For many of us, bluewater sailing is a lifelong dream which, often, never seems quite attainable due to the pressures of work, life, family or just circumstance.

We spoke to four families to find out how they did it

Bluewater sailing: Liveaboard workers

Sarah Curry helps run a wind vane self-steering business with husband, Will while living afloat on their catamaran with five-year-old twins

The Hydrovane was invented by a British engineer in the late 1960s.

My husband Will’s family purchased Hydrovane 23 years ago and Will joined his parents in the now-Canadian business shortly thereafter.

When Will and I met and began saving for our own boat, I was working my way up the corporate ladder in HR.

I gave notice to take time out for a sailing adventure, and a short-term stint working at Hydrovane made sense.

I didn’t know how to sail when we bought the first boat, a Beneteau First 405, in Mexico.

The initial plan was to cruise for one year, no longer, but it’s been 12!

We crossed the Pacific and sold the boat in Sydney, Australia. During that time, I quickly realised I had little desire to return to the corporate world; working with Will at Hydrovane was an ideal fit.

After six months of boatlessness, we bought a Jeanneau 43 near Vancouver and sailed locally in British Columbia for a year before heading south to California and then Mexico.

By then kids had been added into the picture.

When the boys were a year and a half and we were cruising in Pacific Mexico, during Covid, we quickly found ourselves red-lining with two toddlers loose on a boat, full-time jobs, and never-ending boat maintenance. No surprise.

For safety and our mental health, we decided to bring a third person along.

It was tight quarters, but still an amazing experience. We’ve since been fortunate to have fantastic girls join us for various lengths of time to make the sailing life more manageable and enriching.

When the twins were two and a half we wanted to move to a catamaran for more living space.

We sold our Jeanneau and became hyper-focused on finding a Leopard 46. This model was our top choice pricewise, layout-wise, and for its reputation in safe offshore passage making.

The catamaran rush was near its height in 2022. We wanted to buy in the Caribbean but kept finding ourselves a step too late.

I decided to join Facebook and, specifically, the Leopard 46 Owners group.

The following day, a post was made about a boat in Greece, and we jumped on it to arrange a Zoom call.

We bought the boat privately and unseen but with full confidence in the diligence of the previous owner.

Greece is my favourite cruising ground so far. However, the 10-hour time difference to our Vancouver office was a struggle.

Will was working most nights until midnight and during the day as well, so this was one of the motivations for sailing to the Caribbean.

We’re so fortunate to work in the marine industry. Our business is international, and our customers are sailors all over the world.

The fact that we are often responding from our boat, from varied time zones, is understood.

We still have a home in Vancouver, which we rent out so we can cruise seasonally, leaving the boat in various places over winter or hurricane season.

Our longevity in cruising is thanks to our adaptable jobs and going back and forth between sailing and land life.

We’ve hardly spent any time in marinas because Kaia is so well-equipped.

The boat was set up with 2,600W of solar, a 1200Ah lithium battery bank and a 5,000W inverter; she can power a small city!

We have a generator as well, but hardly touch it.

For our crossing, we’ve added a Watt & Sea hydrogenerator to compensate for the reduced solar output on the ocean.

We also have an induction stove top, an electric oven, a washing machine, and there are three air conditioning units. All such luxuries!

There’s really nothing that’s so different to being in a house. We have a 12V freezer, but a lot of 220V appliances too, including an air fryer and a breadmaker, which someone just gave us.

We chased wifi for 10 years of our cruising life so Starlink has been a complete game changer.

Will plans to keep up with emails during our transatlantic, but I’d like to focus on enjoying the voyage and the more important job of entertaining the twins.

We have a work colleague coming along too, a good friend.

Ironically, we don’t sail a lot faster, being a catamaran.

The Leopard 46 is a cruising cat; no daggerboards, and we tend to sail conservatively.

When we crossed the Pacific on our Beneteau First 405, we averaged 6.5 knots.

On this boat, we’ll also be happy to get 6 or 7 knots across the Atlantic.

We have a Hydrovane to steer, of course, so we are conscious of keeping her balanced and never overpowered. It’s all about being comfortable at sea.

