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Hello to all our cruising friends,

Our sailboat friends have enjoyed an almost exclusive club since the time of the Phoenecians. Long sailing passages takes them beyond pedantic tourism to wonderful places and where the range of experiences exceeds one imagination. Can trawler folks find a place there too? Sure.
Granted, ocean crossings are beyond the limits of the typical trawler, but the whole of the Caribbean Sea, Baha California, Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands are within reach if you are willing to get organized and do your homework / boat-work. Is it worth the effort? An emphatic yes is the answer you will get from us, Joan and Ben on Francesca.

We have been retired and full time live-aboard for seven years on Francesca our 1979 44’ DC Marine Trader. After several moderate duration trips to the Bahamas to gain experience, we then turned Francesca loose to explore further and further. Now, after eight Gulf of Mexico crossings and having crossed the Caribbean from Colombia to the Colombian islands off Nicaragua we are dockside only long enough to get ready for our next adventure.

The Caribbean Sea is liberally sprinkled with sailboats that hail from all of the corners of the world, but those same waters see only few trawlers. The ratio is perhaps 200 to 1 of true cruising vessels. Our sailboat friends frequently ask why there are so few trawlers. The answer lies somewhere between the reasons people buy a particular boat type and reality. Truly, there aren’t many good reasons for this disparity and maybe, with a little sunshine on the subject, we can help to change that.

True or false: Sailboats rely primarily on their sails. They are not fettered by fuel needs and engine maintenance and are happy in a wide range of sea conditions. Bzzzzzzt! Wrong answers. Except for ocean crossings, sailboats motor or motor-sail most of the time. More explicitly, most means in excess of 75 or even 90 percent of the time. Also, the range of sea conditions that sailboaters find pleasing is even more constrained than for trawlers. Well look, I’m not a sailboat basher. After all, most of our friends are sailboat folks. What I do want to convey is that trawlers and trawler crews, both properly prepared, can safely and comfortably cruise almost anywhere in this hemisphere.