Sailing on a Superyacht (once you remove the dollar signs, they're not that different than us)

s/v Marie and s/v Wisp neck and neck to the windward mark.

"Hi hon. Sorry, but we blew the jib and the staysail, and we had to drop them off at Nanny Cay so it looks like I won't be home until after 6pm." It was 5:30 pm, the time that Scott had assured me he'd be home to help with the dinner/bedtime madness (and it *is* madness) and to give me a little break from solo-mommyhood.  Luckily, a) I am totally okay handling the three girls on my own and b) I was already two (pretty stiff) rum cocktails in with my girlfriend, Genevieve, and all our girls (that is five if you are counting) were happily playing on our boat so this little bit of news didn't bother me in the slightest.

But, turns out, removing sails on a super yacht is no small feat. Given the fact that they weighed upwards of a thousand pounds each (the jib was two thousand pounds, to be exact), took sixteen people to flake (aka "fold"), and required the use of not one, but two fork lifts to heave into a sail loft (one crew member, fearful of the sail falling was quoted to say, "I'm getting out of here, this is not worth dying for!" which struck me as utterly hysterical), meant that Scott actually didn't get home until well after 10pm. At which point I was pretty well sauced. Being alone with three kids on a boat all day will do that to you.

After sharing drinks and swapping stories in our comparatively modest cockpit with our good friend Gonzo and the first mate, Sal, I learned a few things. Turns out, sailing a super yacht isn't all that different from sailing a "regular" yacht; they, too, constantly chase problems. They, too, break important gear at inopportune times. They, too, jury rig solutions with what is on hand. And they, just like us, begrudge and bemoan how quickly things fall into disrepair and how much effort it takes to stay on top of it all. Yes, they really are just like us in many ways. Minus the fact that they deal in millions where we deal in thousands. Which, I guess, is a pretty big difference.

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Most of us cannot even fathom the dollar signs needed to bask in the joy of mega yacht ownership. I mean, the monthly internet bill alone is 20K, not to mention the nine full-time crew and their very decent salaries. It takes eight (eight!!!) solid hours to fill up with fuel which costs significantly more than most people's yearly salaries. It is not unusual to spend 13K on a week's worth of provisions and the champagne budget alone would make most of us gasp. If you want to charter this boat, you'll need a cool 200K per week to do it. Yep. Only the richest of the rich can play in this elite field and to get a glimpse into the window of this world is a rare opportunity indeed.

So when Scott was invited to race on Parsifal III, a beautiful 180 foot Perini Navi luxury super yacht, it took him about a half a second to say "yes."

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The first day of racing was a complete bust considering both sails tore before the first mark and, instead of racing, they made the twenty-five mile sail to Nanny Cay, the only marina with a sail loft that claimed they could repair the sails. I think everyone was doubtful. The sails, according to Scott, were as thick and tough as rawhide.

The next day was touch and go. The sail loft said they'd drop the sails off before 7am which, again, seemed like a very aggressive (and unlikely) promise. But, sure enough, around 8am we saw a small barge chug into view - the hulking sails strapped to the roof - and so began the process of getting them back on the boat. Significantly easier than getting them off. Racing commenced.

This photo and cover photo were taken by Mark Gonzalez

A few times Isla and I dinghied out to the boat to wave daddy off as she pulled out of her slip. Our little tender was positively dwarfed by her magnitude. "Is daddy sailing on that cruise ship?" Isla would ask each time she saw it. After the final day of racing, I got all three girls into the dinghy to welcome the boys back into port. From up on deck the crew waved and yelled, much to the delight of our girls. Our buddy Gonzo cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled down, "Can you grab our crewman and take him ashore to get the tender?" At first I thought he was joking, but he wasn't and before I knew it the entire back of the boat was lowering down, exposing a giant garage of sorts. I dinghied over to what was now a full-on dock protruding from the transom, and there was Scott and his crew mate, Will. Scott grabbed the twins out of their dinghy seat by the handles of their life jackets, Will hopped into our boat for the lift ashore, and the trade was complete. No doubt this was quite the spectacle for anyone watching.

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So what's it like racing on a super yacht?

Well, according to Scott, you kind of forget you are sailing. These boats are so big you don't really feel too much motion, it's like the difference between a hang glider and a 747. Our friend Eben said that, sometimes, when you would walk forward on deck, it felt very much like being on one of those moving airport walk-ways. Everything is touch button, from the sail hoisting to the jib trim. Everything is massive, from the winches to the cleats. There's a chef on board preparing pretty awesome meals and a crew of no less than twenty. Unlike racing on smaller boats where weight is a huge factor, there is no "hiking out" on a super yacht. In fact, there was a lot of milling about. But it was, without a doubt, "awesome" according to Eben and Scott.

Of course there are some things that are similar or the same to "regular" sailing; despite being fifteen feet from the water, when the boat crashes through a big wave, the deck still gets wet. When dolphins are seen, people still get giddy. When stuff goes wrong, everyone pulls together to find a solution. And when you're cruising along under full sail at a good clip, it's every bit as exhilarating.

