Matthew Burzon was at the helm of the Swan 411 Albireo, offshore somewhere between Virginia and Bermuda, getting smashed in the face every few minutes.

The boat was making 7 or 8 knots in seas of 8 to 12 feet. Albireo is a well-cruised 1978 Sparkman & Stephens design, and this was happening in 2018, so there were no worries about whether the boat could handle the beating that Mother Nature was doling out. 

But the humans on board? That was a different story. 

“There’s big water out there,” Matthew recalls with a nervous chuckle. “You get wet. Every once in a while, a wave would hit, and it was the equivalent of taking a 5-gallon bucket of water to the face.”

Down below, his father, Steve Burzon—the boat’s owner and captain in charge of the trip—was out cold. Whatever had befallen Steve wasn’t seasickness, but it was something more powerful than a ­5-gallon bucket of water, and it was debilitating enough that the old salt decided that this journey on Albireo would be his last one offshore.

“I don’t know exactly what it was—­maybe just old age creeping in,” says Steve, who was 77 at the time. “I couldn’t perform. I couldn’t do anything. I would be in my bunk, back aft, and I remember Matt coming in. He’d say: ‘Dad, don’t get up. I’ll do your turn at the helm,’ or ‘I’ll cook dinner.’”

It’s not exactly how Steve or Matthew imagined that their first, and likely their last, father-son offshore sailing journey would be, especially after so many years of trying to make it happen. 

Steve and his wife, Nancy, had been ­sailors for what felt like forever, but Matthew’s experience on the boat with them was limited to coastal cruising, both as a kid and as a young adult. Steve had long wanted his son to join him out in bigger water, but Matthew was always in school or at work, running his recruiting business or volunteering as a firefighter. 

Finally, when Matthew was in his early 30s, this window of opportunity appeared. Steve needed to bring Albireo down from Lake Champlain in the Northeast United States to Sint Maarten in the Leeward Islands, which would become the boat’s new home. The plan was for Steve to cruise south to the Chesapeake Bay, then pick up Matthew and a few other hands, and from there, point the bow toward the warm ­waters of the Caribbean.

“I was pretty excited to get the call. It started this whole process of getting offshore foul-weather gear and all this stuff. I got all decked out,” Matthew says. “I was very excited. Dad had brought the boat down the Hudson River to Norfolk, Virginia. I was getting updates, which was building up the level of stoke.”

The plan was for 11 to 14 days at sea with no stops. The weather had other ideas, forcing Albireo and its crew to divert to Bermuda just as Steve’s health took a turn for the worse. 

And whatever was ailing Steve meant that Matthew and the rest of the crew would have to play bigger roles than any of them had anticipated, especially for his first time cruising offshore. 

A Lifetime of Learning

Fans of catamarans might recognize Steve, who is now 83, as an organizer and ambassador for the Caribbean Multihull Challenge on Sint Maarten. But for many, many years prior to that event being created, Steve was a monohull sailor based in the Northeast United States. 

He got started around age 16, while growing up in New England, and bought his first boat—a wooden 19-foot Cape Cod Knockabout—before he turned 20. That led him to a bookstore to find a title that might teach him to sail better. He brought the tome with him on the boat so that he could look things up along the way. He ended up having a blast.

As a young ad salesman, Steve kept ­sailing. He learned celestial navigation, figured out how to use a sextant, took jobs as a delivery skipper, and made his first offshore passage­—from Bermuda to Newport, Rhode Island. After doing a round-trip delivery from Connecticut to Maine on a Swan 411, he knew that was the boat of his dreams. He and his wife, Nancy, ended up buying it in 1984. 

That boat was Albireo. The couple would sail it from Maine to Grenada and all points in between, eventually with little Matthew in tow. Quite a lot of the time, Matthew would be asleep below, zonked out from the motion on the water.

Which was actually a relief to Steve and Nancy, given that the boy had, let’s call it, a relentless amount of energy. 

“Matt’s nickname is ‘Action Jackson,’” Steve says. “He’d swing from the handhelds like it was a gym.”

Matt played hockey. He liked stuff with engines that made noise and went fast. Being out on the sailboat, well, it quite ­literally put him to sleep.

