When you set out to turn those dreams of cruising to distant ports into reality, you are beset with conflicting advice and multitudes of choices. This overwhelming situation is not improved by all the “information” available on the Internet; the real world experience of these purveyors of wisdom is impossible to ascertain.
In the olden days it was much the same. When we started cruising, the marina “experts” told us we “couldn’t do this, needed that, and had to….” We found that in almost all cases the dockside opinions were 100% wrong. We learned by doing, by sailing around the world on a beautiful mainstream yacht, albeit one totally unsuitable for long distance cruising. In the course of that circumnavigation we realized that if we were going to continue the cruising lifestyle we had come to love, we needed a yacht that was optimized for going places rather than looking good in marinas and at boat shows.
Our goal was simple: we wanted to enjoy our life, with the freedom to go where we wanted when we wanted (within the bounds of good seamanship), without concern for systems issues that might restrict our travels. We should add that our tolerance for recurring maintenance problems was very low.
Priorities were then, and remain today, the following:
- Speed, because it is the single most important factor in reducing weather risks, thereby improving passaging comfort and, ultimately, safety. Plus, going fast is fun.
- Heavy weather capability so that we did not have the nagging tick of worry about what might happen if we were caught in something really bad.
- Structural safety factors to deal not only with the sea, but also the occasional operator error – read: grounding – and allow us to continue with our cruise without heading for the nearest boatyard.
- Efficient but simple systems that would let us operate far from outside assistance, with the comfort that would keep all members of the crew content.
Thirty four years and more than sixty ocean going yachts later, those goals are still the same. This is why our systems, structures, and appearance are so different from the norm. All our decisions, on everything from fiddle rail height, hand holds and furniture placement, to dinghy storage and launching, are made on a basis of what works best for ocean crossing in adverse conditions and using the yacht in distant locations.
This is why we have integral tanks forming a double bottom, why our structures are so “overbuilt”, why there are so few below-the-waterline plumbing connections, and why we still build our own fridge systems and engineer for long periods at anchor without running the genset.
It is why we’ve had at least two watertight bulkheads in every yacht we’ve ever done, and why keel structures are engineered to four times the ABS rule, and rudder shafts twice the rule. And it is why we fit twin autopilots as standard.
This is also the reason we would not consider heading offshore on a powerboat unless it had the stability to recover from a capsize.
The bottom line for us, our clients, and those who join the family later as adoptive parents of one of these yachts, is the joy of cruising: the freedom that it brings, and the ability to live this lifestyle with a maximum degree of independence and minimum contact with the world of boatyards and marine technicians.
“Knowing without reservation that a boat can take care of itself while still providing comfort and safety in truly abysmal conditions is at the
core of the Dashews’ philosophy of minimal worry.”
-Bill Parlatore, Passagemaker Magazine
If this subject is of interest, you will find on SetSail hundreds of posts and thousands of photos detailing how and why we do things as we do. If you have any doubts about the efficacy of our approach, ask a professional mariner, who makes his living from the sea, for his opinion.