A Cruising Phase of Life

It's been almost three years since my electrocution. I'm still recovering from the accident, which at this point is mostly about learning new ways to manage and work around my injuries. My doctors say they just can't do much for me anymore. My shoulders and arms have very limited range of motion and I have chronic pain from them. I have also developed debilitating arthritis in my lower back, mostly in L3, L4, and L5. I blame the electrocution for starting the arthritis. I also have a sever compression fracture in my L1. If you combine that with some brain injuries I am very much disabled and I'm not sure if I could safely caption a cursing boat and passage making. I've lost a lot of strength and my balance isn't what it should be. I battle chronic pain that wears me out and lowers my stamina. I have made two or maybe three passages as a crew member since my electrocution. I've been able to do all my responsibilities at the time but have also been told by all of the captains not to go forward on the boat, that I should always have someone else do that because of my poor balance and weak legs. There are several modifications I would have to make on my boat to live on it and for me to be able to safely sail it, especially in bad weather.

Nevertheless, I still cling to my plan to buy a cruising sailboat for full time live aboard and traveling. I'm convinced now that I want to cross the Atlantic, visit Europe, and more. For me to do that I need a way to manage my pain much better. Managing the pain is a difficult challenge that I haven't mastered on land yet, better yet while sailing. However I now have a doctor who is a full time specialist in pain management. I'm optimistic that he can help me but I'm not sure how much.

I've had two different back injections to help diminish the pain in my back and make me stronger. However, these are not permanent solutions and the one back procedure was so painful that I couldn't believe they would do it without more pain injections first. I also now have a number of good pain medications (pills) that I take. However these are a mixed blessing so far. On the Positive side, they can pretty much relieve my pain and that is truly a god-send. But and when that happens I feel better and start to do more things. Not a lot more, but enough to make my pain much worse when the pain pills wear off. I'm not comfortable having to take the pills all the time so I'm going to have to work on finding a better balance or mix of things.

With almost three years of living this new reality, which Gigi and I now call our "new normal," I have learned a great deal about myself and others. As a person I have slowed down more (my cognitive processing speed is slower) and that, I think, has made me a much better listener and more observant of people. In other words, I am much better at living in the hear-and-now and I am much more sympathetic and understanding of others. That part has been a real blessing.

I've been told many times by my doctors and friends that I should write a book about what I experienced during the electrocution. I remember every detail of being electrocuted, including my thoughts, and what I was trying to do to escape, etc. I know I came very near to death, and may have actually died (stopped breathing with no pulse) for a few moments.

I think I was brought back by someone trying to pull me away from the fire and electricity after I was thrown from the power line. When they tried to drag me away from the fire and power line the dragged me by my arms over my head. The problem was that my upper arms and shoulders were blown apart by the electricity and pulling me by my arms sent some sort of serious shock wave to my brain that brought me back to live. I then tried to scream for them to stop but I could barely talk. Then I passed out again and woke-up in the hospital intensive care a week or so later.

On may 7th 2009 our plans changed when I accidentally ran into a down high voltage (24,000 Volts) and was seriously injured. I had been retired for two months and was setteling into a new and slower life. We had put the house up for sale (before housing prices really fell) and we were actively downsizing. I still can't believe the amount of stuff we had and the time it took to organize it.

We were leaving all the family furniture that had been passed down through the years to our children. All of my climbing gear was divided between the two kids. They both ended up with a couple of hundred pounds of gear each, from climbing gear, pro, ropes, axes, harnesses, shoes, etc. They also each inherited around 4 sleeping bags each and half a dozen backpacks. Dividing the backpacks was the hardest part of the process. We gave a tremendous amount of things to Good Will and the local thrift shops. They each had to send a large truck to collect their share. We could have put a lot of it on ebay or Creg's list but it would have taken us week or months. Besides, we didn't really need the money and wanted to give it to someone(s) who needed it and would use it.