“That was a lot of my childhood,” Matthew says. “But I loved going from destination to destination. I rode my bike all over the place—Nantucket, Stonington, everywhere. I think it was a mix of seasickness and trying to make a kid sit still.”

Steve adds: “My wife and I were into the romance of it, the beauty of it, and we brought our kid. We were forcing him to be with us, and he’d probably rather be driving his four-wheeler out in the yard.”

It wasn’t until Matthew got older that he realized the sailing itself could be exciting. Albireo was on Lake Champlain, and Matthew was between jobs trying to relocate back to Vermont, so Steve and Nancy let him live on board.

“Toward the end of that time, I would take my friends out and sail on Lake Champlain,” Matthew says. “That was the first time I realized, there’s something to this.”

So, when Steve called about the chance to head offshore together aboard Albireo, Matthew was finally ready to embrace the opportunity. 

Now, all they needed was the rest of the crew. Three more guys ought to do it, Steve figured, and a distant cousin of Matthew’s might be perfect.

Making It Happen

That cousin, Ben Fletcher, had gotten to talking with Steve at a family gathering. As it turned out, Ben and Steve had sailing in common. Ben had done the RORC Caribbean 600, as well as a big race in the Mediterranean, and had taught sailing too. 

“He’s a sailor,” says Steve, who figured that between Ben’s sailing know-how and Matthew’s mechanical brainpower, the two of them could figure out just about anything on the boat. “Matt is a mechanic. On this trip, Albireo was like 35 years old. Things go wrong. And Matt is agile. He’s an athlete. He can do anything physically. Ben was that same way.”

For the final two crewmembers, Steve tapped a couple of guys who used to work for his landscaping company. They, ­forevermore, shall be known only as “the two yahoos.”

“These guys used to dig holes for me, plant trees,” Steve says. “It turned out to be a big mistake. They were too immature to go away from Mommy and Daddy.”

But nobody knew that when Albireo set off for the Caribbean, and then Steve got sick. Matthew and Ben realized that they had to rise to the occasion as they looked out across the rising seas. 

“Ben was a competent leader, so he’d be on deck and I’d be down below,” Matthew recalls. “We’d get food together or whatever we had to do. We had to make all these adjustments—the lines that lash down the dinghy would come undone, and we’d have to keep an eye out for things like that. You build trust quickly with your crew. You wake up and say, ‘Good job.’ After that happens a few times, there’s camaraderie and trust.”

The two yahoos, well, they “kept you awake and entertained,” Matthew adds.

“Matt was watch captain for his watch, and Ben was watch captain for his watch,” Steve says. “They had brainpower and ­management skills.”

Ben and Matthew needed those skills for things such as navigating at night—again, not something that was part of Matthew’s typical program. He was at Albireo’s helm under pitch-black skies at 2 o’clock in the morning when the boat came upon a cruise ship.

Matthew lost his night vision. He was blinded.

“It was so bright—so bright,” he says. “I couldn’t tell which direction it was going. I couldn’t pick up on the red and green lights because there were just too many lights. I was close enough that their crew put the spotlight on me, so, yeah, that’s something when it happens.”

But finally, mercifully, they made it to Bermuda. They arrived at night, cruising in through the Town Cut and tying up at St. George’s. 

The two yahoos rented motorbikes and got themselves into a bunch of drunken trouble. That was the end of them. Ben was happy to get some sleep, as were Steve and Matthew—who later headed ashore for a shower, some lunch, and a couple of beers at the White Horse Pub & Restaurant. 

“It was like a little holiday. We stayed for a few days,” Steve says, adding that for the first time in their lives, the father and son seemed to have a better understanding of each other as people. “This was a father-son bonding experience. It was something I wish all the fathers in the world could have, that experience. It’s really special.”

And it will remain a special memory, never to be replaced, because Albireo—for the first time in Matthew’s life—is no ­longer part of the family. 

After owning the boat for nearly 40 years, Steve decided to sell it. After settling the boat in Sint Maarten, he found himself out in the waters around the island in 18 to 22 knots of steady, strong heavy wind. For the first time in a long time, he felt a little scared.

