TEN YEARS AFTER HIS FIRST CRUISING CIRCUMNAVIGATION, DAN BOWER IS GOING AGAIN. HE SHARES ADVICE ON KEY PREPARATION
On 1 February 2024, Skyelark II nosed her bow through the Panama Canal’s final Miraflores Lock, and became the first yacht of this year’s World ARC fleet to enter the Pacific Ocean.
It’s now a full decade since we first set off westward from the Caribbean with our sights on the Pacific and sailing around the world. For myself and my wife, Em, the World ARC in 2014 was the culmination of six years of preparation and planning, working towards that dream – and the honeymoon we had promised ourselves. Admittedly our main hurdles were mainly financial – in our 20s there was first the challenge of how to buy and equip a cruising boat, then how to fund a round the world sailing trip. Our solution was to take paying guests, and as charter skippers (check out adventuresailing.com) we were not typical of the owners on such a rally.
Back in 2014 we also wrote a series of articles and created accompanying videos (Bluewater Sailing Techniques) with Yachting World. The series of instructional features and accompanying short videos on bluewater cruising focussed on skippering skills and preparations, and covered both the human elements on how to keep a happy ship, such as watchkeeping and provisioning, to the practical skills needed to keep both boat and crew safe, such as dealing with squalls, navigating tricky coral passes, and recovering a man overboard.
Before we headed back into the Pacific again, this time departing with the World ARC 2024, for both nostalgia and research purposes I revisited the Bluewater Techniques series to see how it holds up and whether it’s still relevant.
I wanted to see, with the benefit of hindsight (Em and I now have 100,000 more miles under the keel, and two more Pacific crossings), how much had changed and whether the challenges are still the same. On re-reading I’m pleased to see that the techniques we suggested then are still valid, and the articles are certainly worth looking at whether you are dreaming of – or indeed actually going – bluewater sailing.
The videos perhaps aren’t as slick as the current proliferation of sailing YouTube channels, but they get the message across – and I am pleased to say my fish filleting skills have since improved!
But, financial considerations aside, how much preparation is actually needed before setting off? What are the obstacles to heading off around the world safely and enjoyably? And how can you plan to overcome them in 2024? The following are my top considerations...
Human elements
Personal preparations and sailing skills are
