, kedge off, even be pulled off by the assistance of a passing powerboat. Alas, the tide had gone out too fast and our waterline was about 6 inches higher than normal. Our keel was stuck in the mud and our only hope was to wait for high tide to lift us off. 

The tide would take a few hours to come back up, and instead of stressing our situation, we simply got out some cheese and a game to eat and play in the cockpit while we waited. 

That is the true sense of cruising. Time no longer matters, as you simply take each day as it comes and each moment as it presents itself. There is no worry about deadlines nor schedules, as we are merely sailing along as best we can in the direction of our next destination. 

Blister Repair

Osmotic blisters may be the bane of a fiberglass hull, but it is a small problem that has been blown way out of proportion. The truth is, all hulls suffer form some form of degradation: wood hulls rot and get worms, fiberglass hulls get blisters, steel hulls rust, and aluminum hulls disappear by galvanic corrosion. You simply need to choose a hull material that you feel comfortable repairing yourself.

Blisters are caused by the osmotic pressure of water that passes through the layers of fiberglass and exposes areas of delamination. When the hull is lifted from the water, these areas will bulge out like lumps. When you crack them open, water will pour out with intense pressure. 

Fixing blisters can be a very costly endevour if you pay to have someone else do it, but they are actually very easy to fix yourself. You only need a grinder and an sander. 

Using a grinder, you can rip through the blister, tearing out all the delaminates fiberglass that is overtop. Then you can begin to tear out laterally, as you follow the damage from the blister. As you work, the affected area will be wet and have a slight brown color to it. You simply want to grind away until you no longer see any brown or wet, and you can't even see where the different layers are of the hull. 

At this point you will have a gaping hole in the side of your boat. This may seem like a major problem, but it is easy to fix. 

If the blister is not too deep, the repair is very straight forward. If the blister is rather deep, then you simply need to take a few extra steps to fix it. Neither of these two methods are difficult, and both can be done in a few minutes. 

If the blister is shallow, and not passing through many layers of the hull, you can simply fill the hole with thickened epoxy. How deep is too deep for just epoxy is dependent on the hull itself. If you have a 1/4 inch deep hole on a 1/2 inch thick hull, you have just compromised 50% of the hull in a blister! Yet, if the hull is inches thick, this is a small surface scratch that is inconsequential to the total structural integrity of the hull. 

In my case, the hull in this area is 1.5 inches thick, and the blister was 1.4 inch deep. This comes out to be 1/6th the hull thickness, so I simply repaired it with thickened epoxy. 

Regular West System Epoxy can be mixed well, then 406 thickening agent can be added until the entire mixture looks like thick peanut butter. This thick mass can then be stuffed into the hole and wiped over with a plastic spatula. The spatula will contour the blisters surface to be flush with the hull, taking all the work out of fairing the repair job! It is just that easy, simply smear it in and smooth it off! 

If th blister is deep, you can wet the area with untickened West System Epoxy, and then add some chop strand mat to the hole. This will provide new fibers that will add in the structural integrity of the entire repair. Over this layer, you can then add more unthickened epoxy to fully wet the strands of fiberglass. When they are all wet, you then proceed with the thickens epoxy just like before. Simply smear it in and scrape it smooth! 

Blisters may be an eyesore, but they are more an annoyance than anything else. Small blisters will not sink your boat, only it's resale value! Keeping your boat out of the water through winter allows the hull to dry out well and reduce the incidence of blisters as well. If you live aboard though, your boat will always be int eh water and blisters will become a fact of life when you haul out. 

You can choose to ignore them until they get big, or you can choose to repair each and every one of them as they occur. Which ever way you choose to go with, just keep in mind that blisters are not a death sentence to a fiberglass hull, simply an annoyance you get in response to your relaxed maintenance schedule of haul outs. 

Needs and Wants

Living aboard makes you grossly aware of the difference between needs and wants.

A need is something that you must have to survive. A want is everything else that you would like to have but can survive without.

While we all learned about needs and wants growing up, we were never truly penalized for surrounding ourselves with wants disguised as needs.

When living aboard, this lesson is brought back to you with an iron fist. Boats are smaller than houses, and thus you will not have all the space you would typically have available for collecting false needs.

Yes, you could always put up an extra shelf in a boat to display your favorite nick knacks, but this fine display will only last until the next yahoo comes barreling through the harbor and creating a huge wake. Your boat will pitch and roll, causing all your delicate trinkets to fall over and break.

If you bring all of your false needs onto the boat when you first move aboard because you couldn't bring yourself to part with them; the boat will help motivate you to get rid of them. Either the boat will break them, or you will get frustrated with the lack of space and willfully choose to discard them.

The true need for space will soon overpower the false need for stuff. You will quickly learn what you really need and what has been shoved down your throat by the corporations as something you need. This distinction may take some time, but eventually, we all get there.

Once we reach this point, we begin to see what is truly important in our lives, such as personal enrichment, well being, and happiness; all of which do not require the purchase of the latest "As Seen on TV" item.

The smaller your first boat is, the quicker this lesson becomes apparent. I started out alone on a 45 foot sailboat, and it took me a few months to realize that some of the essential items I brought into the boat were not as necessary as I had first thought. Once this enlightenment had been reached, these items were quickly carted off the boat and sold at a local swap meet. On the other hand, one of our neighbors started off on a 27 foot sailboat as a couple with a dog. They reached these understandings in a matter of weeks, as space for them was a significant premium. They have since moved up onto a 34 foot sailboat where their enlightened views have carried over, making them feel spoiled by all the space they have around them.