“I know I’m hooked in and everything, but going forward, I began to think, Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead,” he says. “It was a member of the family—two daughters, a son and a boat. That was the family. But that Swan is a very athletic boat. You need a lot of strength to be able to crank the winches. The gennie is gigantic in that design. I kind of began to feel like my balance wasn’t as good as it was. I was thinking that one of these days, I’m going to fall off the boat, and my poor wife is going to have to come back and get me.”

Helping to organize the Caribbean Multihull Challenge is now Steve’s passion. He and Nancy are getting to experience how the ocean feels from aboard catamarans—which are easier, stability-wise, on their aging bodies. 

Matt, meanwhile, is often out cruising aboard a 23-foot Boston Whaler Dauntless that he owns with his girlfriend, and looking forward to a time when he can share the family’s passion for offshore adventures with her.

“I’d love to get a sailboat,” Matthew says. “I think I’m not in the right phase of my life to get a sailboat—it would be challenging to be in southern Vermont with a sailboat. We like the Whaler. We trailer it around. We’re toying with the idea of doing a sailing photography outfit.” 

That’s definitely one thing that the Burzon men have in common: They find a way to get their boating fix. Steve is also a member of the Sint Maarten Yacht Club, which gives him access to all its boats from about 20 feet down to tiny dinghies. 

“I was thinking the other day,” Steve says, “I could get in a little boat and sail around Simpson Bay Lagoon.”

Matthew smiles. That sure sounds like fun to him too.

The post Buckets of Water, Waves of Change: A Father-Son Bond Forged Offshore appeared first on Cruising World.

Long-distance cruising isn’t for everyone, and there is no iron-clad argument that your partner will join you in cutting the dock lines. After all, your partner’s resistance might be based on a tangle of finances, fears, family, friends or physical worries. 

But there are some strategies that can help your partner transform reluctance into excitement. Getting my wife on board with my dreams of cruising adventures involved a slow, thoughtful process. I encouraged her to open her eyes to the wonder and possibility of bluewater cruising.

Here are four things I did that helped my partner accept and embrace the cruising life.

Make It Seem Normal

There’s no mainstream model for the cruising life, so it can be practically impossible to imagine. Most stories in the media about sailors include the word “rescue.” Making the idea of bluewater cruising more normal can also make it less scary. More manageable. More possible. And, ­eventually, more likely.

From the time Joy and I met, she was well aware of my passion for bluewater sailing. She was mildly interested, but in a way that could easily evaporate if I let it drop. So, I didn’t let it drop. 

I talked to her about my dream to sail oceans. We walked docks and boatyards. I shared passages from books, snippets of articles, and video clips. I always tried to remember that less is more. I didn’t want to overwhelm her. I wanted to make this extraordinary lifestyle seem almost ho-hum.

When we sailed our local waters for a few days or weeks, we chatted about what it might be like to go a bit farther. To stay out a little longer. Evenings at anchor lend themselves nicely to this kind of dream weaving.

Making the idea of bluewater cruising more normal can also make it less scary. More manageable. And, eventually, more likely.

I tried not to overdo it. I watched for signs that she was bored or overwhelmed. At first, those signs were anything but rare. When I could see that she’d had enough of the boat thing, I was happy to move on to other topics.

It took a long while, but all this talking and gawking, watching, roaming and reading helped her to normalize the idea of cruising. It wasn’t just my harebrained idea; it was something that people—regular people—actually chose to do.

Talk Less, Listen More

I asked her questions about the boats we saw. About the sailors we met. About the places she’d like to visit. About the opinions we heard. About how all this made her feel about the very idea of long-distance cruising.

And here’s the important part: I listened to her answers. I kept my mouth shut. (It was hard to do.) I redirected my impulse to interrupt into the simple motion of nodding my head. When she said that she was worried about leaving family and friends, I nodded. Just that. I didn’t try to minimize it, offer options or suggest solutions. I just nodded.

When she said she was frightened by the idea of being so far from land on such a tiny boat, I looked into her eyes and nodded. I could see her anxiety. I wanted so badly to say something, anything to minimize the fear. To make it better. To fix it. But I bit my tongue and focused on what she was sharing with me.

If listening like that comes easy for you, then you have a superpower. It sure doesn’t come easy for me.

