1.It is not the wind that is dangerous for yachts, but the waves. A storm of any reasonable strength alone cannot cause any damage to the yacht’s hull. The wind cannot turn the yacht over either. But a wave driven by the wind can wash away all equipment and people from the deck, and in case of an overturn, the yacht can sink. I am talking about cruising yachts and 6-8 meters waves.
2.It is not easy to come across a real storm and, moreover, a hurricane, if you are not looking for it. Many people around the world have been sailing for 20 years and have never come across extreme weather. But if you really want to, then there are places on Earth where a meeting with Poseidon in all his glory is guaranteed.
3.In recent decades, yacht manufacturing has undergone dramatic changes. One after another, shipyards, which for a long time have been producing serious and rather expensive sailboats for round the world trips, multi-day voyages, and so on, go bankrupt. In turn, unprecedented growth is shown by shipyards that manufacture mass-market boats for pleasure yachting. The retail price of yachts is going down, quality is getting worse, quantity is growing. Beneteau, Jeanneau, Bavaria, Hanse, Dufour, Elan, etc are the shipyards producing yachts that no one would have taken seriously 30-40 years ago. Hallberg-Rassy, Najad, Oyster, Westerly, Rival, Sadler, etc are either already bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy. Yachting has changed from a way to travel to a way to race and go out to sea for a casual sailing. This is evolution, and that’s okay.
Yachting is about finding ways to repair your boat in exotic locations.
4.Many people think that there are no really luxurious sailboats — only motorboats. It is not true. Google Perini Navi for example. In general, a very cool sailboat will cost as much as a very cool motorboat. It’s a matter of taste. So, a large sailing yacht doesn’t mean that the owner has not yet saved up for a motorboat.
5. Sailboats will exist until the moment when someone will not invent some other relatively economical way of moving on water without limitation in range. To cross any of the oceans on a motor yacht, you need to have a huge supply of fuel that must be stored somewhere, so this yacht must be of the appropriate size. In yachts it works like this: the length is directly proportional to the cost. Therefore, few can afford a motorboat trip around the world. A sailboat from 6 meters long is already a real ship, on which you can sail in open spaces. But as soon as a conventional nuclear reactor the size of a matchbox appears, yachtsmen will switch to this method of movement, and sailboats will remain for old-schoolers and athletes. This is what happened with photographic film. However, all this is not 100%.
6. Owning a yacht is not expensive. In northern Europe, you can buy a sailboat ready to sail around the world for 10-20 thousand euros. No, it won’t be a piece of shit. But you will need to work on fixing it. And all thoughts and plans will be about it.
7.The British say that yachting is about finding ways to repair a boat in exotic locations. It’s true. Yachts break down all the time. Absolutely horrible operating conditions (shaking, salt, loads, ultraviolet light), an insane amount of spare parts, the crew that doesn’t know what it is doing — all these are the reasons that the owner of a boat is constantly repairing something. Yes, you can buy a yacht for little money, but you have to invest daily. Although, if you have a clever pair of hands, don’t mind being homeless and don’t need any conveniences, then you can do with a minimum of financial investments.
The Mediterranean is a pretty lousy region for sailing yachting. There is almost always too much wind or no wind at all.
8.Sailing is considered an extreme sport. In fact, as long as it is just sport, and not a world-class sport, the chances to become disabled, dye or go missing are quite small. Modern yachts, if a skipper is competent and the yacht is fixed, are quite safe. Everything is the same as with cars.
9.Contrary to popular belief, the Mediterranean is a pretty lousy region for sailing yachting. There is almost always too much wind or no wind at all. For a sailor, the ideal weather is moderately strong and steady wind, like, for example, in the Caribbean.
10.All shipyards film inspiring commercials about how their boat is steadily sailing under a slight comfortable roll, managed by a brutal male, and a female in a dress at the same time drinks cold rose wine and smiles at the sun. In real life, everything is not so. However, if you find a closed bay, in which there is no wave, choose the right weather, do not pour too much wine into a glass, then for about 15 minutes you will be able to bring the commercial to life. But no longer.
