SAIL AWAY WITH US
This is the start of our journey from complete novice sailors to global-trotting, salty sailors. This is also a travel blog for anyone who is amused/intrigued by the notion of watching two inept sailors learn the hard way so that you don't have to.
We want to record our experiences as we work out how to plan, fund and gain the skills for our sailing adventure whilst simultaneously finding new ways to finance an alternative life on the high seas.
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At this point we have all the questions and none of the answers but are hoping to connect with others on the same journey to share the fun and hopefully build a community of like-minded souls to travel with us, vicariously or literally.
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We really want to create content that is useful for those planning on following us with a jump into the unknown, but also a fun resource for those who have already made the leap or are just curious. We are open to suggestions and questions on our plans, ideas, business and collaboration!
Just get in touch,
Tom & Oli xx
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ABOUT
Hello! We are Tom and Oli, a couple from the UK, currently living in Dubai and working ‘normal’ 9-5 jobs. Tom is a lawyer and Oli is a freelance conference/ content producer.
We met 15 years ago working in recruitment in Crawley in the UK (we need to come up with a more exciting story!) and soon after we left the country for jobs on superyachts when the 2008 financial crisis hit.
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We lasted several fun-filled, but exhausting years as crew on a stinkpot (motor yacht) and one further year on a sailing catamaran in the British Virgin Islands. We then returned home, went back to uni and got degrees as mature students before launching into our new-found, 'serious' careers.
Whilst these have been good to us and have brought us overseas again to Dubai, the wanderlust never left and we have decided to take to the seas once again - but this time on our own teensy yacht. All of this depends on us finding a way to work, play and sail at the same time on said yacht in a way that can sustain us long term.
OUR STARTING POINT
We began this journey in 2020 as almost complete novices - Oli has a RYA dinghy sailing 1 and 2 from when she was around 8 years old and couldn’t tie so much as a Granny knot never mind a Boleyn, and Tom has worked as a deckie on a superyacht which, let’s be honest, mostly involved cleaning the hull of the yacht and driving the tender for mega rich guests wanting to waterski. It didn’t involve mechanical maintenance, sails or navigation.
​Despite the fact we have the advantage of knowing we enjoy life at sea, being paid to work on a superyacht in the interior as a stewardess is VERY different from running, playing, sailing and working from your own boat. In doing so we realised there aren’t enough blogs that go from the very beginning, before a yacht has even been seen - and as such we plan to share our experience of learning to sail, learning to dive, how to do it, where to do it, how to maintain boats and more.
As we learn the ropes (lines) we will share our experiences and what we learned. We would love for you to join us as we embark on this journey to conquer the world of remote working from a yacht and sail a circumnavigation around this beautiful planet. If/when we crack the nut we will be sure to show you how we did it and answer any questions you may have…
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WHERE WE WANT TO GO
We have worked several Mediterranean seasons, and the same in the Caribbean and US East coast when on the superyachts, so we feel it is sensible to revisit these familiar waters as we begin again and use them to learn about how to run the boat. However, our big plan is to get through the Panama Canal and onto the Pacific and Asia when we feel we are ready. The temptation of the Marquesas, Vanuatu, Kiribati and the Cook Islands are strong, as is the appeal of Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
As keen divers, we will be working hard to get to all the best dive spots and report back on where they are, and how best to dive them.
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THE YACHT
Hopefully not a million dollar question!
From the very early learnings we have made in recent weeks we know that the budget for buying and living on a yacht is equivalent with the age old question on the length of a piece of string. We have seen people sailing on €300/month including insurance, food and maintenance, and those on €5000 and many in between.
So, we want to ensure we have a budget for the boat, a budget to do any refits and keep aside contingencies for spares, and a budget for living, whilst we work out how to manage remote working and gain an income whilst cruising.​