Everything We Know (about sailing) We Learned From You Tube
Who we follow on You Tube, and why we follow them, as we learn about the sailing/liveaboard lifestyle.
12/29/20254 min read
I must admit; I have a love-hate relationship with You Tube. I hate that my kids (and myself, if I’m honest) can fritter away hours of our precious time watching other people do stuff.
On the other hand, we do come across some useful information in those frittered away hours.
I don’t think we ever would have dreamed of blowing investing our retirement funds on a sailboat if it weren’t for watching other people brave enough to try it first, via You Tube!
This is a non-exhaustive list of who we watch and why we watch them:
The Sailing Brittican crew are just such a likeable family, and we enjoy their to-the-point videos, helpful information on the how-to’s of sailing and boat maintenance that is quick and easy to digest. When we want a quick lesson on anything from tacking to docking this is one of our go-to channels.
And I think I mentioned in a previous post how much I love checklists – Kim is the checklist queen.They keep checklists for everything and have inspired us to do the same.
Useful information here on what it’s like to live aboard a sailboat (from cooking to packing and preparing for long voyages) but we watch this channel just as often for pure entertainment. Mainly because of Sophie; she’s funny and smart and entertaining as well as informative. On the more technical side, Ryan shares what you need to know about everything from Lithium batteries and solar power, to how to DIY a water maker.
And what we’re watching now is the Foster Family Journey.
The Fosters are another likeable family that we enjoy following.
Their boat tours were very helpful to us in making decisions about some of the boats on our ‘maybe’ list that would have required expensive travel fees to see in person. That is what first drew us to their channel.
Then we started binge-watching their 200 and something videos, documenting their journey from the beginning, and discovered how much we have in common.
Reasons for wanting to sail, starting with zero experience, buying a boat in Kemah…through the same brokerage…and ending up with a Catalina even though we weren’t considering Catalinas, are all commonalities in the jumping off point in our stories. There are plenty of differences too. In age and personalities for a start, but still, we feel most akin to them.
I mentioned that we weren’t really looking at Catalina’s.
Why did we buy a Catalina then? We actually made the trip to Kemah twice, hoping to see a Hunter 410 that was for sale with a different broker but because of missed communication and bad timing, it just never worked out.
But the Catalina was here and it was in our price range, so we decided to take a look.
And even though we had agreed on the way down that we were just window shopping and weren’t going to put an offer on anything, we loved it so much, we decided we would like to buy it. So, we did. And the rest, as they say, is history…in the making.
Admittedly, there are days I wonder if it was a wise purchase or not. As we try and get her ready for serious sailing, I sometimes feel as if we are only treading water and not making any real headway. We thought we would be spending a lot of time this month out on the water learning to sail but most of our time is spent at the dock, working on projects.
It seems as soon as we fix one problem another issue (or two) arises. While we planned for this to some extent, its nerve wracking to see just how quickly our funds are dwindling and we wonder if perhaps we should have waited for a boat to come along that was newer and in need of less work, but still in our budget. If that boat even exists.
So far, we have had the standing rigging re-done, replaced the heads and a ton of hoses, did a deep cleaning of the interior (still need to work on the exterior) and a few other minor things.
Some of the projects still on our to-do list are getting the watermaker and outboard motor for the dingy working, upgrading the solar and batteries and adding a secondary anchor. We also have some leaky portholes. The autopilot, AIS and compass quit working on our first solo sail. Oh, and of course, just when the new season of Culinary Class Wars finally comes out on Netflix, the TV goes out. Bummer.
It’s hard not to get overwhelmed or frustrated but we will just keep plugging away. And we’ll keep on tuning into You Tube to watch those who have realized their dreams despite the challenges, because some days, that is all that keeps us going.
We don’t know which, out of those You Tubers who inspire us are still sailing, but wherever they may be, we wish them well!