11.Sailing athletes differ from cruising yachtsmen as much as Formula 1 riders differ from ordinary drivers. That is, a person who has been racing on the Optimist since the age of 6 needs to learn sailing in long voyages no less, and often more, than those who started cruising straight away, even if not from childhood.
12. Size is not important. And with sailboats too. To sail across the seas and oceans, you do not need a large yacht, but you need a well-prepared one. Any talks about the fact that it is impossible to travel around the world on a 10-meters long yacht are justified by nothing, except cowardice.
13. When you hear from beginner yachtsmen stories about the horrible storm they have been through, perhaps you should doubt their stories. And that’s why:
a) The wind is often gusty. At a linear speed, for example, 10 m / s, gusts can blow even up to 20 m / s. Fear has many eyes, and they will notice that figure on the anemometer, which blinks 1 time for 1 second, and then this figure will appear in their stories.
b) Sailing yachts sail under the so-called apparent wind. This is the wind that you get from adding the natural wind speed and the wind speed generated by the movement of the yacht. That is, if a yacht is sailing using the wind that blows relative to the front, then the apparent wind is stronger than the natural. The devices most often display the speed of the apparent wind. Beginner yachtsmen forget about it and think that the weather is close to stormy, which is not necessary so.
14. The Russian maritime language began and finished its development in tsarist times. Therefore, most of the modern yacht parts have only English names. And the Old Dutch words, such as grottoes and staysails, are slowly but surely leaving the everyday life of modern yachtsmen.
15.The dream of many beginner yachtsmen is to train as a skipper, get a license and start sailing people for money, thereby making a living and traveling at the same time. I also started like that. Now this plan is close to utopia. The number of such skippers is huge, plus there is always the opportunity to go to sea either for free or for little money, helping those who have their own yacht when this yacht needs to be taken somewhere.
16. No, nobody uses astronavigation now. Orientation to celestial bodies has outlived its usefulness. Which, of course, does not prevent you from knowing this method.
17.Although paper charts are still being produced and all sailors are being trained to use them, they will soon become a rudimentary method of navigation. Modern yachtsmen sailing in coastal waters use only electronic navigation. Those who sail far, sometimes check and make charts on paper, but this is more a desire to play it safe than a real need. Another thing is that all electronics must be duplicated, as well as energy sources for it.
Ocean crossings are very, very boring. Fixing the tack every 5 days is often the only thing you need to do. And the remaining 23 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds you have absolutely nothing to do.
18.Regatta is a sporting competition of sailing yachts held in accordance with the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS). And not just a bunch of yachts going roughly one way and passing beer from yacht to yacht. But they started to call a regatta any flotilla with more than two yachts, where someone shouted into the radio «let’s race.»
19.The word «yachting» appeared in the Russian language recently in response to the fact that there was nothing but «sailing». And spending time sailing is not always a sport. Most often, if you take the Mediterranean, it is lying on the deck to the cozy rumble of a diesel engine and the cries of seagulls. What kind of sport is it really ...?
20. Any modern cruising sailing yacht has a motor. Before, yachts with sails and a motor were called motor-sailing. Now it became meaningless and they all just became sailing. The motor is used for maneuvering in marinas, sailing in calm weather and charging batteries.
21.Ocean crossings are very, very boring. All the tales about sunrises and sunsets, dolphins and tuna, wind and sails are good for self-sufficient phlegmatic people. Dear dreamers, imagine that nothing other than the above is available for, let’s say, three weeks. Nothing at all. Do you think it’s fun? Not at all. Fixing the tack every 5 days is often the only thing you need to do. And the remaining 23 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds you have absolutely nothing to do. Sometimes you even want a storm not to be bored. However, if you are in an ocean regatta, and not in a simple crossing, then the situation is completely different.
22.If you decided to become a skipper, it does not matter at all which system the chosen school will have: IYT, RYA or something else. You are taught by the instructor and each of them does it differently. A good instructor plus your ability plus your motivation minus your laziness = success.
23.SHOCK. SENSATION. INTRIGUE. If you decide to buy a yacht for yourself or are planning to sail on a yacht of friends, you don’t need a skipper license AT ALL. At least in most countries. Your certificate of training is only of interest to charter companies and their insurers. Yes, again — on a private yacht in most waters you DO NOT NEED A LICENSE!
