‘During the past four years I have sailed through some of the major crossroads of the cruising world: Rhodes, Gibraltar, Antigua, Panama, Tahiti… and everywhere I was struck by the absence of the ideal bluewater cruising boats – the ones advertised in magazines and praised at boat shows. What, then, were the boats that real people cruise in?
‘In my search for the elusive ‘ideal’ cruising boat I decided to let the cruising skippers themselves draw the picture and so compiled a questionnaire, trying to interview all boats passing through Suva during September and October – when so many are on their way west to be clear before the hurricane season starts. I set down 36 questions, referring not just to the boat but also to related matters like dinghy, navigation, system of watches…’
Those words are from the survey published in the October 1979 issue of Practical Boat Owner. Much has happened in the sailing world in the intervening years, but many of the topics are still relevant, and it’s worthwhile to compare those findings to the current situation.
Once again I reverted to my tried and tested method by interviewing 65 skippers, made up of two distinctive groups. Forty were seasoned long-distance sailors, most of whom had taken part in at least one of my previous surveys, while the 25 other owners were participants in the GLY World Odyssey 500, a round-the-world rally to mark the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation.
I decided to include this second group in the survey to obtain data and comments from sailors who are currently undertaking a world voyage.
Survey results
Among the first group 26 had completed a circumnavigation, and the average mileage sailed by each was 98,950, whereas the average mileage sailed by was not considered a small boat.
