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Reprinted with permission from the book by Gwenda Cornell, CRUISING WITH CHILDREN, published by Sheridan House, Inc. It is available for $18.45 from the publisher: Sheridan House, Inc., 145 Palisade Street, Dobbs Ferry, New York, 10522, (914) 693-2410.
BOATS WITH CHILDREN IN MIND Few people buy their sailing boat specifically with children in mind, yet if one has children and hopes that they will enjoy sailing for many years to come, it is worthwhile considering certain aspects of boat design before buying a boat. If one already owns a boat, the advent of children may simply necessitate a few alterations to make the boat more suitable for a juvenile crew. A choice of boat depends on many personal factors: where, when and for how long one plans to sail, the age and number of the crew and always of course on the size of one's wallet. Yet whether planning Sunday outings to nearby bays or a circumnavigation, certain similar points should influence one's choice. The presence of children on board has to be taken into account whatever kind of sailing is done. SIZE AND SPACE One guiding factor is the age of the children, which governs not only the amount of space they take up, but safety and protective measures as well. Although babies themselves occupy little space, they can necessitate a lot of space-consuming items, such as carrycots or push chairs, not to speak of piles of disposable nappies, very bulky items to store. For the Canadian couple Frances and Bill Stocks, their 30-foot cutter Kleena Kleene II was perfectly adequate for their cruising needs until the birth of their daughter Brandi in Papua New Guinea, an event not foreseen when they left British Columbia two years previously. As we cruised in company to Indonesia, Sri Lanka and up the Red Sea, I watched their boat appear to shrink in size as the pile of baby paraphernalia grew. We ourselves had left England with seven- and five-year-old children happily established in the small fore cabin of 36 foot Aventura, but by the time we were sailing in the Red Sea, Doina was a pubescent thirteen, not at all happy about sharing this small space with a teasing younger brother. A similar problem had befallen the Australian boat, Warna Carina, who had left home with three small children on board. By the time we met them in the Pacific several years later, on the last leg of their circumnavigation, they were accommodating three large teenagers and the family of five found their 36-foot boat rather overcrowded. Growing children do take up space, often more than adults themselves, if one counts their toys, games and books. Therefore size and space are an important consideration in the choice of a family boat. Having sufficient space is also of prime importance in preventing the children getting on top of one another, especially noticeable when one comes off watch tired or during bad weather. The question of size is so important that it may be worth considering buying a larger second-hand boat rather than a smaller new one if the money available is limited. I have never heard any parents cruising with children complain that their boat was too big. When looking over a boat, it pays to envisage where the child or children are going to sleep and keep their playthings. If at all possible, the children should have a cabin of their own, preferably one you are able to shut the door on. It is very important for the children to have enough space, where they can feel at home and have room to play. If it is completely separate then it does not matter too much if it gets in a mess during a passage, as this will not interfere with the running of the boat. Anyone who has come off watch at night and stumbled on a toy car or piece of building brick on the main cabin floor will know exactly what I mean. Even if a separate cabin is not available, a child should have some space for playing where a half-finished model construction or unfinished jigsaw puzzle could be left out. Even if one mainly daysails, a child is reassured by having his own bunk and territory, to which he always returns on each sail and where maybe he can leave toys from sail to sail. A contented child brings peace of mind for the parent too, so it is worth making some effort to achieve this. On most boats, the forepeak is usually the children's province as this is conveniently out of the way and easily separated from the main accommodation. A few parents choose to designate another area for their children. When building his 40-foot Iron Butterfly, New Zealander Ian Hancock had cruising with his two sons in mind and allotted them the spacious aft cabin which had a large playing area, while the parents' own double berth was located amid ships near to the saloon. COCKPIT POSITION Sailing with children may well influence the decision as to whether to have a boat with an aft cabin and central cockpit or not. An aft cabin gives some privacy to both adults and children alike, an important factor to be borne in mind. We certainly found our aft cabin a boon, as a place to retire to in order to read or sleep undisturbed when the children were playing noisily in the main cabin. Also, when the children were doing their schoolwork, Jimmy could work at his typewriter in the aft cabin without either of them disturbing the other. If the cruise is going to be prolonged enough for schoolwork to have to be done, a quiet corner conducive to study should be considered. After eight years of cruising, which included a circumnavigation, the van Zelderens of White Pointer found it necessary to separate their two teenage children when they were studying in order to prevent them distracting each other. If there is an after cabin, an interior throughway is much safer when small children are on board, as this means they can get into the rear cabin without having to go through the cockpit. This was a safety aspect which we did not have on our boat and the danger of a small child coming out into the cockpit was brought home to us after one sleepwalking episode at sea, fortunately when an adult was on watch. After that, in port we rigged up a bucket that clattered down noisily when the companion way doors to the cockpit were opened. This signaled to us sleeping in the after cabin that a child had come out into the cockpit. Many parents choose a central cockpit as they