Ebook: Ready for Sea. How to Outfit the Modern Cruising Sailboat and Prepare Your Vessel and Yourself for Extended Passage-Making and Living Aboard

This book is about outfitting todays cruising sailboat for long-distance voyaging and long-term living aboard. In it we’ll consider equipment, systems and modifications that will transform a basic sail-away boat — one already operational and of sound construction — into a long-range cruiser thoroughly prepared to carry a liveaboard crew across oceans and to visit distant shores. Even if the cruising is limited to short vacation excursions, every captain strives to do all he can to prepare himself and his ship for any eventuality. Our goal, then, is to be self sufficient, through good planning, while we cruise. This book also provides valuable outfitting checklists, which I believe to be the most thorough of their kind, to which you can refer and add.
The number of subjects, skills and sciences that have a direct bearing on cruising is almost limitless. Topics such as yacht design, construction and purchase apply before outfitting, while others like route planning, maintenance and sailing techniques come afterwards. Although I occasionally touch on these “before and after” subjects while discussing equipment and systems, the intent of Ready for Sea! is to bridge the gap in between, ensuring that the boat you own will fulfill her maximum potential as a world voyager.
Taken separately, nearly every single subject covered in the following pages could be expanded to fill an entire book all by itself. Indeed, I’d venture to say most of them have been. There simply is not room in any one book to discuss every one of these topics in complete detail. I encourage you to seek additional information on the subjects that interest you by attending boat shows, by reading other, subject-specific books and magazine articles, and by talking with sailors and technical experts. What I hope to accomplish in this book is simply to make you aware of the many possibilities'when outfitting a sailboat for cruising, to point you in the right direction.
My most recent (fifth) cruising sailboat, christened Sparrow, was an American-built Pacific Seacraft Crealock 37. Sparrow was the prototype of a special series of Pacific Seacraft boats called Circumnavigators. These featured a factory options package that I designed for the builder, all of which (and much more) is discussed in this book. Nevertheless, the ideas herein apply to virtually all cruising sailboats, regardless of origin and size.
I hope this information adds to the safety and pleasure of the cruis- ing life for my fellow sailors. If so, the effort of writing it down will have been worthwhile.