It was the easiest of things, it was the hardest of things, it was the end of a chapter, it was the start of a journey, it was something we knew about, it was something we knew nothing about. It was many things, but most of all, deciding to buy an offshore live aboard cruising sailboat was a leap of faith.

We knew we could do a tremendous amount of our own research over the Internet and read many very good books about cruising, sailing, seamanship, fitting a boat, and more. But where would a couple of rookies like us find a mentor with the practical knowledge and experience to help us identify and appreciate the practical implications of the many different sailboat configurations and tradeoffs?

We didn't know any sailors, better yet experienced cruisers. We didn't have anyone to call or even anyone we knew to point is in the right direction to find out where we should go to find the type of information we wanted and needed. So, I started our research by buying books. But it wasn't until I read "The Voyagers Handbook" by Beth Leonard that I felt like I was connecting to the kind of information we really needed. I've read that three times over the past year and still get something out of it each time.

It was shortly after I read this book that I cam across John Neal's web site and his guide to selecting a cruising boat. After reading that a few times I wrote John and asked questions about his consulting services to help people buy qualified cruising sailboats. I took a chance, paid my money, and it's been nothing short of a fabulous investment. He's worked with me for over a year now and has given great advice and counseling. I say counseling because I've written him some wildly naive questions over the years that he's responded very well to and kept me straight. If you're thinking of buying your first offshore cruising boat, you'll need a service like this. There is just too much to learn and too much to know about how various boats were built, hold up, handle, etc. to get it on your own.

With Beth's book and John's consulting (That's John Neal in the picture taken from his web site) we had a place to start learning about the kind of boat we would want, specific makes, models and features we needed to know about, and a point of departure for researching and learning all sorts of other things needed to begin a cruising endeavor like we had in mind.

I'm a full 6' 6" tall. Sailboats aren't generally made for me. For a boat in the 40'-50' range I've given up on any expectation that I'll have pervasive headroom. I do however have to factor headroom into our boat evaluation criteria to a much greater extent than the vast majority of other people. At my height many design issues come into play that most people would never consider or in many cases wouldn't even be aware of. Lets start with the cockpit area.

Consider the main companionway from the cockpit to the salon. For me, just getting there can be an issue. Boats with dodgers and cockpit seats that wrap around in front of the companionway cause me to have to stoop at a very awkward height to get to the companion way. In this position most handholds are either very awkward to get a hold of or positioned in such a way that they offer very little support. Stooping as I do I'm already out of balance and the lack of good handholds can make an otherwise trivial movement of the boat a real opportunity to loose my balance and slip or fall.

There are several cockpit design issues that everyone considers and makes trade-offs about that I won't mention here. However, at my height some considerations are either unique or much more important. First, consider a bimini, (that's a requirement for us because of Gigi's previous melanoma) most people can easily design it so there is standing room under it. That's typically not the case for me and if there is headroom it's often limited with head bumping (banging) obstacles incorporated into it. As a rule of thumb the height of masts become a much more important issue for me. They limit bimini height and without a bimini can often become a head banging hazard that would otherwise be out of reach for most sailors.

The picture above is of Por Fin, an immaculate Hunter 466 that I sailed on in Panama. That's captain Mike Fegen and first mate Judy Fegen in the cockpit with their backs turned. They custom built a fiberglass bimini that would be be more than adequate for the vast majority of sailors. I don't see how anyone could have come up with a better design and as such it's still the basic model for what I want to end up with.

Even so, that wasn't the case for me. While I could stand up under most of this structure there were also a couple of support bars crossing on the underside that were constant hazards for me. Even where I could stand up the clearance was minimal. No one on board for the week we sailed together understood how I could possibly keep hitting my head over and over under the bimini given that I could stand up under it. I can say that it was remarkably easy. Some of that was because of my lack of experienced sea legs and part, I fear, was an indication that I'm a much slower learner than I previously though. Nevertheless, in my defense, the pervasive (yet minimal) clearance lulled me into a false sense of security that even a small motion of the boat could jolt me out of.