feel this has more protection for small children. Our central cockpit on Aventura was not only deep, but was further protected by a wheel house, which meant that when sitting in the front corner of the cockpit the children could see out, but at the same time were sheltered from wind or rain. Whether the cockpit is in a central position or aft, the most important factor is that it is spacious, deep and well protected, especially when smaller children are on board. A raised coaming around an aft cockpit might be a design point to favour. Ideally the cockpit should be difficult for a child to fall out of. The Hantels of Pytheas, cruising with two young boys, had built up the sides of their cockpit so that it was very difficult for the boys, to get out on deck while at sea. Another method of increasing protection is to fix canvas spray dodgers either side of the cockpit and across the stern if the design of boat features a more exposed aft cockpit. This will also help to protect a child against cold winds and exposure to the weather. Other protective measures will be discussed in the chapter on safety, which follows. HULL FORM AND RIG There are various points to bear in mind when considering hull form and rig. The fact that multihulls heel over less while sailing influences some parents, who feel that their children might come to enjoy sailing more quickly if they are upright. Multihulls have the further advantage of spaciousness for family cruising, although they are limited in not being able to carry so much weight. The weight capacity may be a problem for those planning to cruise further afield when the amount of water, fuel and stores to be carried is greater. The factor of heel could also influence those who prefer to sail in a monohull to choose a stiffer boat which does not heel too much or too easily. This means sacrificing some speed in exchange for greater comfort. The amount of heel can make a large difference, not only to feelings of seasickness, but to games and toys staying put, not continually sliding up and down a surface when a child's playing. The choice of the rig should be considered if children are older and keen to be involved in the sailing of the boat. Even if they are not yet old enough, a parent planning to keep a boat for some time should take into account that children might well wish to sail the boat when they do become older, and indeed should be encouraged to do so. Any of the rigs that feature a divided sail plan or smaller sails will be more easily handled by a child than a tall-masted boat with large sails. This could indicate the choice of a ketch or yawl where the mizzen sail is small enough to be raised by a fairly young child. Alternatively, if a single-masted boat is preferred, a cutter with a staysail might be more manageable by a younger crew than a sloop. Children enjoy being occupied around the boat, whether taking a turn at the helm, sail handling or tailing jib sheets. If they are not able to do these things because the boat is more of a racing machine, they can quickly become bored and frustrated with sailing. Whether the boat has a wheel or a tiller, it is worth considering if the boat can be steered by a child, particularly as regards visibility from the steering position. I have stood at the wheel of quite a few boats where, as an average-height female, I was not able to see forward over the cabin roof easily, while a child would have seen nothing at all. A family boat should be able to be sailed by most members of the family, especially older children, and not only by the tall males on board. Similarly one can look at the winches to see if they can be operated by someone with less muscle power. In this respect self-tailing winches that can be operated with tow hands might be an advantage for a young crew. ON DECK With small children on board the whole aspect of deck safety has to be considered carefully and is a function of the design. Wide side decks with high toe rails are obviously ideal where these small fry are concerned, the higher toe rail stopping toys and other little items from slipping off the side deck, as well as being safer for the children themselves. Tracks and other deck fittings should be in a position where they are not easily tripped over. Grabrails in convenient places on the coach roof are another point to look for. Many small alterations can be made by parents to their existing boats to improve safety for young children, such as easily reached grabrails. Canvas dodgers around the cockpit area and strong netting strung along sturdy lifelines are common measures taken by parents anxious to keep their young ones inboard. On some production boats parents have replaced the standard stanchions with higher than average ones. Laced with netting these are then taller than most toddlers, too high to be easily climbed over, and provide an effective safety barrier. The sturdiness of pulpits, pushpits, stanchions and lifelines are other points to look for, all features which should provide something solid to hold on to when moving around the deck. If there is a gate in the lifelines, this should be checked to see if it has some form of safety clip and cannot be opened accidentally by small prying fingers. If one is going to be getting on or off a boat with a child in one's arms or with a baby in a carrycot, it is worthwhile giving some though to how this maneuver will be done. A gate in the lifelines may be one way of easing the transfer of child or baby. A high freeboard on a boat can make the operation quite perilous and such boats are often difficult to climb on board from a dinghy. One solution is to have a ladder built on the stern. An increasing number of boats now have platforms or skirts on the stern and two families with children that I met in the Pacific had both recently added a sugar scoop skirt onto their existing boats. Not only does a sugar scoop transom make an excellent platform for swimming from and getting aboard from the dinghy, but one of these fathers specifically mentioned to me that he had added the skirt as a safety factor in case anyone fell overboard, making it easier to climb back on board. Climbing in and out of hatches instead of using the companionway seems to be a universal childhood preference, so it is worth checking on how hatches open and if they can be secured properly when in the open