SV Whoosh

Preparing to Cruise and Cruising in Europe

We returned from a 2000-2002 cruise through the Caribbean to our home port of St. Petersburg, FL, wondering about our next cruising adventure. As we decided on Europe, a host of questions surfaced about how to prepare for the European infrastructure in which we would cruise and live for an extended period of time. How do we plug into the European power grid? What about our onboard propane system? How do we hook up our hose to a dock bib? And more broadly, what European laws were going to play a central role in our cruising lifestyle? What was the experience of cruising like ‘over there’? The more we learned, the more apparent it became that a North American sailboat does not automatically ‘fit’ the European systems nor does the accumulated knowledge of its North American crew.

We tried to prepare WHOOSH as thoughtfully and cost-effectively as we could while still in North America, while we had the time to comparison shop and also had a healthy mix of vendors from which to choose. Early on, we discovered no single source (Web, book, or organization) that had collected in one place the information needed for these preparations – both boat and crew - and we kept feeling we were reinventing the wheel. In the end, we hoped we made some good decisions but knew only time would tell whether that was true or not.

We have now cruised in Northern & Atlantic Europe for three years, and have spent a fourth season in the Western Med. We have used our new systems, had a chance to evaluate our decisions in a mix of diverse cruising venues, and of course have learned a great deal more. And the point of the writings linked to this introduction is to pass alog this information to others. Hopefully, they will help you from reinventing the wheel as much as we did. John Stevenson has kindly offered to post these on his fine website and we’re hoping the content will pay him back a bit for his hospitality. As you’ll find, John has also written a good deal on these topics and, coincidentally, we were finally able to cruise a bit with John and SARAH while in the Balearics of Spain in 2006.

As experience continues to expand our knowledge, we’ll no doubt post some additional thoughts. But as we continue to climb the learning curve, we hope no one will think we consider ourselves experts on this stuff. We are just another cruising couple who are learning as we go and hoping to smooth the waters a bit for others who follow along behind us. If readers of these write-ups would like to contact us for additional information, you are welcome to write us at our shore side email address, which we periodically check: jack_patricia@yahoo.com. Please be patient but we assure you we will reply as Web access and time permit

Jack & Patricia Tyler
WHOOSH, wintering in Gzira, Malta