Hey – thanks for landing here. If you’re looking for a bit of hand-holding or mentoring about any or all of the following, you’ve come to the right place:
- choosing the right boat for coastal or further afield sailing
- selling the idea of sailing or cruising to your partner and/or family
- the in’s and out’s of the sailing/cruising lifestyle
- what’s involved with maintaining and owning a sailboat
- the costs associated with owning/cruising around on a boat
- traveling as a family (social life, homeschooling, living with each other 24 hours/day, etc.)
- staying safe
- developing skills regarding sailing, passage planning, weather forecasts and provisioning
We mentor couples and families, through email and phone communications, to successfully transition into, and embrace, the sailing lifestyle.
We do this by:
- answering burning questions to quickly reduce worries and/or concerns
- being a experienced sounding board for potential plans, ideas and decisions
- highlighting key questions to ask, consider and discuss so to better define expectations of yours and others
- keeping it real – we’re not here to sell the lifestyle and discuss only the positive aspects. We’ll flag problem areas or speak out if we see something that’s not realistic.
- saving you time and money
But lets back up a bit. Who are we to talk?
My husband, Simon, and I are on our 5th year of being full time liveaboard cruisers.
We’ve sailed over 30,000 nautical miles around the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic Ocean, throughout the Caribbean and along the southeast coast of America – all with our young daughter, Sienna, in tow. When we left land Sienna was only 3 ½ years old.
When we started living the sailing lifestyle we had no clue what we were getting ourselves into.
The learning curve was overwhelming. We made so many mistakes – way too often we spent money that we could have saved, made errors that we should have avoided and ultimately reinvented the wheel way too many times.
With so many extensive text-book style boat manuals, sailing forums, YouTube channels and sailing bloggers we got lost. When issues came up we didn’t know where to find the important bit of information we needed.
Sailing books seemed to be overly complicated and confusing.
Responses to questions asked in forums often made us feel bad for asking the question in the first place (duh..how do you not know that?).
YouTube channels can’t be searched so even if you recall seeing a sailing vlog cover something it’s often impossible to find it again!
And sailing bloggers have great content but it’s often hard to find on their website (and I include myself in that! My website has over 500 articles that are very helpful but creating a way that’s easy to find what you need is not so easy).
What I also found once we got into the sailing lifestyle is that there are a whole host of armchair sailors that love to cut you down if you don’t know everything. The sailing world is so full of jargon and even salty seadogs will look at you like you’ve got a third eye when you don’t know the accurate terminology (How dare you ask what reefing means – everyone knows that)!
Looking back, what we needed was to be able to send an email or pick up the phone and call someone.
Sometimes our questions were broad like:
- what size boat would be best for our family and budget?
- where do I start when it comes to homeschooling?
- how much does it cost to keep the boat going on a monthly basis?
As time went on, our questions became more specific like:
- how do we save money by servicing our engines/motors ourselves?
- how do we clean our fresh water tank?
- does our passage plan from A to B make sense?
- Is this sailing gadget worth the money?
And the questions, ‘Are we making the right decision? Are we doing things right?’ came up over and over again.
We had a few really good resources that we could go to get questions answered but felt bad asking too many things or taking up too much time.
We didn’t want to be a burden but we really wanted help.
Eventually, however, the tide turned and instead of seeking answers to hundreds of questions we started answering those that were following in our footsteps. Because of our learning curve, we’ve found answers and offered help, education and insight through our blog articles, YouTube videos, sailing books, guides and…
So, now we’ve started our Sailing Mentoring service to mentor over email and the phone (when not at sea).
Our mentoring/coaching service is only $100/month. The way it works is that we’ll set up a phone call to discuss your questions, concerns, ideas and so forth and then we’ll follow up over the course of the month.
When it’s impractical to use the phone, we can communicate over emails.
The end result, whatever means it takes, is for you to successfully achieve your sailing lifestyle dreams.
The Mentor service is a priority option for those that have questions and concerns but don’t want to spend hours and even days looking for the answer.
To get the ball rolling, simply pay $100 via PayPal using the following link. If you don’t have a PayPal account that’s fine – the system will allow you to use a credit card. Just visit the link, enter the amount and click on ‘Next.’ Once we receive notification of the payment we’ll email you to discuss a date and time to have our first chat: https://www.paypal.me/sailingbritican
Please note that there are a limited amount of people that we can mentor at any one time so this offer is available on a first come first serve basis and spaces are limited. Furthermore, it’s important to realize that when we’re sailing or in areas with limited wifi it may take longer for responses.
If you have any questions, please email Kim@SailingBritican.com
Feedback from Mentees
“Simon and Kim – You’ve not only helped to keep us sane throughout the boat buying process but you saved us thousands of dollars. If it wasn’t for your thoughtful consideration of our situation, we would have purchased the wrong boat and had a potential nightmare on our hands. And now that we’re out on the water, in our dream boat, I value your assistance with the passage planning and all the other things that pop into my head. Knowing that you’re at the end of the phone or an email has truly made our experience less stressful. Anyone that’s interested in buying a boat and sailing off into the sunset needs to have you two around!” L & T Mann
“Your help has been invaluable. You’ve reduced many of our fears, answered many unknowns and have basically held our hands over the course of 15 months to make our dreams a reality. We can’t thank you enough.” Sam & Mary Shelton
“I love to read your posts and watch your videos. And now that you’re helping me with my plans to set sail on long passages (Brazil to Med and Caribbean) I’m even happier. Your information/tips are very valuable for me. Everyone should follow you guys and sign up to your mentorship service. It’s the best.” O. Santos
