The Boating Breakdown – A Guide to Planning Your Worldwide Sailing Trip
Dreaming of travelling some serious nautical miles? Before you set out on your worldwide sailing trip you’ll undoubtedly need to undertake some serious planning.
As a first port of call you should figure out the practicalities and technicalities associated with a sailing trip of such magnitude. Here’s your boating breakdown: a guide to planning your worldwide sailing trip.
Your Destination Mooring
Did you know that you can enlist professional assistance with booking your destinations via companies that provide boat mooring services?
This allows you to figure out where you will be dropping anchor, and to take stock of costs and other relevant details. It’s like mapping out a rough chart of your sailing itinerary.
If you’re having trouble figuring out just where to get started… this is the perfect way to get your bearings.
Pro Tip: You can also rent out your own boat mooring in your home location when you’re not using it, plus you can connect with other owners and share access to mooring entirely free of cost in collaborative arrangements. These are great practical, cost saving measures.
Charting Your Course
Planning a sailing trip around the world is all about charting your course. It’s about circumnavigating all those must-see destinations.
You’ll want to think about maximising your time and, of course, your budget. Plus, you’ll need to analyse weather and nautical charts in finding the most efficient and safe passage by sea.
Of course, this will be a whole lot easier if you keep to coastal destinations and travel according to trade winds.
Practicalities
You’ll need to make sure you’re fully prepared in terms of equipment, hardware, inventory and other essential items. Make sure you plan for the worst-case scenario, as you can never be too prepared.
Some examples of items you’ll need: batteries, generators, swiss-army knives, tarpaulins, duct tape, LED lights, multi tools, retrieval claws etc.
Equip your vessel with a marine first aid kit and ensure you are up-to-date on training. Of course, you will have to make sure that you are fully stocked with perishable and nonperishable food times.
Plus, more than enough water. Consider taking on board vitamin D supplements (alongside those requisite sea sickness tablets) as part of a comprehensive range of pharmaceutical and health related items.
Pro Tip: Make sure you perform a pre-offshore checklist several times before you leave on your trip in regard to tools, first-aid and other inventory.
Technicalities
There are so many technicalities that come into the equation whilst sailing, especially when it comes to an around-the-world voyage.
There are matters of self steering/electronic autopilot, towed vs shaft generators, wind charger and solar panels… and that’s just scraping the surface.
You will want to perform any necessary/desired ‘kit outs’ as a part of your overall plan, and factor this into your budget (plus maintenance costs). You may also want to consider additional features and specs such as water filtration systems.
Setting Sail
Once you’ve checked, balanced and reviewed all the practicalities and technicalities of your plan (and gone over it a second, third, fourth…and possibly even tenth time) it’s finally time to set sail.
This is the part you’ve been waiting for… the culmination of all your dreams of the fantastical freedom of the open seas.
You can always renew your motivation during the tedious planning stages with real-world accounts of sailing expeditions. Few things in life could be more exhilarating than sailing around the world. We wish you best wishes and bon voyage!
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