The builder-owner

Simon Ridley bought Gertha 5, a 40-year-old Swan and worked alongside engineers to get her shipshape

For a lot of people a tradewind Atlantic passage is on the bucket list. For me, it’s turned into a bit of an addiction!

I’m doing it again so I can continue to the Pacific.

You spend a lot of money preparing the boat, and then more again on breakages. But when you’re offshore, at least, it doesn’t cost you anything.

I’ve been sailing since I was very young. I’ve done two Atlantic circuits and the Baltic, but this time, I’m carrying on to Australia.

Gertha 5 is my fifth boat. I bought her very cheap – around £95,000. It cost me about the same for my 37ft Hanse, which
I bought new in 2006, but for a 46ft Swan, this is a really good price.

A new Swan would cost in excess of a million pounds, three times the price of a production boat.

To be fair, on a Beneteau, you do get the cockpit space and room to sit out, and Gertha 5 only has two cabins, while a modern boat tends to have three.

Everyone has a different take on the perfect boat. For me, it comes down to performance.

What few people realise is that friction really slows a boat. Gertha 5 has such a sweet hull; half the wetted area of a modern boat which has to drag its flat back through the water.

I can do 4 knots in 8 knots of wind, while a lot of boats struggle to get going until the wind reaches 12.

My Hanse was quick, too, but because of her profile, there was enough banging around in the waves to knock your fillings out!

She was a cruiser-racer, one of the early ones with big rigs. The modern ones are a lot more cruising-oriented.

I wanted something a bit bigger and heavier, which is why I bought Gertha 5.

She’d had three German owners, and in 1993, the second one spent a fortune on her: new teak decks, new sails and upholstery – the invoice file was huge!

Sadly, the third owner, who bought the boat for a transatlantic, died of cancer, and I think because he was sick, the maintenance was left to local trades in Gran Canaria.

While the work carried out was OK for cruising, it wasn’t good enough for an Atlantic crossing.

It didn’t matter to me that Gertha 5 needed work, as I was in a position to do it myself. I’m an engineer, builder and plumber, so I saved a lot on labour, which would have cost £50 to £70 an hour.

The rig needed an overhaul, and insurance companies like to know the service history. As this is rod rigging, the only way you can be sure it’s in the correct condition is to do a five-yearly dye test on the heads.

We didn’t know the age or quality of the rigging when I bought the boat, but it was certainly over 10 years old.

I stripped down the boom and mast, which was corroded – it took about five days’ work – then the riggers did the rest, including repainting the mast, a bill which came to around £4,000.

I wasn’t sure of the integrity of the keelson. Being a Swan, the boat could be taken apart easily, but what I thought would be a quick clean and spray with paint turned into a shot-blast and regalvanisation.

I considered replacing the keelson, but it was made of good quality British steel, and the recommendation was to keep it.

Gertha 5 is a cutter rig, and I wanted twin headsails for downwind sailing, so I had to buy a new furler and modify the jib.

This required stainless steel bracketry on the chainplates.

Overall, the rigging was over £20,000, including the £10,000 modification.

I’d say the complete cost – to take a neglected 1983 Swan and turn her into a boat I could sail around the world in – was £30,000 to £50,000.

Finally ready, I did the ARC circuit in 2018 (Gran Canaria to St Lucia and back) but didn’t have enough money to do a circumnavigation.

However, the 10,000 miles flagged a few things I wanted to improve on.

I’ve just bought a new engine and installed it with the help of a local mechanic. I’d never fitted one before, but it was straightforward. I also helped to make the engine mounts alongside an engineer.

Boatyards tend to be very busy and struggle to find skilled labour. If you can do a lot yourself and just ask for a few hours so they can finish it off or check the work, they’re more likely to fit you in.

Historically, I used to run an Iridium sat phone for emails, then switched to the Iridium GO!, which was slightly better, but now I’ve got Starlink broadband.

The hardware cost me £500, and at £250 a month, it’s expensive to run, but you can just get on and get things done.