What I learned is that if your partner can see that you get it, that you really understand their fears, anxieties and worries, then they can more easily let that stuff go. If you dismiss these issues by trying to fix them, by waving them off as irrational, then you force your partner to keep trying to explain, to keep trying to get you to understand. It’s a cruel cycle. And it gets you nowhere.

The big payoff from all this listening and incessant ­nodding is that I learned a lot. 

I learned that for her, cruising would be more about people than passages. I learned that feeling secure was more important than going fast. I learned that while simplicity is a virtue, she isn’t particularly into peeing in a bucket. I found out that she was excited by the process of provisioning. That she wasn’t even remotely intimidated by the challenge of creating delicious meals in a dinky galley. And that she had a deep and abiding fear of laundry.

A critical side note is that back then, she didn’t call it a galley. She called it a “kitchen.” And she called the head the “bathroom.” And she called the stateroom a “bedroom.” Resist, resist, resist the urge to correct your partner’s terminology. At least in the beginning. 

If you don’t, you’ll miss important stuff. The words will come.

Get Out of the Way

Give your partner the space they need to find their own way. This might actually be harder than the nodding thing, but it’s equally important.

Early on, I spent a lot of time sharing my love of sailing and cruising. I freely shared what I knew. What I thought. What I thought I knew. And when Joy expressed those first real glimmers of interest, I was ecstatic. 

It didn’t take long to ­recognize that my enthusiasm for cruising left little room for my partner to find her own excitement. I needed to temper my enthusiasm and let her make her own discoveries, reach her own conclusions. 

She attended a couple of sailing seminars for women, and I didn’t bug her for all the details. I saw a book about sailing on her nightstand, and I didn’t mention it. When she signed up to take a sailing class on her own, I resisted the urge to do cartwheels. 

If I wanted us to walk down this path together, I had to resist the urge to dash ahead of her. I needed to slow my pace to match hers. And in many cases, slow down enough to let her take the lead.

By slowing myself down, by getting out of her way, Joy was able to see details that I had just skimmed over. Or missed completely. Details that were important to her—and, subsequently, to us. 

Cede Control

Don’t let being “captain” go to your head (see: Bligh, William; captain, Royal Navy). Share the responsibilities whenever possible. 

And I’m not referring to the old trope of “blue jobs” and “pink jobs.” I’m not talking about “jobs” at all. 

Whenever possible, I let Joy take the lead. It works something like this: I make the ultimate decisions about departure windows and routes. I involve Joy in these decisions. We talk it through. I share my reasoning. I listen and act based on her concerns. But ultimately, I make those decisions.

Joy is OK with this, but she chafes at lacking control. So we created some balance. Joy controls our itinerary once we arrive in a country or an island group. She assumes the responsibility of deciding which atolls and anchorages we’ll explore.

To be clear, this is not a revolving dictatorship. We talk about all of this. We share points of view and trust each other to speak up if there is a problem. We make ­accommodations for each of our interests.

Joy was able to see details that I just skimmed over. Or missed completely. Details that were important to her—and, subsequently, to us.

We both need to feel in ­control. Neither of us is content to just be along for the ride. For us, this way of balancing control works quite well. And we’ve kept the balance of control as we’ve ­explored the Pacific from Mexico to New Zealand. 

Your results may vary. But if you can start with normalizing the idea of cruising and then truly listen to your partner’s concerns, you’ll be on your way. Give your partner space to explore various aspects of cruising on their own, and then identify areas where they can be in control. 

These deceptively simple steps can move you toward your cruising dream with an enthusiastic partner on board.

Harry Pattison and Joy Archer sail aboard a 44-foot Mason launched in 1988. They are circumnavigating the Pacific Ocean. When they’re at home, Pattison runs sail training for couples in and around Puget Sound. Learn more at ­matesfirst.com.

The post Cruising Couples & The Power of Shutting Up appeared first on Cruising World.

Personal safety gear is more than a one-and-done purchase. For gear to be effective, sailors need to become completely familiar with it, and commit to a regular inspection and maintenance routine.

The onset of winter might sideline sailing, but it also affords an opportunity to reconsider personal safety gear. Start with a thorough cleaning and inspection of your kit. This includes the foul-weather gear, life jacket, tether, strobe, whistle and AIS beacon. 