Just like the wealthiest man in the world puts his pants on one leg at a time like you and I, a luxury yacht still catches wind to move it forward, just like any old sailboat. Sailing is sailing, after all.

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That said, I'll take my 44 foot boat over a super yacht any day. Much more simple and straightforward (not to mention less expensive!). We prefer - and enjoy - having our champagne views on a beer budget. But we definitely appreciated the chance to experience a glimpse into this world first hand.

Our buddy Gonzo on the bow. Love him.

Backing into the slip, "med moor" style. A process that took no less than 30 minutes. 

The twins are getting the first taste of the "good life". If they turn out to have expensive taste, we can pin point why.

One of the outdoor dining areas.

The girls, playing on the mega yacht dock. They could've cared less about all the commotion. It was all about the crocs.

Here she is, in all her beautiful glory!

Catching up: Daily Life

Sorry I have been so remiss about blogging. It's not easy to find time to write, particularly if we can't get a decent wifi signal on the boat and I need to go ashore to get online (we use a Rogue Wave wifi booster which works amazing when there are open signals, but these days most are password protected). As such, most of my "updating" has been via cellular data to our Facebook Page (point for smart phones!). Luckily, I have decent boat-based wifi at the moment, and instead of spending hours I do not have on all the wonderful individual posts I want to write, I'll just post a bunch of pictures and a mini-cram-style-missive to show you what we have been up to. A photo is worth a thousand words, right? This will be much more efficient I think, and it will get the point across. In the meantime, I will work on more detailed posts offline on a variety of subjects to post in the coming days and weeks.

So where are we now? Well, we made the upwind slog to Virgin Gorda from St. John. Winds have been unusually high these past few weeks - ranging from 20 to 30 knots every minute of every day - so it was indeed a "slog" taking us a rather pathetic three days of tacking back and forth to make this meager twenty-five mile "passage". We came here for Scott to race on the super yacht Parsifal.  Note that I said "super" and not "mega". Apparently there is a difference and though I cannot be sure, I think it amounts to another trifecta of zeros on a given bank account. It's not every day you get asked to crew on a 180 foot luxury sailboat and Scott could not pass up the opportunity, even if it did mean leaving me to be a single boat mom for five days. Though I gave him a hard time for abandoning me to go play both in truth and (mostly) in jest, I couldn't deny him this chance. Being former racing sailors has it's perks, that's for sure. We have so many sailing friends and several who work in the yachting industry that every now and then we get some opportunities to do things and meet people other people only dream of. I'll write more about the super yacht experience in a later post, but I must give a big shout out to our good buddy, Gonzo, for always thinking of us and inviting Scott to participate. It was pretty awesome, even from my vantage point from the deck of our boat. More to come...

As for other goings ons, we continue to get the opportunity to meet great blog followers and friends alike as this area is positively teeming with boating enthusiasts and blog readers. Paul and Sheryl Shard, of the television show Distant Shores, are here as well and got some great footage of our family to use in an upcoming episode for their show. That was fun and it was great to catch up with them again after seeing them at the Chicago Boat Show last year. We'll keep you posted on that interview and when it airs you can see for yourself if things are going as well as we allude to on this blog, or if it's all a ruse and we are teetering on the brink of insanity. Or maybe it's a little bit of both. You decide (wink).

Life on a boat continues with ups and downs and non-stop projects. We are always chasing up issues, from diaper blow outs and tantrums to battery problems and gear that has fallen into disrepair. Each morning before racing Scott fixed a new leak that would spring up. The first two were from faulty hoses from our sink faucets; easy, quick, fixes. The last leak, from our manual head pump (aka the way we flush our toilet), was more difficult. We are still dealing with it and while it's not bad enough to be considered urgent, it is a (pretty gross) nuisance to have seawater slowly trickling in from a blown seal on your toilet. Walking into a bathroom (or "head" as we call it) with a wet floor has always been one thing that has made my skin crawl. Even as a child I would tip toe into the stalls at the pools - their floors all slimy and wet - so disgusted at the thought that what I was stepping in might actually be pee and not pool water. As I even type that sentence my face is contorted into a disgusted grimace. Shudder. Not looking forward to the final fix as it will no doubt result in fecal matter getting on our skin. We'll just keep putting it off until we can't.

We have lots of fun stuff coming up to that does not involve poop or faulty hoses, not the least of which is the fact that many friends are coming to charter in the area (including AJ, who helped us out earlier this season) and my amazing, beautiful and crazy talented sister, Chelsea, who made a last minute decision to spend her spring break with us. Cannot wait for her arrival. And for all the goodies she will be bringing. Because if you ever visit people living on a cruising boat in the islands, you will be bringing them stuff from the homeland. Be warned.

So that is that. We are loving life and feel very much at home down here on our boat. I think we are past the "beta test" stage and I can say with resounding confidence that this is actually working, despite what most people - and even I, in my darkest moments - thought. Talk has now turned to how to make this viable in the long-term (aka operation "make money" in the islands), which is a complicated matter for sure. For now, we'll just keep on keeping on and letting the Universe guide us where she will. So far, so good. I'll let the pictures do the talking for now...