24. Sailing is expensive if it’s a sport and not a cruise! The higher the class, the more money you need. Relative exceptions are small sports yachts up to 8-9 meters long. Cruises, on the other hand, are cheap. A 6-8-seater yacht in the off-season, for example, in spring, is quite affordable — about 1000 euros per week. For all 6-8 people.
25. If you do not know anything, and you are invited to participate in the regatta for your money, then this is a fraud. There are no training regattas and training in regatta conditions. Well, they exist, but they will not teach you anything there. You will stay next to one rope and periodically do something with it when the captain asks you about it (usually in a foul language). So you will spend the whole regatta and go home even more confused than you were before. However, here we are talking about regattas, and not about the «regattas» from paragraph 18. You can learn something at them, or you can just have fun.
26. Surprisingly, I have never seen Orthodox icons and crosses near the steering wheel or other equipment. It is scary to imagine how, in bad weather, the skipper, instead of changing sails to stormy ones, falls on his knees and prays.
I personally know several very talented skippers who often say «pull that red rope over there» instead of «pull up the tack»
27. Many yachts have 2 steering wheels not to steer together but because when the yacht heels over, one of the steering wheels turns out to be more convenient for steering. Plus, on wide yachts, 2 steering wheels help you go from board to board without losing control of the yacht.
28. There are no age restrictions for children on yachts. Many families go sailing with babies on board. You just need to comply with simple rules and that’s it.
29.The wish for a fair wind is actually not entirely true in modern conditions. When the wind blows straight from behind, comfort and speed are not great.
30. In the conditions of a modern cruising yacht, about 100 nautical terms are used. Experienced skippers like to reproach the «youth» for ignorance or misuse of certain words. I have never noticed a correlation between knowing the terms and feeling the yacht / wind. I personally know several very talented skippers who often say «pull that red rope over there» instead of «pull up the tack.» This does not stop then from sailing tens of thousands of miles.
31.A modern cruising yacht, especially a charter yacht, is a set of compromises. For each wind direction there should be a sail. And for every wind force too. Charter yachts usually have only two sails, or three at most. So you sail, but by sporting standards, it’s pretty funny. At the same time, racing boats often have 10-12 sails, which are constantly changed due to changing conditions. Naturally, this difference is due to economy.
32. Usually two people, if they are competent, are enough to operate a cruising sailing yacht. The rest of the crew is needed for a drink after mooring.
33.A very large percentage of those who have completed sailing schools and received skipper’s certificates do not go to sea on their own. Because it’s scary — more often than not, this is the main reason.
34. Surely, there are skippers who do not use foul language on board and say «please, fix the staysail sheet.» But I have not met such people.
35. Never in my life have I heard a «Mayday» on the radio — this is a marine SOS. That is, no one drowned / burned / died while I was at sea. I guess, I was lucky.
36. While the yacht is at sea, both boys and girls should do their business in the latrine SITTING. Otherwise, rolling will lead to a toilet being pissed from floor to ceiling.
37. Sea knots and their knowledge do not make you a sailor. I remember and knit just 8-10 knots right away. It was always enough for me. However, the majority of pretentious sofa yachtsmen will tell you that without knowing 145 knots and astronavigation it is better not to go out to sea. They really had better not go.
38. The main modern device for coastal recreational navigation is the iPad. Plus one more spare iPad. By the way, Airbus and Boeing pilots also fly with the iPad.
39.The well-known life jackets are a rather poor means of safety during cruise yachting. The only thing that can almost guarantee your survival if you fall overboard is the fastening, the special systems that tie you to the side of the yacht. In the event of a fall, the sailor remains tied to the yacht and only needs to be pulled up. If you fall overboard in a life jacket, there is absolutely no guarantee that the crew on board will return for you in time or even find you. The mere fact of staying afloat does not guarantee survival at all.
40. In really bad weather, you have to stay at home or in a bar. But if you find yourself at sea, then the further you are from the shore, the better for you. It is much easier to crash against rocks than to die in open water. The water is always safer than the shore.
