There are many ways to do this. Our way may not be appropriate for everyone. However, we are an example of how to embark on such an adventure without either of us having knowledge of sailing or a big budget. In fact, we just started doing it. While practicing, you automatically run into many things. We looked these up in books, on YouTube, or asked friends and acquaintances. In this way you slowly gain more and more confidence. We started sailing with little to no wind and built up slowly.

Introduction to sailing
Our sailing adventure began on our 24foot Westerly GK 24. Due to knee surgery, both of us were unable to kitesurf for a year. So, in 2017 we bought a small cabin boat for €3000,- That way, we could still get out on the water. After an hour of instruction from the old owner, we happily sailed the little boat all summer across Grevelingen Lake. The first few times were certainly exciting, because we had no idea what we were doing, but fortunately with logical thinking and by staying calm you get a long way. With great pleasure that summer and the 2 summers after, we visited all the little islands of Lake Grevelingen and dreamed of all the places we could possibly reach with that little boat.

Buying the big boat
In 2020, the owner of the boatyard where we had our boat, asked if it wasn’t time to buy a “real” boat. That sounded like a good idea! At that time, we had no idea what kind of adventure we were plunging into with that. Without knowing exactly what a sailboat had to comply with, we began our search for a boat. It was Corona time. Our work was on hold for 6 weeks. We used that time to travel the country and look at boats. After getting some advice from people who had made a long sea voyage before and finding something suitable within our budget, we made a decision and bought our Jeanneau Gin Fizz, Kia Ora within a fairly short period of time. So basically, a spontaneous action.

Of course, it might be better to spend more time on this. Now, 3 years on, we would have looked at boats in a completely different way. On the other hand, Procrastination frequently leads to the dream no longer being carried out. How often do you hear that people never leave at all. We knew that many people had used and still use this model for big sailing trips. If they could do it, we could learn it too with this model boat. Unfortunately, the Gin Fizz was not near Scharendijke, but in the north of the Netherlands, in Hoorn.

Martijn sailed the Kia Ora together with 2 friends on a quiet day from Hoorn to Scharendijke. His first time at sea!

Practicing with the big boat
Many people do a sailing course before venturing out on a 7-ton boat. This is certainly very wise. You easily make damage, which can run high in costs. Since such courses are quite expensive and we wanted to practice on our own boat, we decided to go sailing on the Grevelingen by ourselves with little wind.
The big boat was something completely different. For example, if you don’t cast off the mainsheet and raise the jib slightly with the crane line, you really don’t get the mainsail up. With the Westerly everything was much lighter and we didn’t have such problems. With logical thinking, YouTube and reading books, we managed to solve many problems we ran into.

Besides practicing sailing, Martijn got his Marcom A to operate the VHF radio at sea and did a course in diesel engine maintenance. Irene got her boating certificates 1,2 to learn the rules on the water and the basic certificate for the VHF radio. So, we slowly built up our knowledge.

Preparing for a big trip
We had bought a boat that was used for small trips and weekends away. Also, the maintenance was overdue due to illness of the old owner. So, we knew there was work to be done. Fortunately, we didn’t know beforehand what we would be up against. Because then I don’t know if we would have started this. We ended up spending 2.5 years doing odd jobs alongside our full-time jobs. See the heading ‘boat projects’ for this. This was intensive, but also fun and educational. In addition, ‘having it done’ was not an option in terms of budget. The advantage of this job is that we know almost every part of our boat and know how to fix it.

When the boat finally returned to the water in 2022, we spent many hours on this. We had the luxury of being able to anchor our boat in front of our work (in front of the resort). So we could live on the boat in the summer, at anchor. We would then row the dinghy or SUP to work. With this, we didn’t practice sailing itself, but we did practice anchoring. Something you’re going to do a lot on a long trip. When you’re on the boat a lot, you also use everything. That’s how we found out what worked well for us and what didn’t.

Anchoring for work sounds ideal, but there is a downside to it. Because we always had to be at work on time, we could only anchor in front of work and not seek shelter when the wind changed direction. This did teach us the importance of throwing out enough chain and setting an anchor alarm! Many free afternoons we spent sailing.

Financial
Actually, leaving also meant quitting our job at the resort. Giving up a dream job for a sailing dream. A very difficult decision and one that I honestly think we would have put off longer had we not been told that we would no longer be allowed to live at our job with our tiny house. On the other hand, it also seemed like a sign. The boat was nearly finished. Time to cast off the mooring lines!

For 5 years we didn’t spend much. We lived in our tiny house and kept life simple. Most of our salary went to the boat or savings account. So financially we had built up a good buffer. Yet we did not want to live off this buffer, but to keep it intact for emergencies. So, we were faced with the issue; how to support ourselves from the sailboat. This is a challenge we spent many evenings brainstorming about. We don’t come from a rich family or have been able to sell a house with 2 tons of surplus value. With inspiration from Rick Page’s book “Get real, get gone” we started making a plan. If you want it bad enough there is always a way!

Our first source of income that provides for most of our fixed expenses is the proceeds from the rental was our Tiny House. (Our tiny house is now for rent ‘here’) In addition, we started training to work online. Martijn now has an online part-time job. This allows him to manage his own time. If we live frugally and consciously, this will allow us to avoid using up our savings.

So, we will just have to work while traveling. No, we don’t mind this. In fact, we like this. In the past 10 years we have traveled a lot around the world (see the videos on Martijn’s YouTube channel) Seasonal work allowed us to travel for weeks to months every winter. Sometimes up to 3.5 months at a time. Our experience is that after about 6 weeks or sometimes even earlier we are very eager to feel useful again. Also, work provides rhythm and regularity.