What experiences would be ideal to have before heading out sailing on your own/as a couple? What do you have to know, to live the sailing dream, prior to untying the lines? How can you ensure you’re prepared to be a sailing cruiser?
Ultimately, what do you have to do to live the sailing dream sooner rather than later?
I’ll provide you with an answer soon. But before I do, let me ask you some questions:
- Do you want to become a sailing cruiser to experience more freedom?
- Do you want to create a lifestyle that provides more excitement and adventure in your life?
- Are you looking for a complete lifestyle upgrade?
- Are your daydreams filled with images of beautiful tropical blue waters, the smell of warm sea air, and feelings of blissful peace?
Yes? If so, why haven’t you made this happen yet? Why haven’t you become a sailing cruiser?
It’s an important question to ask yourself because I’ve discovered that most people blame the wrong things. Sure – finances come into it and then there is sailing know-how. Many aspiring cruisers think that they need XYZ and then they’ll be able to live the dream.
Almost always, that XYZ isn’t the issue!
By the time you finish this article, my goal is to make you realize the REAL reason that aspiring sailing cruisers are still aspiring rather than living the sailing dream.
My husband, Simon, and I have had hundreds of paying guests on our boat, all aspiring to become sailing cruisers. Some of our couples had a reluctant partner, but by the time they left us, the nay-sayer has always become an ambitious convert.
We’ve had several partners get aboard telling us, ‘I really don’t want to be here. This is my partner’s dream, not mine.’ Every single disinterested person we’ve had became quite the opposite by day three!
In fact, all our anti-cruiser guests now have boats and are living, and loving, the life.
Aside from our success stories about couples with differing opinions, a great majority of our other guests gave gone on to buy a boat and live the cruising life within one year of doing our Britican Experience.
After spending at least seven days at a time with hundreds of aspiring sailing cruisers, I realized that the problem they had with making their dream a reality wasn’t sailing no-how nor was it a lack of knowledge.
Some of our guests knew everything about sailing theoretically and even practically. Many knew very minimal amounts. Both ends of the spectrum, however, knew that sailing life was calling to them. They just didn’t know what the missing link was to get them from where they were to becoming a confident sailing cruiser.
Unbeknown to our guests, knowledge and sailing know-how, however, wasn’t the answer to living the sailing dream.
Many of our guests watch numerous sailing YouTube channels, have gone to the boat shows, done the ASA courses, been on a sailing charter, and spend hours upon hours drooling over the boat of their dreams. These things, however, weren’t enough to get them to push the button.
What our guests needed was one thing and this thing wasn’t apparent to me for a long time.
This one major thing our guests needed was a very visceral fully immersive experience of living as a sailing cruiser. They needed to feel what it felt like to operate a boat, call the shots, and live the sailing cruiser life.
Our guests needed to feel what it felt like to wake up to the sounds of lapping waves on the hull, enjoy the beautiful golden yellow sunrise, make themselves breakfast and coffee, and then get started on living the day as a sailing cruiser.
Living the day as a real sailing cruiser – That’s the missing link.
With guidance from Simon, our guests are prompted to check the weather, decide on the next anchorage, create a sailing passage, prepare the boat to sail, weigh anchor, and take the boat out to sea.
They then set the sails, follow the passage plan, and sit back taking in the salty sea air, viewing the white sand beaches, and gain a very deep and meaningful understanding of the amazing feeling of freedom.
More times than not, our guests have to fix something that breaks. Simon doesn’t plan breakages, but they often happen on a boat. The confidence that our guests get by helping to fix things elevates their internal ability level through the roof!
You don’t need to know how to fix everything to be a sailing cruiser. You only need to know that you’re able to fix anything.
What I’ve discovered is that our guests need to feel what it feels like, warts and all, so that they fully realize just how amazing the end result is going to be.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Once you know what it feels like to live the sailing dream, you know that it feels absolutely amazing when you see a humpback whale, and totally demoralizing when you can’t shift your seasickness.
You know how precious it is to watch the setting sun with cruiser friends sharing in the day’s delights and you also understand the frustration of having a boat job fail miserably.
The reason our guests didn’t yet make the dream happen is because they didn’t know what it would feel like to ultimately be a sailing cruiser.
They didn’t know how it would feel or whether or not the effort and money required were worth it.
One couple came aboard saying that they had a five-year plan to exit the real world and transition to boat life. The main stumbling block, they thought, was sorting out jobs and finances. After a week on Britican, I told them they’d be sailing within the year. The five-year plan went down to two years and before the year was over, they had their boat.
Another couple came aboard where one partner was eager to live the life and the other wasn’t. By day three the uninterested partner explained, ‘I had no idea that this was the sailing cruising life. Had I known it was so incredibly amazing, I would have done this years ago.’
This couple also purchased a boat within a year of their experience and are now living the sailing dream.
We’ve also had many guys during our Britican Guys Weeks that want to see what it’s like to be on a fully operating sailing cruiser boat. Many of our guys are single or have wives that won’t ever get on a boat. The Guys Weeks give them a safe opportunity to enjoy the camaraderie of other sailors and, once again, see what the sailing cruiser life is like.
An opportunity to go out on a working ocean cruising Oyster 56′, or any functional sailing cruiser boat, is rare.
After meeting with the cruiser community and finding loads of single cruisers in addition to being welcomed by the entire cruiser community, our guys realize it’s not uncommon to buy a boat and live the dream. Some of our guys are even able to convince their partners to give it a go!
All the pieces come together. All the questions get answered.
Having the ability to live the cruising life, before actually living it, enables our guests to gain confidence that they can handle maneuvering, anchoring, taking the dinghy to land, passage planning, dealing with a squall, servicing the engine, taking ½ day provisioning, cleaning the barnacles off the hull, cooking on a boat, and troubleshooting whatever breaks.
Additionally, our guests fully absorb the stunning tropical views, eat exquisite local foods, enjoy sundowners with the cruising community, snorkel the spectacular reefs, hike the local volcano, and sit out on the deck feeling freedom, peace, and fulfillment.
We didn’t know it at the time when we created the Britican Experience. Originally, we thought we were teaching people how to sail and a bit about the life such as how to provision, troubleshoot, manage a budget, and so forth.
What we ultimately created was a way to see, smell, touch, taste, hear, and feel the end result – the sailing dream.
And once you feel the dream, you’ve discovered the missing link from where you are now to where you want to be. Once you know where you’re going it’s easy to get there. It’s as if the Universe starts working for you and everything fits into place.
So, if you want to take the long road, go out and take some ASA courses, go for that sunset catamaran cruise offered from a hotel, or go on a sailing charter vacation. You’ll get little bits and pieces of the puzzle, but not everything.
If you, however, want to once and for all live your sailing dream, go out and find a Sailing Lifestyle Experience like our Britican Experiences. Go out and become a sailing cruiser for a week. I dare you not to become 100% sold.
We are sold out for 2022 and the 2023 sailing season is filling up quickly. If you’re interested in our Britican Experiences or Guys Week Experiences, visit the following page for more details =====> Britican Experiences
We also have contacts with other sailing cruisers that are offering similar experiences. Get in touch if you want more details. Kim@SailingBritican.com
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