So, this has been a long time coming! I’ve hinted so many times that a lengthy post of everything I’ve picked up while living on a boat for almost half of my life was coming; but, as I’ve been barely able to post all my travel and book review posts, I haven’t had the time to reflect and draw up a list of everything I want to explain to you guys about my life. That’s what this post is for!
Here I’m going to be talking about nautical terms that I may have mentioned in previous terms vaguely but was never kind enough to elaborate on, or just interesting, little-known facts about boat life that you guys might find fun. Let’s get into it!
So, if you didn’t know by now, my family and I have been sailing around the world for the past decade, off and on. Actually, we just hit a pretty big milestone—we just circumnavigated, which means we’ve sailed around the entire globe. We started in the Caribbean when I was five, then sailed for two years to Australia, then sold our boat and moved back to the US for three years, before continuing our journey again in Australia on a different boat—Dafne II. We’ve been sailing on Second Dafne for about five years and plan to continue until I head off to university.
Phew, now that that’s out of the way, we can get down to defeating the actual Huns: boat structure! Now, even though I’ve been sailing for almost half of my life, my boat knowledge is not as expansive as I hoped it was. However, we’re going to attempt this.
This, my dear friends, is my best friend and favorite thing in the world: my home, Dafne II. She’s a beauty, isn’t she? I know you don’t have to tell me twice. She’s a 50-foot Lagoon—which is a French boat—(or a Lagoon 500, as some call it), and she’s absolutely the “condo of boats,” as my family likes to call her. We love our girl though, she’s just not as sleek or fast-moving as some other boats. That’s generally the rule for most Lagoons; though they can be fast, other, less comfortable and made for living in boats may be faster, like this one.
Notice anything? That’s right! This is Dafne I, our first boat. She was a Leopard, which is a South African boat that’s a really nice make. However, she got a bit tight with the five of us on there, so we definitely needed that upgrade to Dafne II when my sisters and I got to be a bigger size.
Now, to get into more specific facts about both of the boats my family and I have had, both Dafnes were/are catamarans, which means they had two hulls. This is different from monohulls (one-hull) and trimarans (three-hulls). Whenever I get too confused, I always think of the numbers hinted in the names: MONO-hul and TRI-maran. CAT-amaran is slightly less obvious, but I think it may be helpful to think of it like a cat, which walks on four legs, but two lines of legs. Does that make any sense? IDK, but it works for me.
Our boats also had masts (which balance the boat, as well as hold the sails when they’re up), a rigging system (a system of lines and ropes to hoist sails and keep the mast and other parts of the boat in place), rudders (balance and steer the boat beneath the water), propellers or props (to drive the boat when the engines are on), and many other various parts that drive a sailboat.
These parts and the many others I haven’t listed are essential to most of the boats within our genre, but boats like motorboats, industrial tankers, or racing boats, have other systems, so don’t blame me if you hear things you’ve never heard before about boats from me. I’m just trying to share my boat!
Okay, moving on, I thought it would be fun to move away from monotonous and boring boat facts and instead talk about some interesting facts about sailing and cruising the world I could tell all of you guys about. I’ve created a list myself, but please drop a comment for anything specific you would want to ask me. I do better when prompted than when asked for my own creation—that shows my convergent thinking mindset!
The Daily Rotation (of Not Only the Sun!)
While we’re actually sailing (by which I mean our anchor is pulled up and we are fully in transit between places), we usually have a watch schedule. “What, like the kind on your wrist?” you may ask. No, like the kind that rotates between people that happens in the military or in sci-fi novels. The kind during the night in most of these examples, but also happens during the day for sailors. Our kind of watch is similar to this in that we divide the hours of the day and night evenly between all on board unless some are crew or not capable of being in charge while everyone else is asleep. Then, everyone else is allowed to sleep or rest or do whatever they please, while one person is awake and alert to the happenings of the boat and our geographic surroundings.
The person on watch holds the world in their hands, but it doesn’t really feel like it. Every 15 minutes, they scan the horizon, looking for anything out of the usual (lights, boats, storms that could be dangerous), as well as check the electronics (the autopilot, the engines, if they’re on, the wind speed and direction, etc). Both of these things check that the boat is going in the right direction, is moving at the right speed (not too fast or slow), and nothing amiss is happening within eyesight of our surroundings. The on-watch person also checks our radar chart, which is on my dad’s iPad, and shows our direction, speed, and the location of any weather problems or boats. We use this to see in advance any nearby boats that we have to adjust away from or to prepare for a weather increase ahead of time. Where would be without our radar? Probably at the bottom of the ocean by now, sorry for being morbid.
The person on watch also has to do one other thing: fill in the log every hour. I know, I know, this is so old school; but my dad has insisted that on every major passage, we fill out the log. The point of a log book is to show our most recent location in case our electronics konk out and we’re lost at sea. Of course, we have many electronics that are kept up to standard and it’s very unlikely that the log book will be put to good use, but my dad insists. Recently, the log book has become almost full, so we’ve taken to filling it out at the end of each of our watch cycles, instead of every hour.
As I said, the cycle of watches and watch lengths changes boat-to-boat and case by case, depending on where you are and how many capable people are on the boat. When Dafne was fully crewed, we would have five people on the boat, but only four were able to do watch—that’s right, your girl was only 11-12 and couldn’t be trusted with a half-a-million dollar boat. So, the cycle would be three hours each. But, when Stella and eventually Cleo left, we were cut down to just my parents and me. Now, I am fully capable and trustworthy, so I’ve taken a watch schedule, but it is difficult to split watches three ways. We’ve also only had two or three serious watches where we’ve needed a watch schedule, but we’re still figuring out how that’s going to work moving forward.
Chores of Your Local Boat Girlie
So, who woulda guessed, that not only land kids have chores? That’s right, your girl has a lot of chores she has to do and knows a lot of other boat kids who are the same. However, boat chores, as you can imagine, are super different from land chores. Also, I am not a whiny child, and I understand the responsibility and work needed from me to help my parents run the boat, as they’ve done so much for me. So, I’ve never viewed my chores as “chores” and hated them, but have instead known that I contribute equally to all the work we have to do.
My chores, unlike other kids, change day-to-day. I usually do a lot of the cleaning, mostly because I enjoy it, but also because I don’t want my mom to be working so hard. We have a rotating schedule of cooking and dishes, so I do my share of those, though I do understand that my mom is a much better cook than me, so I usually do dishes more often than is equal. My dad usually puts the dinghy up and down, but sometimes I do it with him, or on my own. I help him with his repairs when he needs me, as well as carry or hold all the parts he asks of me. Many of his jobs require help, and my sisters and I have been his trusty assistants since we were little. I also do a lot of washing of the boat, as it’s a big job when we do it, and really requires the most amount of manpower. All-in-all, I am mostly the assistant and intern to my dad and try to do as much work as possible for my mom, though I leave most of the complex cooking to her.
Well, this has been my relatively brief explanation of all things boaty from a boat girlie! If you have specific questions or want to remind me of something I’ve missed, please, PLEASE, drop a comment below. Also, I would love to know if you have a fun fact you want to ask me about, as these two are the only ones I could come up with. Love y’all and hope you like my experiences as a boat kid!