The inconvenience of sailing

December 2024

By Will Gerstmyer

Anyone who has partnered with a sailboat and felt her sails fill, and her hull rise, can attest to the beauty of sailing. One minute there is flailing, and the next? All is balanced and breathtaking. For those of us who succumb to this particular pleasure, there are few words that describe it. As David Roper opined in his article “An Uncomplicated World” in the August issue of this magazine, or Bill Cheney wrote in his book, “Penelope Down East,” with sailing, the simpler the better; but not simple to put into words.

However, it would be half-truth to speak of just the joys associated with sailing, and not to share the other half of the story.

As someone who spends the year cruising up and down the U.S. East Coast, from Maine to Florida and the islands beyond, my bent is not quite as simple as choosing a day sailor or removing the engine, as Bill did.

Self-sufficiency is a misnomer. While it’s true I’m on the hook 95% of the time as a citizen of the watery world, the goods from shore literally keep my boat afloat. In this cruising life, I’m very pleased when I find an unspoiled natural wildlife hole like Wassaw Creek, Georgia. But one also quickly logs the locations of good groceries and chandleries along the way. These are the lifelines that buoy this life.

To attain the stuff I need, I row, something seemingly only New Englanders do. With Maine’s snug harbors, the rowing ashore is fairly quaint. In other regions, not so much.

A trip to provision is not a short errand but rather a half-day event. Because I plan to install my Monitor wind vane on the stern, I forewent davits, so my dinghy is stowed on the foredeck. Each time I row ashore, it needs to be maneuvered off of and onto the deck, with muscle and a bridle. Inconvenient.

When something inevitably breaks down and I need a part, I have to find, and appeal to, a local merchant to let the chandler send it to me at their address. And then I wait. One has to slow down, be patient with all that transpires, and take in settings that might not at first have seemed that appealing. When you don’t have the budget to pop into marinas and have mechanics do the work, you realize that most boats are “analog” – mechanical as opposed to computer-driven – and will respond to the tools you have in your box. That means constant learning from others who have previously done the procedure and have the typical boater’s generosity to now help you to learn. It’s a far cry from simply turning a key and having a car ready to go. Occasionally boaters will faux-hail “nice boat” or some such as you cross, but as I left Gurnet Point, in Massachusetts, someone yelled: “Sailing? Too many lines!” Flummoxed, I just nodded. Inconvenient.

I keep my batteries topped off with two solar panels, balanced on the pushpit railing, and 450 amp-hours of storage. I also have the engine’s alternator and a little Honda generator for those rare times when the sky is cloudy for three days in a row. It would be very inconvenient to run out of juice. The biggest load is my fridge. I eat very well and have an abundance of healthy, fresh food. Is it as simple as an icebox? No, but I love a steady diet of fruits and vegetables. How do I manage with a fridge 1/5 the size of a home one? With triage concerning what actually needs to go in and what can wait a day or two before approaching spoiling. It’s a necessary skill on a boat that no normal person has to deal with. Inconvenient.

Thankfully, I only need to use the Honda maybe once or twice a year (man, do I love how they start!). When that happens, I take it out of storage. Or more properly, move everything else out of the way so I can get to where I stowed it; get the fuel out of the locker and fill the tank; make sure the generator’s exhaust is blowing away from the cabins; and wait, patiently, while the 2,200 watts refills the batteries. When they’re full enough, I reverse the stowage process. Inconvenient.

I have six-gallon solar shower bags for warm showers. I don’t run my engine much; not nearly enough to heat water through the heat exchanger in a water heater. The optimal time for heat collected by these bags is by about 4 p.m., so I need to time my showers. I jury-rigged the shower’s tube and sprayer to route through an old solar vent in the head so I can hook the bag off the mast and connect it to the tube poking through the vent in the deck. Twelve minutes of shower for 30 minutes of setup. Inconvenient.

Taking trash and desiccated head waste ashore? Inconvenient. And the list goes on.

What’s even harder to describe is your partner in all this – your boat – which is undoubtedly a thoroughbred, but racks up enormous stresses of its own, like my back does. Life isn’t easy. I’m not sure it’s meant to be.

You wouldn’t be the first to ask why this endeavor is of such interest to me.

At first, I might have said that it is about becoming a “seadog,” or getting to know the “important exercise” of hoisting the anchor without a windlass, or taking on another lengthy row. But the more you are in it, the more you realize the beauty of living Life at 5 Knots (the name of my neighbors’s boat). For all that has transpired since the ’60s, when “time-saving devices” became the rage, it’s arguable whether modern life is better than before. Though it is certainly moving faster. And what of focus, attention span, and savoring the rhythms of nature?

All the inconvenience reminds me that slow is good. In retrospect, the busy-ness of my previous life did not produce much beyond business. Whereas the slowness and precariousness of my foundationless home has helped me to sharply feel the now; senses tingle and I’m alive.

So we can both nod as we pass, my Massachusetts friend: you agree it’s inconvenient, and inconvenience agrees with me.

Will Gerstmyer is a sailor of a 1985 Brewer 12.8, sv Now, studying for his 25-ton license, and a volunteer for Sailing Ships Maine. Contact at wgerstmyer@gmail.com

 

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