To save on shore power, I’ve got a DuoGen wind and water generator. Historically, hydro was my best source of electricity – if we were making 6-7 knots for 12 hours a day, that would equal consumption.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of weed now in the Atlantic, which slows it down.

I’ve also got 12 solar panels. A lot of people fit a gantry for them, but a problem with a Swan is ‘duck’s disease’ – they’re down at the back, so you’re trying to get the weight forward.

I fixed my 12 solar panels to the deck and moved the battery bank to the front of the mast, and we sail so much sweeter in light airs now!

For backup, I have a petrol generator.

Last time I did the ARC+ I only took half a tank of fuel – around 200lt. That was enough for two days, which left another four to Cape Verde, and you’d be very unlucky to have to motor on a tradewind passage.

I’d rather sit and wait for the wind. There’s no point in getting too much diesel because it goes bad if you leave it.

This time I’ve got full tanks because I’m going to the Pacific.

Early retirement for bluewater sailing

Helen Harbour, together with husband, David, worked hard and saved hard for 30 years before taking on her parents’ boat to sail the world

Frances Louise V was my parents’ boat. She’s an Amel Santorin, a baby of the Amel fleet.

My dad was a scout, and he used to go cycling and read a lot. While at university, he read a book about sailing and convinced some friends, including my mum, to join him on the Broads.

He built a Heron in the early 1960s, and when I came along, he taught me to sail an Optimist and built me a Mirror Dinghy.

I met David when I was 17. He’d never sailed before, but when my parents took him out on our 28ft wooden boat, he fell in love with it.

That was 1978, and for the next 20 years, we cruised with my parents, did flotillas together, and went dinghy racing.

We sailed with my parents most summers, and during the 1990s, we decided cruising would be the lifestyle for us.

I was a chartered surveyor and David worked in IT. We worked hard and put money aside, and in 2008, we took delivery of a Southerly 110 Silver Dream, which we kept in Hayling Island.

That way, we could sail most weekends and for two or three weeks during the holidays.

Being at MDL Marinas meant we could set off from where we left her, as far west as Plymouth and get to the Scilly Isles, Normandy and Brittany.

We downsized from a big house to a Dutch barge on the Thames near Tower Bridge, and then we sold that and bought a bungalow on the Isle of Wight.

We got rid of our mortgage and just saved and saved. We have a very good financial advisor, so that’s how we managed to retire in 2015 and get the lifestyle we wanted.

We haven’t got any children and we didn’t go on expensive holidays or drive flash cars. We saved hard for this.

Shortly before retiring we joined the Cruising Association and learnt a lot about different cruising areas and bluewater sailing.

Since then we’ve been doing six months on, six months off. We never wanted to sail around the world but, rather, ‘potter’ around the world.

We went up north through the Dutch canals and Frisian Islands to the Baltic and left Silver Dream on Fehmarn off the north coast of Germany after exploring Denmark.

In 2017, and now in their mid-80s, my parents decided to give up sailing so we took delivery of Frances Louise V in Corsica.

That year, we sailed both Silver Dream and Frances Louise V back to the Isle of Wight. The Amel was re-rigged in La Rochelle on the way.

By now, Frances Louise V was 20 years old but was very well looked after. She was only in need of cosmetic changes like upgrading the heads and installing bigger holding tanks to make her ready for bluewater sailing.

We bought new sails and electronics, reupholstered her and revamped the galley.

Being a ketch, the new rig was costly with a wardrobe of five sails – we have more canvas than other people with bigger, expensive yachts, and we don’t go any quicker for it!

But she’s a boat designed for two people to sail around the world, and is well set-up for the tradewinds.

In the seven years we’ve owned her, we’ve done almost 20,000 miles.

After the big refit during 2017/18, we added odd bits each year until 2024, when we bought the new engine, which cost £20,000, including the installation, plus a second autopilot and second fridge.

It’s surprising, though, how the small things add up.

Since we’ve been in Gran Canaria preparing for the ARC+, we’ve been going backwards and forwards to the chandlery spending hundreds of euros each go.

Five new batteries cost €1,900, but then we probably won’t spend anything other than the annual lift-out costs for the next five years or so.

