How to Sail Around the World Part-Time

Do you dream of sailing around the world in a sailboat?
Do you have a business or career you don’t want to sacrifice for that dream?
Do you have kids in school?
Do you think you can’t live on a boat year round? 

You don’t need to quit your job, sell your house, and take the kids out of school to complete a circumnavigation of the globe in a sailboat. You don’t have to wait until you are retired to sail for the South Pacific. How to Sail Around the World Part-Time tells you how you can do it without uprooting your life by taking two to six months off per year to sail the trade winds.

I answered yes to all those questions, and I plan to sail for Panama this May. There are a lot of misconceptions about sailing around the world, and I debunk them in my new eBook. I draw from my own cruising experience, and the experiences of hundreds of successful circumnavigators

Goodreads Giveaway of a Slow Boat to the Bahamas
You need to sign up by Friday, January 29, if you want to enter a drawing at Goodreads, the social network for book lovers, for a new, signed paperback copy of Slow Boat to the Bahamas. Thank you everyone who made it a number one bestseller in Kindle sailing narratives. Sign up for the giveaway here. If you have never used Goodreads before, you can sign in using Facebook or your Amazon login.  When I last checked, 180 people had signed up for the free book.

To join the adventure, move towards the cruise of your dreams, and help out the Slow Boat crew and other sailors dreaming of turquoise waters in paradise:

Buy Slow Boat to the Bahamas at Amazon.

Save $15 off you next purchase online of $200 at West Marine by using this link and the coupon code WMAFF at checkout.

Try a free sample of the Slow Boat to the Bahamas.

If you have read Slow Boat to the Bahamas already, let other sailors know what you thought of it at Amazon or Goodreads.

Deck fills by the scupper drains

Before we left for the Bahamas, we decided $4,000+ for a watermaker (desalinator) was out of our budget especially since we had to replace our roller furler.  Catching water is just a matter of putting the maximum surface area to the task.  Where do you get the most surface area?  Use the entire deck!  Most boats drain to a handful of scupper drains.  If you clog the scupper drains with a hand towel when it rains, the water will pool on the deck.  Most folks will choose to wait a few minutes (5 minutes or less) into the downpour before doing this to wash off the salt on the decks.  Then, they plug the drains with a small towel or sponge.  If you have deck fills right next to the scupper drains, then all the rain water will flow into your tank.

We installed a 30 gallon catchment tank in addition to our 70 gallon primary tank in case of any contamination.  Nevertheless, some treatment with bleach and/or a high quality activated carbon filter before the drinking water tap should make the water good tasting and safe to drink.

When we were in the Bahamas, it hardly rained.  What a tragedy!  🙂 Thus we did not really get to use the water catchment system much.  Nevertheless, depending on the location and the season, water catchment could save a lot of money and time on the cruise of your dreams.

40% off Slow Boat to the Bahamas
The eBook version of the number one wished for Bahamas travel guide is 40% off.  Pick up a copy for $5.99 at Amazon.

To join the adventure, move towards the cruise of your dreams, and help out the Slow Boat crew and other sailors dreaming of turquoise waters in paradise:

Buy the book at Amazon.

Save $15 off you next purchase online of $200 at West Marine by clicking the orange coupon at the bottom of the linked page.

Try a free sample of the book.

If you have read it already, let other sailors know what you thought of it at Amazon or Goodreads.

Making your engine blue water ready

Salt water in the engine is very common after the first big ocean passage.

I was interviewing candidates for my next big trip from New Orleans to Panama this May 2016.  (I will elaborate more on my reasons for taking the Slow Boat to Panama in upcoming newsletter.)  A potential crew member that I ultimately invited mentioned that he crewed on a boat bound for the Galapagos from Panama City when the engine was ruined by salt water coming up the exhaust.  I e-mailed the skipper and owner of the boat, and he said that tacking back to Panama City with a ruined engine was the hardest thing he had ever done.  Unfortunately, this happens regularly to sailboats that attempt their first big ocean crossing. The dean of sailboat repair and the author of the diesel engine bible for sailboat owners Nigel Calder writes on page 254 of Marine Diesel Engines, 3rd Edition, 2007: “Every year I get a number of e-mails from people with flooded engines, mostly sailboats.  More often than not the engine has functioned fine for years, but then a long-dreamed of cruise was undertaken and at some point the engine flooded.  The common thread is that on an offshore passage, the boat got in rougher conditions or bigger seas than it had seen before.” There are three ways that salt water can stuff your engine.  It can foul the fuel tank through the tank vent, it can back flow through the exhaust, or it can siphon through the salt water cooling intake.  We have had lots of water contamination problems on our outboards, and dealt with water in the gas tank on our previous boat.  Thus, this became a top priority on our outfitting for the big trip in 2016.  On the Slow Boat, we moved the vent from the side of the boat to high on the cockpit coamings, and put in a water alarm on our new, easy-to-change Racor diesel filter.  Also, since we got back from the Bahamas, we installed a new exhaust outlet with a flapper valve to retard water back filling.  Also we installed the gooseneck pictured below which should make siphoning more difficult: That leaves us to deal with the potential of salt water siphoning from the engine salt water intake and flooding the engine.  Closing the engine seacock while the engine is not in use is one alternative, but our boat shares a seacock with the head for flushing with salt water.  Thus, we will probably look to install a vented loop between the salt water pump and the heat exchanger before we set off. Replacing an engine on a small Pacific island, is a huge expense and headache that any boat owner will want to avoid.  None of these preventive measure is 100 percent effective, but they increase the odds that your first ocean crossing is not your last.

The Wrong Gift for Poseidon

Here is a the Gulf Stream crossing chapter.  I gave the sea god something he did not want, and I paid for it.  Like all Greek tragedies, you are inserted into the mayhem with little introduction.  In Chapter 20 of Slow Boat to the Bahamas, it is just me and my faithful toy poodle battling the elements while my daughter and wife plan to join the boat in a few weeks.

Slow Boat crew had a great cruise to the Bahamas.  Many of you have put Slow Boat to the Bahamas at the top of the Bahamas Travel Guides and Sailing Narratives bestselling eBook rankings at various times since it launched over a month ago.  If you have read it, let other readers know what you thought of it by posting a quick review on Amazon.  The book is FREE to Kindle Unlimited subscribers and through January 3, 2016, the eBook is HALF PRICE at $4.99.  On January 4, 2016, the eBook price goes back to $9.99.

In 2016, I plan to tell newsletter subscribers more about our travel plans from New Orleans to Mexico, Cuba, and Panama. Nevertheless, a sailboat only has destinations, not schedules, and the best laid plans of sailors often have saltwater splashed all over them.  Many projects are underway for that big trip, and I’ll keep you posted.  In addition, I have already started on the second book, and I hope to let newsletter subscribers sample some early drafts of those chapters.

The Slow Boat crew wishes you fair winds and following seas in 2016!