CD - CRUISING IDEAS, Lessons learned over 90,000 miles - by Beth Leonard and Evans Starzinger

Take two ex Mckinsey consultants and add 90,000 miles of ocean going experience in two very different yachts and you are sure to find a lot of well informed opinion.

Beth Leonard and Evans Starzinger have provided a fascinating web site. Beth has written a Voyagers Handbook, Blue Horizons, which has won the Outdoor Literature category of the 2007 National Outdoor Book Awards, the first time a sailing book has won the Literature prize. She has also written Following Seas, which chronicles their first three-year tropical circumnavigation aboard Silk, a Shannon 37 centerboard ketch.  Beth has also produced a CD, CRUISING IDEAS, the subject of this review.

The CD discusses the inevitable compromises in choosing their “Mythical Perfect Boat” for Ocean Cruising including high latitudes. Their ideas were implemented in Hawk, an Aluminium Van Der Stadt designed high performance and low maintenance 'expedition' boat, of length 47ft. High on their list was a good looking integral hard dodger.  They considered this a safety priority as it would reduce fatigue on passage and allow better watch keeping.  It also proved to be one of the toughest elements to find and ultimately drove the final design choice.

The CD goes on to cover a Refitting and Equipment, the Costs of Cruising, that vital element ‘Crew’ and Sail Handling. The section on sails discusses their comprehensive sail inventory, which looks quite similar to that of a scaled down Open 60. They discuss the pros and cons of setting an asymmetrical spinnaker with and without a main; a good idea on smaller boats but difficult to take down in strengthening wind aboard the high-masted Hawk.

The section on Passage Making includes discussion of heavy weather and practical weather routing and includes ‘ten little tips before casting off the dock lines’ and a passage preparation checklist. The Livaboard Skills section includes tips and techniques for secure anchoring, Their principal recommendation is to use a heavy anchor! The main anchor on Hawk is a 50 kilogram Bruce, a size often specified for considerably larger vessels. The High Latitude section provides invaluable advice in preparation for sailing in those waters. The discussion on storm tactics and drogues is comprehensive and practical providing a comparison of the respective merits (and information of where to purchase) Delta, Galerider and Jordan Series drogues, Sea Brake and Parachute Sea Anchors.

The final section discusses what they describe as Safety Incidents over 75,000 miles of cruising, a summary of what happened and the lessons they have learned from those occasions where there was a possibility of losing the boat and dying. Good honest food for thought!

I would thoroughly recommend this CD to anyone contemplating setting out on long distance cruises. Many aspects of Ocean Cruising are covered but none are laboured. I may not have read ever word on this CD because there is an awful lot there, but the pieces I dipped into provided a good read and reflected the depth of seagoing knowledge Beth and Evans have built up over the past 15 years.