We sailed all over the Baltic, including the Baltic states and to the top of the Gulf of Bothnia – all the way to the Arctic – then over to Shetland and down the west coast of Scotland.

In 2023, we did some of Norway, and then last year, we went around Ireland. We have diesel heating and a 3kW fan heater.

In Norway, we’d stop at these little docks and have one power cable for the boat and one for the heater. We didn’t mind the cold at first, but in the end, we did – when you do it for four or five months and the temperature doesn’t get above 10°C, that’s enough.

We naively thought that if we went to Shetland at the end of June, it would warm up, but it didn’t!

We decided it was time to do the Caribbean and experience more bluewater sailing before we got too old.

We’ve done quite a lot of the Med, but we can always do that on the way back.

Swapping the corporate world for bluewater sailing

Carol Wu is a Hong Kong executive who swapped a career in engineering and construction project management for sailing in the Baltic

The Charles River in Boston is where I learned to sail dinghies as an adult. I was working there one summer, and it didn’t get dark until 9pm.

We’d sail between Longfellow Bridge and Harvard Bridge, which really tested my skills.

I’m from Hong Kong, and stopped working full-time in construction around 2015. I’d been working on infrastructure projects such as tunnels and metro systems, including a stint in post-war reconstruction in Iraq.

Now I do non-profit work, helping others to manage projects. I no longer need a nine-to-five job to finance my sailing, which is amazing.

When I left the corporate world, I thought, what am I going to do with myself? I decided I’d do the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, and realised if I was going to get serious about doing a transatlantic, I should get some experience.

I booked various berths on passages in Norway, Svalbard, Iceland, and on Rubicon 3 from Gosport to Waterford. I did courses and sailed on a lot of other people’s boats, but it became obvious that until I bought my own boat I’d never become a good skipper.

In 2017, I went to Hallberg-Rassy’s annual open house in Ellös, Sweden, to take a look at their new 340 model.

I sailed the only one that was on the water; the others were still being built. It was quite cutting edge for the yard, having twin rudders and no chart table.

I said I’d only have hull number eight as I’m suspicious, and in Chinese, eight is a lucky number!

They told me I had to sign up the following week, and that’s how I came to own Aria Legra.

I’m quite an academic person, having studied both engineering and architecture at university.

Throughout this time I’d been living in Hong Kong and doing courses at Hamble School of Yachting, which is where I met my crew, Peter Hopps.

The training there was very rigorous, and often, I felt very clumsy. I’m sure the instructors were pulling their hair out at this crazy woman who wanted to do the ARC.

Up until two summers ago, I kept Aria in Sweden. It’s one of the most beautiful places to sail, so since the boat was built there, I decided to keep her there.

The second season, I went to Norway, but then Covid struck in 2020, and as Sweden wasn’t locked down I returned there so I could carry on sailing.

When Europe opened up again, I went to Denmark and all along the Swedish coast.

In 2022, I was going to do ARC Baltic, but Russia invaded Ukraine, so that was cancelled. Instead, I sailed by myself and sometimes with a crew to Estonia, Finland and the east coast of Sweden.

I could have done the next 10 years without leaving the Baltic – I’m still just scratching the surface – but I said to myself, I better get going on my plan, so here I am, about to cross the Atlantic.

Becoming a boat owner was a steep learning curve. I wanted to do all the courses and learn it all before I owned the boat, but actually, there’s a lot of stuff you can’t learn until you own it.

On sailing courses, you do a little bit of pretend skippering, but there’s always someone watching over your shoulder. Plus, you’re always on a boat with four or five other people, and all the jobs get distributed.

The most daunting thing for me was that from the very beginning, I was short-handed and it dawned on me that nothing I learned at school applies.

How do you get all the lines to slip when you only have one pair of hands? How do you keep the boat to wind to hoist the main?

Peter has his own boat and does a lot by himself, so when he came on board, I was watching everything he did. I was so shocked he was rarely at the helm!

The biggest mindset change from school sailing is to use the autopilot as an extra crew member.

Somewhere along the way I realised I did know what I was doing and got a lot more confident. It took a couple of seasons, though.

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