41. A lot of yachtsmen who sail around the world and who have tons of experience don’t care about:
a) terms;
b) gloves and gortex;
c) the order on the ship;
d) bad and good omens;
e) maritime traditions;
e-z) the rest of the crap, which beginners believe in.
42. A lot of yachtsmen who sail around the world and who have tons of experience really care about:
a) the state of the engine;
b) the amount of fresh water;
c) the number of iPads and spare power banks;
d) satellite communications and weather forecasts;
e) the presence of whiskey and rum on board;
e-i) the condition of the rigging and sails, and other vital things.
43. If you bought a yacht and plan to live on it in the Schengen area, there are many relatively legal ways to get around the 90 days per half year rule. The main thing is that you have a valid visa. The rest can be fixed.
44. Most voyages around the world look like this: you leave point A and go to point B. There you stay for several months and wait for the weather. Then to point C. And again stay and wait for the right season, etc. Therefore, it takes 2.5-3 years to travel around the world in a big circle. Although you can try to go around in a small circle — for example, around the Arctic.
45.It is not easy for dogs on board the yacht. Especially large and those who went to sea with the owner being a big dog, not a puppy. It is almost impossible to toilet train an adult dog on board. Therefore, the dogs wait. Yes, they can wait for 3-5 days. And such a dog can only be transported across the ocean by plane. With cats it is, of course, easier, and they make excellent sailors.
46. There are two types of satellite internet that travelers use: slow and expensive. Slow is not the «slow» one that you imagined when you remembered how your Facebook was updated for a couple of minutes. Slow satellite internet will download a small picture for about half an hour. And this picture will cost 25-30 bucks. And it can also be expensive: 1 gigabyte of fast satellite Internet in the ocean costs several thousand dollars.
48. I am often asked: are the oceans crossed over without any stops? The answer is: absolutely. Well, that is, you can stop right in the ocean and take a break, but why would you do that. And there are very few islands when crossing the oceans, and it takes weeks to go from land to land.
48. Most of the marine inhabitants that I have seen in different waters are pensioners. No, of course there are young people and families with children, but still the majority are 60+ people. I understand why. First, as already mentioned, sailing through the seas and oceans is boring. Secondly, you need a lot of free time. Thirdly, you need some passive income. Fourthly, sitting at anchorage for months with a glass of wine is a dream, of course, but only for those who have already seen life. I haven’t seen it yet, apparently.
49. One of the things yachtsmen are afraid of is containers that have fallen from container ships. According to statistics, hundreds of containers fall from ships into the oceans every year. And some of them sink rather slowly. Therefore, a yacht always has the risk of running into a half-flooded iron box and breaking the hull.
50. Yachtsmen are also afraid of whales. In general, whales don’t care about yachts and people on them. But during the migration of whales with their babies, happy parents are somewhat nervous about anything that can potentially threaten babies. Therefore, they can become aggressive towards you and your boat. There is also a chance to crash into a sleeping whale, but he is unlikely to be aggressive in this case. And the last occasion for a close acquaintance with this sea chubby is if your bottom is painted with white or light paint. Some sexually active male whales may mistake your boat for a white-bellied vicious female and try to come close for very specific purposes. Not a fun perspective
51. Your yacht is your own territory that obeys the laws of the country of registration of that yacht. Therefore, if, for example, in the country of registration you can legally buy a machine gun or a grenade launcher, then you have every right to carry these weapons on board. But, of course, it must be declared when crossing sea borders.
52. For some reason, many people think that all sailors are great swimmers. This is often not the case. I, for one, don’t swim very well. At the same time, I know several skippers who generally barely stay on the water and do not really like this. And this does not interfere with their sailing hobbies at all.
Anything that seems to be intended for yachting is immediately expensive.
53.Board games can be found in some liferafts. They are there so that the unfortunate sailors would not go crazy with boredom waiting to be rescued.
54. The best yachtsmen and yachting instructors I have ever seen or known are British. Generally speaking, for the British to go out on a boat to the sea is the same as for us to go buy bread.