Consider replacing older, worn-out gear while adding some new kit. The goal is to have reliable, comfortable equipment that you’re willing to wear. It’s about function, not fashion. The value lies in how effectively this gear keeps you afloat, makes you more locatable, and wards off hypothermia.  

One of the biggest misconceptions is that if an inflatable life jacket has never been used, it must be as good as new. This ignores the fact that such gear is regularly drenched with salt spray, cooked by the sun, then tossed into a locker and ignored. The best way to ensure operational reliability is to follow the manufacturer’s maintenance procedures. Look online for product updates or recalls. 

A friend and safety expert recently surveyed other safety trainers and equipment experts about how often they encounter inflatable-life-jacket failures. One pro reported a 5 percent failure rate. Another said 11 percent. If aircraft had such a failure rate, lots more people would be taking the train. 

Fortunately, there’s a way to beat those odds. It involves carefully scrutinizing key components while doing an annual, offseason inflatable-­life-jacket inspection and maintenance.  

Begin by checking straps and clips for signs of fraying or cracking. Open and unfold the device, removing ancillary equipment such as a strobe or an AIS beacon. Check battery expiration dates, and operate each device in its test mode. 

Next, remove the carbon-­dioxide cylinder and inspect it. Look for an intact seal on the cylinder, and note any signs of corrosion. 

Then, orally inflate the life jacket and leave it overnight in a temperature-controlled environment. The next morning, check to see if there’s been a noticeable dimension change to the bladder. Even if you are handy enough to repair leaking seams on your inflatable dinghy or stand-up paddleboard, don’t attempt to patch a leaking life jacket. Replace it. 

Note how many exhalations into the inflation tube it takes to fill up the life jacket—because if you’re submerged, water pressure will make the process even more arduous. If you go overboard untethered and the autoinflation feature fails, a reflexive tug on the manual-inflation tab can deliver the requisite buoyancy, or the last resort will be oral inflation.

Pay close attention to the autoinflator hardware, either the bobbin type or the hydrostatic system. The former relies on the solubility of a tabletlike compound, held in a bobbin, which dissolves when immersed. This allows a plunger to pierce the carbon-dioxide cylinder, inflating the life jacket. These bobbins can, over time and exposure to high humidity, harden and become less prone to dissolving. Follow the manufacturer’s recommended replacement timetable—often for annual replacement.

Hydrostatic inflation systems respond to slight changes in water pressure when the unit submerges. The pressure-sensing element must make full contact with the water—and in some cases, the plunge is not deep enough to activate autoinflation. The best bet is to follow US Coast Guard wisdom and treat these life jackets as manually inflated systems with an automatic backup. Train yourself to yank the manual-inflate pull tab immediately. If the autoinflate beats you to it, that’s great, but if the auto system balks, no problem—you have already initiated manual inflation, and you still have oral inflation as a backup.

Most sailors find that there’s no perfect life jacket. Inflatables are comfortable to wear in their dormant state, but it’s important to get into the water and experience the transition from deflated to inflated. See how swimming is affected. Discover how vital the leg and crotch straps are to maintaining buoyancy with your head elevated. 

One of the best ways to accomplish this is to attend a US Sailing hands-on Safety at Sea seminar in a pool with pros.  It’s another valuable offseason skill-building opportunity. 

“Practice makes perfect” might be a bit of an overstatement, but familiarity with safety gear does improve outcomes. Getting to know your life jacket means that you have jumped into the water wearing it, done some swimming with it on, and even tried climbing up a boarding ladder. 

If nothing else, find an indoor pool and a few fellow cruisers interested in gear ­familiarization. Dim the lights, and note how a bright flashing strobe on your vest or jacket destroys your night ­vision. (A light on a stalk might be preferable.) 

Try the whistle, adjust the leg and crotch straps, and consider how an AIS beacon would be deployed. See if you could reach a mini flashlight or handheld VHF radio tucked into the pocket of your foul-weather gear. 

Now is the perfect time, before the next season’s sailing begins.

The post Stay Safe Year-Round: Essential Offseason Gear Prep for Sailors appeared first on Cruising World.