Another design issue for me is access to the decks from the cockpit. While there are many boats that make this a little awkward it can be particularly problematic for me. Remember the stooping I did to get to the companionway? It's often the same issue for me to get to the deck, especially so depending on how the dodger or bimini are designed. The extra stooping involved can make reaching traditional handholds difficult and handicap my balance. I can also have such difficulty moving my frame through bimini bracing that the process becomes act of contortion. I remember a beautiful Valiant 47 where it was almost impossible for me to get to the deck from the cockpit. I wouldn't want to try it at sea and it would be outright dangerous in even a moderate sea state.

Let's move to the inside now. I'll keep this short. First, it's unrealistic to spend any significant time in the galley with my head bent over and my shoulders pinned against the headliner. I could live with my head against the ceiling a little but I draw the line with my shoulders. Second, I can stoop a little in most of the boat but I need full headroom at the base of the companionway stairs. Finally, the ultimate showstopper can be the berths. I currently sleep in a king size bed with my feet partially over the end. Virtually any berth with a bulkhead at each end is too small for me. If the end isn't open it probably won't work.

There's more I could say but I think you get the point.

One of the first things we discussed as we contemplated this endeavor was the need to learn to sail a big boat in the ocean. We don't miss anything.

We took our first sailing lesson together in the late 70's or early 80's. At the time we lived in San Diego and were able to take our first lessons from the University of California at San Diego's extension program on Mission Bay. We were poor students (and we didn't have any money either) and the price was right. It was basically free.

I was most interested in sailing Hobie Cats at the time because they went fast and if you knew what you were doing you could fly a hull and they could tip over. How cool is that? Unfortunately, the Hobie Cats were popular with many others as well and often reserved in advance. So we often ended up on a small daysailer. I tried to tip it over a couple of times but quickly came to the conclusion that it was too much work, and more importantly, getting it back upright and to the dock would be more grief that it was worth. I was also a little concerned that they wouldn't let me take it out anymore if they knew I was intentionally tipping it over.

All in all it was great fun, almost free, and we actually learned a lot. Gigi wouldn't allow me to be reckless but I did try a lot of different maneuvers in those boats that I'm pretty sure the boat house personnel would have preferred I didn't. After all, I was young, the sun was always shining, it was Mission Bay, the water was warm, and the breezes were fair. More importantly, the boats were too slow to hold my full attention, especially so given that I was in the company of a young beautiful woman in a bathing suit. Looking back, it's possible that I may have felt the need to showoff a little to keep the attention of that beautiful woman. I had to do something given that I was more than a little shy at the time and talking with a beautiful woman in a bathing suit was a little intimidating to me. Nevertheless, I somehow managed to keep her attention without driving her away in the process. It wasn't long after I demonstrated my prowess in a sailboat that I asked her to marry me.

While I never fully admitted at the time, I personally already had dreams of sailing off over the ocean someday. On the other hand, Gigi made it clear that sailing on Mission Bay was just fine thank you, there was no need to go out on the ocean. It would have been pointless for me to have pushed my feelings the issue. Besides, I was much more interested in getting her like me than I was in sailing on the ocean.

But things change and thirty years later we're both looking forward to sailing on the ocean.

Over the past 8 months we've looked at over 20 boats in person and have researched over a hundred on the web and through other sources. We're planning another shopping trip now that the house is ready to show and we don't really need to be here for that.

We're planning to visit Annapolis, MD, Deltaville, VA, and Rock Hall, MD. We may go are far north at Road Island. We're working to develop a list of boats we want to look at. We currently have 26 boats on the list but want to get that down to 10, no more than 15. We've included samples of some of the boats we've looked at in the photo gallery.

After several months of getting ready we finally have the house on the market. It's listed at $749,000 but we think it's too low. We had our first showing yesterday and the agent's feedback was that it the house and grounds were very nice but that it may be over priced by $100,000. That's our current boat on the dock.