55. Cruise sailing is when the yachtsman lies, walks and sails at the same time. Indeed, 90% of the time in long crossings, their participants spend in a horizontal position, and not jumping on the deck. It is funny when we are asked whether we have lost weight during the crossing. No, we haven’t.
56. Anything that seems to be intended for yachting is immediately expensive. For example, there are two first-aid kits in an Italian store — one with a car drawn on it, and the other with a boat. I asked to see them and made sure that the items inside are identical. The one with the boat was 50% more expensive. I asked why. Cause it`s for the boats — was the answer.
57. When you buy your first yacht, you immediately want to pour money into it, regardless of whether you have it. You start buying all sorts of shit, happily install it and test it in action. You make sure that shit is shit, you dismantle it and sell it on to the next experimenter. For example, I bought my Westerly for 60 thousand euros and invested another 25 thousand into it in the first couple of months. Of course, 90% of those 25 were wasted.
In the life of every yachtsman there are at least 2 happy days: the first is when he bought a yacht and the second — when he sold it.
58. There are no universal yachts, that is, you cannot buy a yacht that will be good for racing, for sailing on weekends and for long journeys with accommodation on board. Some shipyards are experimenting with what they call «performance cruisers» — to both race and cruise, but they are still too light for the oceans and too heavy for sports.
P. S. All this is true for boats of relatively small size and cost. This does not apply to yachts from 25 meters long — doing everything on them is fun. But it’s expensive.
59. Many yachtsmen, at some point in their development, start planning to cross the ocean. If we talk about Europeans, then this is, of course, the transatlantic crossing from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. This crossing has its own seasonality (December-January) and, in general, is quite simple and safe, as it passes through the zone of constant strong trade winds. In fact, this is a high-speed highway for sailing yachts — you get on the trade wind and fly. But after arriving in the Caribbean, one day you will have to decide what to do next with the yacht. The return journey is much more difficult and longer, so the yachtsman faces a choice:
a) continue to travel around the world and go to the Pacific Ocean;
b) leave the yacht in the Caribbean as a summer residence and fly home;
c) sail back, despite all the difficulties;
d) sell a yacht in the Caribbean for a penny and fly home.
Due to the fact that quite a few people use the «d» option, in the Caribbean you can sometimes buy a rather cheap boat.
60. A well-known saying goes like this: «In the life of every yachtsman there are at least 2 happy days: the first is when he bought a yacht and the second — when he sold it.» You can’t even imagine how true this is.
61. On all modern yachts, everything is made of modern materials. The hull is made of fiberglass or carbon fiber, the ropes are polyester, the sails are dacron, carbon or kevlar and so on. No one has been using any canvas for a long time. It is all the more surprising to hear from old-school yachtsmen about the ways of navigation that were used at the time of Columbus.
62.Almost everyone gets sea sick on yachts. Another thing is that it does not always come to vomiting. Seasickness is different for different people, and you can often fight it with items on hand: 50 grams of spirits, a look at the horizon, dramina and so on. After a while (from 12 to 36 hours), the body will accept its fate and will stop tormenting you, but only until the next stop at the shore, and then everything will start all over again. There is a popular myth that the vestibular apparatus can be trained once and for life. This is not so — there are no methods of training known to science. Before deciding on a sea voyage, you need to think: «Do I get car sick, bus sick or plane sick?» If the answer is yes, then yachting may not be for you.
63. It is forbidden to go to Antarctica on non-metallic yachts — the hull must be steel or aluminum.
64. To rent a charter yacht, you do not need to have a skipper’s license. You can just live on it at the pier without going out to sea. A fun alternative to a hostel.
65.In Norway, you can often find retired people living on rather expensive (1-3 million euros) motor yachts. These yachts are moored to the pier and never go to sea. But there are flowers, animals and grandchildren. During our cruises, we often came across such old people, they are very hospitable and sociable — they always invited us to drink something in the evening.
66. My yacht was taken across the ocean by two people, Edgars Vanags and Kirill Brui, widely known in narrow circles. I wrote to Edgars on Facebook: «Hi, will you take my boat across the Atlantic, I do not have time — I have a big regatta soon?» A minute later, he answered me: «Great, I will do it.» So everything was decided. And Kirill even became the yachtsman of the year in Belarus thanks to this crossing.
