No sailor wants to experience a demasting. Make sure to complete a sailboat mast inspection, as part of your overall rigging inspection, at least once a year. Have you ever seen a sailboat with its broken mast hanging precariously over the bow of the boat. The sails are trailing in the water and the boat[Read More]
One of the most popular questions we get asked is, Am I too old for sailing? With our decade of sailing experience behind us, we’ve met sailors of all ages. One of the first couples we met were in their 80’s. That was eight years ago and they’re still going strong. Sailing has no boundaries –[Read More]
A question we get asked often is ‘How can I crew on Britican?’ Since 2015 we’ve taken volunteer crew for as short as a few weeks and as long as several months. Our volunteer crew learn all about the sailing lifestyle in return for offering their time, energy, and any special skills. We’ve had electricians,[Read More]
One of the biggest questions we get asked is, ‘How do I get sailing experience?’ Aside from joining a sailing club, offering to crew for boat owners, or chartering a vacation boat for a week, you can join Simon on Britican. Why Britican? With Simon you can learn not just to sail but how to[Read More]
Guests join Britican to learn a wide variety of skills and gain real-life cruiser experience. Learn to sail – tacking is one of the fundamental basics that we teach, practice, and improve on. Tacking is turning the boat while allowing the sails to move from one side to the other. Tacking is done while the[Read More]
Over the years we’ve grown to offer more than week-long sailing cruiser lifesetyle experiences. In addition to providing guests with a Caribbean island-hopping daily sailing and boat life opportunity, we also offer sailing experience in open ocean. Many of our open ocean long passage guests use this as the final test. This test allows them[Read More]
After a weather window opened, Captain Simon and five crew left Hampton, Virginia, and sailed to Bermuda. The reality of long passage sailing isn’t champagne and sunsets! The voyage took four days and started off with rough seas. Four of the crew were seasick but eventually recovered. Some were shocked at the size of the[Read More]
Before heading out into the open ocean we do a variety of tasks to prepare ourselves and Britican. In this pre sailing passage preparation video, you’ll discover what we did prior to sailing from Hampton, Virginia across the Atlantic Ocean, to Bermuda. The voyage to Bermuda is estimated to take around 100 hours and around[Read More]
Things feel very official now – sailing family separate. Two days ago Simon and I went to the boat and offloaded the few remaining things that signified Britican as a family sailboat. Watching the Christmas tree and festive collection bag leave the boat felt poignant. It wasn’t much, but it provided years worth of monumental[Read More]
For the first few years of our cruising life, I periodically wrote journal updates. The updates offered an insight into how our boating lifestyle was progressing. I offered what I felt, the epiphanies I had, and included any challenges. I shared my highs and lows in the hopes that I’d be able to make the[Read More]
