SAILING DREAMS 2 REALITY

Vision

 

Our vision is to help you refine and turn your sailing dreams into reality quicker and in a better way.

 

What do we mean by “better”?  Hopefully the process and tips we provide will improve your ability to make choices you will be happy with about where you go, how you prepare and what kind of boat you get.  Making the choices that are best for you should ensure that you fully enjoy lots of the “good stuff” about cruising and minimize the inevitable “bad stuff”.

 

We think that our website will help you whatever your dreams are and whatever your experience level. You may have never sailed before or have been sailing many years and dreamed about setting off on a grand adventure – sailing in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the South Pacific or even sailing around the world.

 

 

About Us

 

 

Over the last 25+ years we have owned boats ranging from 23 feet to 46 feet.  Our sailing has primarily been in Australia and the Mediterranean.  We have also chartered sailing yachts in Tahiti, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.

 

The initial catalyst for this website was our decision to sell Champurrs, our Bavaria Vision 46.  We realized that providing details about our choices and what we based them on could help others.  While some of the details will be most useful to people who are interested in a boat like a Vision 46, we think that many of the things we considered will be useful to a broad range of people.

 

Champurrs has now been sold, but we had a wonderful last season in 2018.  In mid-April we went to Turkey, where our boat had been for a few years, and then sailed to Greece.  First we headed across the Aegean, passing close to Santorini, and then up the Ionian towards Preveza where we finished up at the beginning of August.

 

Overview

  

 

There is an enormous amount of information available on the web and in books about sailing and “living the dream”, which can be very time consuming to wade through and evaluate. 

We’ve set up our website in what we think is a logical way to help you think through the steps in turning your sailing dreams to reality.  We’ve included links to external sites and videos which we think are particularly worthwhile based on our experience.  Hopefully finding some of the “good stuff” early on will save you time and help accelerate your path to excellent seamanship.

The suggested order to navigate the site is: 

 

DREAMS

This is all about inspiration and deciding how important each of the many pleasures and rewards of sailing and the cruising life are important to you.

A few very useful sites providing a wealth of information about different cruising areas are JimBSail – A Cruising Guide for European Coastlines, Noonsite.com – The global site for cruising sailors and the Cruising Association.  We are members of the CA and rate it very highly but have also used the other two a lot. 

We also cover some ways to think about your current capabilities and ideas on how to further develop them.

 

SAILING

Once you have got your dreams sorted and where you want to go, or maybe even before then, it’s a good idea to start taking practical steps to improve your sailing skills.  Developing and refining good seamanship practices is a lifelong process. No experience? We have suggestions for you too.

Passage Planning and keeping a Ship’s Log or logbook are 2 of the necessary and fun things you will need to do.  There is no standard format for them, so we developed and used our own which we are now offering to you free of charge.  Just send us an email or use the contact form in the Support section to request them and we will email the customizable templates out to you.

 

BOATS

Ok, now you’ve worked out what you want to get out of sailing, where you want to go and have a good idea what you are, or will be, capable of doing.  Then it’s time to work out what kind of  boat would best suit you and find one!

In this section we’ll look at the big picture aspect of this endeavour as well as go over the various things we looked for in a boat and how we decided to equip Champurrs. 

 

SUPPORT

Ways to contact us, special thanks to those who have helped us and our site policies are in the final section.