67. The flag, which hangs somewhere in the stern of the yacht, symbolizes the country of registration of this yacht. The country of registration does not necessarily have something to do with the owner or the skipper — you can choose it according to your personal criteria. That is, if you see a yacht with, for example, a British flag, the probability that the British own it is fifty-fifty.
68. Fishing in the ocean can be simple. If you leave a flashlight on the deck at night, then flying fish are guaranteed to fly into its light. They will fly in to die right on board. If you notice them in time, you can hang them on a rope and air-dry like roach. And if you notice it too late, you will then go and look where the stench comes from.
69. There is statistical evidence that people in liferafts and lifeboats are more likely to die from despair than from exhaustion. There is no proof, if you don’t want to — don’t believe it.
70. The Solent Strait, where the Seanation Cup takes place during the May holidays, is known as the best place for regattas on Earth. Local athletes have a high level of training, and most importantly, a good knowledge of the characteristics of the water area (which is extremely important there), therefore they compete not only and not so much in yachting skills, but in bullying. Moral pressure and humiliation of the enemy, as well as attempts to provoke and deceive, is a normal practice when passing marks, start and finish lines.
71. In ocean conditions, you can wash yourself, including rather long female hair, using only 1 liter of fresh water.
72. Electricity on a yacht can be produced in a variety of ways:
a) diesel, if there is a supply of diesel fuel;
b) solar panels, if there is sun;
c) a wind generator, if there is wind;
d) water turbine, if there is wind and you are sailing.
As a rule, there is always something mentioned above. If there is nothing, you are out of luck. I know people who put all 4 devices on their boats. It usually doesn’t make much sense, but these people explain this decision by the love of electricity. Vasily Surikov, for example, loves it.
73. If you don’t like someone, then here’s a way to have perfect murder. Take this person with you on a crossing in the open sea, or better yet, the ocean. At some point in time, this person for some reason ends up on board — to pee or just to watch the sunset. You push the person, and the yacht follows its course but without the unpleasant passenger already. It is better to do this at night, since you will have several hours of head start before you start shouting into the radio about the tragedy that has happened — you were asleep and do not know where, when and why the person went. There are no signs of a struggle on the deck, so it didn’t happen. Yachting is dangerous, anything can happen. There were such precedents, maybe people fell off, or maybe ...
74. The very fact of bouts of seasickness is not a reason not to go to sea. Once Constantine crossed the Atlantic with us. He vomited every day for 21 days. Sometimes several times a day. According to him, he liked the crossing. He did not take advantage of the opportunity to go ashore during a stop in Cape Verde, saying: «Well, there is nothing to worry about, everything is ok.»
The fact is that it is enough to drag a couple of ropes back and forth for the yacht to move somehow, and for many this is enough.
75. The most useful device for a cruising yachtsman after the iPad is the Garmin InReach satellite tracker. This gadget has a built-in Iridium transceiver, which means that you are connected from anywhere in the earth’s geoid. Email, Facebook, sms, etc. And for very little money. No, this is not an advertisement, although it looks like that.
76. A little more about corpses and yachting. A group of middle-aged men were sailing on a yacht across the ocean, and about the middle of this crossing, one of the sailors died. He had an ulcer, or something of this sort. The guys rushed to call lawyers in Russia and Barbados, suggesting to throw him overboard, since it was warm outside, and the guy started to rot. Lawyers were against it — take him with you, they said, since you had already informed everyone about the accident. Well, so they had to do it. They wrapped a friend in a film, put him in a dingy (an inflatable small boat) and tied it behind the yacht. So they were sailing with it for several days until they arrived in Barbados. Everything would be ok, but the wind on this crossing was blowing from behind — I don’t know how the guys were breathing.
77. One of the few nations that is still difficult to meet on yachts is the Chinese. I am sure that they will be there soon. But recently, in a large marina of Athens, a Chinese man approached me and asked me whether I have seen a catamaran with Chinese. In fact, I did, and I told him where to look for it. Because there was only one such boat out of 2 thousand ones in the marina.