Living in a marina will buffer you a little bit as extra space can be had quickly. Many liveaboards have a large dock box located at the foot of their slip where they fill it to the lid with junk that they hardly ever use. Once the dock box is filled, they then begin to open up storage units which further allow them to accumulate clutter. While they do live in a tiny space, their storage capabilities are still vast. They will sometimes continue to hoard items that they can't bear to part with until they realize how infrequently they visit their storage bin on shore and how much it is costing them a month to keep their junk.

I was also guilty of this practice. I had a shed in my parents yard filled with junk from my apartment that didn't fit in the boat when I moved off of land. This shed was full of junk that I never touched in 5 years! Then a tornado came through my parents yard and wrecked the shed. I had the choice to either rebuild the shed or discard the shed and all of its contents. My first thought was "I need this stuff" and then I realized that had I truly needed any of this stuff, I would have brought it to the boat by now!

And so, the shed has been dismantled and the contents discarded. I have not missed a single item that was in there.

To further make it apparent what we really need vs what we want, you need to cut your ties with land all together. This will make it impossible to have a secret stash somewhere outside of your boat as you will be forced to become fully self sufficient. Every need must be within your hull, and every want will be stealing space from a need.

Maddie and I have decided to cast off the docklines and go cruising. In doing this, we have further downsized our belongings. There is a major trend in the items that have been removed, they are all appliances! We have taken off hair dryers, toasters, blenders, and the like because we will not have the electrical means to power them. Instead we will use towels, pans, and knives to do the same work. We were concerned that not having these appliances present would make our lives harder, but the truth is we haven't noticed a difference. Maddie has cut her hair shorter to make washing and air drying easier, we use the same pan that we cook our eggs in to make toast, and we don't fret the need to finely chop vegetables on a cutting board while cooking. All of these appliances took up a lot of space and caused us headaches as they would draw immense amounts of power, sometimes causing the breakers in the boat to trip! Instead, we have traded all that noise and stress for peace and tranquility where we achieve the same end result without the clutter, cost to purchase and operate, or fear that the item will breakdown from exposure to the marine environment. Instead, we are able to lead our lives happily and carefree, without all that stuff in tow.

Saying "See You Later"

The hardest thing about going cruising is not finding the right boat or making it fit your needs, no the hardest part is saying goodbye.

When you find your dreamboat and move aboard, you will be surrounded by other liveaboards in the marina. Liveaboards can be rather "interesting" people, but you will be too.

Getting a boat prepared will take time, and all the while you will be making friends with your fellow boating neighbors. It took me 5 years to transform an old blue water capable boat into a blue water cruiser. Over these 5 years I have made some very good friends. I would easily say that these friends are the best friends I have ever had, and that makes this the hardest part of all.

When you untie the lines, you will set off on your journey over the horizon. This also means that you will not see your friends anymore because you will be away.

We haven't untied the lines yet and we have already made plans to meet up with our friends in different places as we sail along, but visiting with them is very different from living near them.

Ben and Kate, one of our closest friends, live a few piers away from us. We will regularly just go knock on their hull unannounced, as do they, to go grab some food. Maddie works odd hours as a painting instructor, and Kate also works odd hours as a flight nurse. If either Ben or I are alone, we will go see what the other couple is up to and just hang out.

Once we are cruising though, we will give up this luxury. The only way we can meet up with them will be to schedule and plan ahead. This transforms the dynamic from spontaneous to planned.

This, in my opinion is the hardest thing about casting off to go cruising. While we are aware that we won't see them as regularly or as often, we are aware that we will come across many new people as we cruise, offering a glimmer of light in the darkness of the unknown that lays before us.

Safety While Working

All projects that you decide to carry out will carry with them an inherent risk. It is therefore your choice to run the risk and do the project yourself or pay someone else to run the risk in your stead.

Rigging is an excellent example of a risky activity where safety is important. There are two main concerns while aloft: falling, and getting hit.

Falling is an obvious one. If you go to the top of the mast and your rope breaks, you will plummet to the deck and probably your death. This obvious safety concern gives me employment as other people pay me to go up their mast to carry out simple tasks high up in the air.

The other safety concern is much less obvious. Getting hit is a major issue that will cause serious harm to a person who is aloft. The biggest cause of these injuries is hitting the mast itself. When working aloft, all movement of the boat is amplified as you go higher up the mast. A simple wake that rolls the boat at deck level will send you swinging far from the mast while aloft. The problem is when you swing back, you will smash into the mast with a lot of force and no protection from the impact.

To mitigate this risk, a safety line is tied to the spar, preventing you from swinging far and minimizing the harm caused by swinging away and back into the spar.

Safety became very apparent to me when I started casting bronze for the dinghy we are building.

My original safety gear was a pair of fire proof gloves and some long tongs to extend my reach into the hot and molten metals. Aside from the gloves, I had no other safety equipment. After much disdain from my parents, wife, and other people on the internet, I decided that it would be wise to cover up and be protected.

I was viewing casting bronze as I view target shooting. If you mess up, it can kill you, so pay attention to what you are doing and don't mess up.

My main concern was burning myself, so I donned fire proof gloves. I know that the bronze is close to 2000*F and would burn through my skin in a heart beat. Instead of donning fire proof clothing as well, my plan was to not put it over myself.

When target shooting, you wear ear protection and aim the gun away from yourself. I have never worn a bullet proof vest while shooting at a range because I never plan on getting shot while there. Likewise, I was not wearing flame retardant clothing because I was not planning on setting myself on fire.

Just like with guns, one slip can have costly consequences, and so I have acquired the appropriate clothing to wear while doing my last attempt at casting.

Safety is important and you never plan to get hurt. I have been very lucky on my first two attempts at casting. Hopefully my luck continues on this third and final attempt at casting while I wear protective clothing.