78. The most expensive marinas, as far as I know, are in Ibiza and southern Italy. During the high season, a mid-size charter yacht pays up to € 300 per night. At the same time, mooring in Portugal, for example, will cost 11-15 euros per night.
79. If you are an exhibitionist, nudist, voyeur or just an masturbator, then the best place for you is the waters of the Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca. In no other place have I seen so many naked yachtsmen and yachtswomen. Of course, most of them are older people.
Snobbery is what a beginning Russian yachtsman will have immediately after receiving a skipper’s certificate.
80. SENSATION! SHOCK! Sail tuning and cruising yachting are often incompatible things. Not only do cruise boats do not have a variety of sails, but skippers, for the most part, do not have an understanding of what to do with these sails. The fact is that it is enough to drag a couple of ropes back and forth for the yacht to move somehow, and for many this is enough. So, when you see tons of ropes, remember that many yachtsmen don’t understand what to do with them either.
81. Every ocean marina has a message board. And on it, there are a lot of notes with texts like this: «I am John from Australia and I am going on my 40-feet yacht from Tenerife to Brazil. I am looking for an assistant or two. I will pay all the expenses.» Or something like that. So, there is a whole niche for adventure seekers. On the one hand, you can travel the world for free, on the other hand, you will have yachting practice.
82. More often I met gay men on Italian yachts. They travel in couples and sometimes with dogs.
83. I have never heard that those who played football since childhood and played in semi- or professional football teams, tried to preach or criticize those who casually play football in the yard. In yachting, it happens all the time. Snobbery is what a beginning Russian yachtsman will have immediately after receiving a skipper’s certificate. It is about Russian yachtsmen. I did not notice such an attitude towards beginners or inexperienced sailors among the British, Norwegians or French.
84. Children from 6 to 12 years old, if they are not on a yacht from birth, are rather bored at sea. While adults pretend to be amazed by the sunrises, sunsets and the rustle of the waves, the kids have to play iPads and eat cookies. Catamarans and a cheerful children’s parties are an exception. I have never met kids that would look forward to spending a week or two with their parents on a yacht.
85. Despite the fact that the range of sea VHF communications is very limited and is only tens of miles in the open ocean, on the radio I regularly heard monologues in languages unknown to me, individual phrases, and sometimes even songs. At the same time, the radar did not show any ships around, and the nearest land was more than a thousand miles away.
86.There are birds in the ocean. Those who, in fact, live in the ocean. When they see a yacht, they want to sit on the mast or deck to rest (some of them are in continuous flight for many months). If you allow this, the birds are guaranteed to shit on everything they can, including the anchor fire, which is located at the very top of the mast, after which you will have to climb there and wash it from shit.
87. After Russia took Crimea, no European insurance company insures yachts owned by Russians. There are three ways out: do not insure, get a residence permit / permanent residence anywhere other than Russia, or register a yacht in a legal entity of any country other than Russia.
88.A border patrol arrives at one of the anchorages of the island of Guadeloupe every day from 1 pm to 2 pm, goes on its boat around the yachts and checks passports for visas. The fact is that, despite belonging to France, to enter Guadeloupe, you need a French island visa. Moreover, not only Russians, but citizens of many states need it. The penalty for not having this visa is insane. Therefore, all the intruders (including us) every day at 12:30 got into their boats and sailed ashore, from where we were looking at the confused actions of the Guadalupean patrol.
89. If you are dreaming of your own yacht or just want to ask the price, then some of the most interesting places in terms of prices and range are Sweden and Norway. There are a lot of boats on sale, and the prices are very attractive. In the case of Sweden, until recently there were a lot of excellent local shipyards there, and the boats they built will be valued for a very long time due to their high quality and reliability. Norway is a different story. Norway, as you know, is NOT a member of the European Union. And therefore, the yachts registered there are not cleared for EU customs. What does this mean? It means that the Europeans-neighbors (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland and Germany) will never go to buy a second-hand yacht in Norway, as they will have to clear it at home.
90. In most countries, a skipper’s blood alcohol level should not exceed that of a car driver. For example, in the UK — 0.8 ppm — about 150 grams of vodka for an average man weighing 80kg.
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