position. It is all too easy to break the hinges of a hatch if this is not so. Many small modifications can be done on a boat to accommodate children; for example, we built a small wooden ladder onto the bulkhead next to the forward hatch in the children's cabin, with threads just wide enough to help little feet going up and down. INTERIOR DESIGN Companionway steps that are steep and narrow can be very hazardous to small children and in some boats it is a long fall from the cockpit into the boat. Ideally steps should be wide and broad with handholds at the sides easily accessible to children going up or down. Similarly inside the boat it is easy to cast a glance around and see if the handholds and grabrails function at child level or not. If not, it is a comparatively simple matter to add some suitable grabrails at a lower level or to install handholds along the side of a navigation table or in a lower position in the galley. Even with handholds available, small children are much more likely than adults to fall over, especially in a moving boat, in the same way that they fall and trip on land, moving too fast and not anticipating changes in movement. Imagine a child tumbling down the companionway steps and take a careful look at where the child would fall. In many boats there is a sharp corner of a navigating table or galley right in the way. The simplest solution is to take a plane and sandpaper and round off all sharp corners, especially any which may be at child height. Similarly the position of the light switches should be looked at, especially in the children's cabin and the head compartment. Often these are too high for children to reach, being on the lights themselves, a point to bear in mind if one is building or fitting out a boat oneself. Any item that children ought to be able to reach on their own without adult help should be looked at from their point of view. When I wander around boat shows and look at boats, the lack of good storage facilities has often struck me as one of the weaker points in boat design. The fore cabin, which is often the children's domain on the boat, is usually poorly provided for in this respect. With children on board the need for sufficient storage space becomes even more crucial. Having a special place for everything goes a long way towards maintaining a boat tidy and ready for sea, so that nothing can fly about if it becomes a bit rough. If one is building or fitting out a boat oneself, it is fairly straightforward to plan enough lockers, shelves and cubby holes for a family's personal requirements, but even on standard production boats extra shelving or other storage provisions can easily be added. Children do have a knack of acquiring lots of clutter, from toys and games to pebbles, shells or interesting pieces of driftwood found on a beach. One can be strict and limit their possessions, but the more things they are allowed to take with them, the better the chance that they will keep themselves occupied and happy. One solution is to limit the children's storage to their own area or cabin, which goes a long way towards preventing an overflow into the rest of the boat, even if it does sometimes result in a child sleeping on a bunk piled high with treasures. Fitting out Aventura ourselves, we built a large number of lockers and cubby holes into the children's cabin in the fo'c'sle - not that that meant it was always tidy! Small fiddled shelves above their bunks held books, while a large triangular shelf was bolted into the forepeak, over the foot end of their bunks. This large shelf was useful for holding larger items such as board games and soft toys and could be easily removed by undoing the bolts to get at the lockers beneath the bunks. With proper storage, it is quite amazing how much can be carried on the average boat, and many cruising boats find room for such things as folding bicycles or a second dinghy, even if only a small inflatable. Once the children have learnt to row, it is almost essential to have a second dingy or one can easily find oneself marooned on a boat at anchor while the children have disappeared with the dinghy, always out of calling distance. A small sailing dinghy or sailboard will also provide much fun for youngsters, sailboards being usually stored along the side of deck stanchions. Deciding what to take and what to leave behind always poses problems and the only answer is to take as much as possible. Favorite soft toys are at the top of the list, providing comfort to children away from home. Books were another item that always loaded us down, although swapping books with children on other boats keeps new reading material flowing for the same amount of storage space. Flippers, masks and snorkels are items that can be stored in a wet locker or a cockpit locker along with adult diving gear. Many children enjoy fishing, to so fishing tackle is another item that might have to be stored; rods are not easy to find space for, although some people fix them along the cabin ceiling. Babies and infants also increase considerably the demand for fresh water, for washing saltwater out of clothes or off tender skins is more important than with adults. The water storage capacity of a boat is another item to be checked when cruising with children. The amount of water carried can be increased if required by building in additional tanks or fitting flexible tanks into other storage areas. Alternatively extra jerrycans of water can be lashed on deck, some people choosing to do this anyway on a passage as a precaution for abandoning ship. In conclusion, the design of a family cruising boat does not have to differ greatly from other cruising boats. Ideally a seakindly boat with features of adaptable space and plenty of storage capacity might suit most family requirements. Safety features should be well to the forefront of parents' minds as well as the protection offered in the cockpit. Size, rig and cabin arrangement are all design features that might influence the choice of a boat, as does the age and number of one's children and for how long one envisages keeping the boat. From birth to adulthood spans a fair number of years and many people may well change their boat during this time to suit the changing needs of their growing family, the ideal boat for cruising with toddlers being very different to that which might be demanded by keen teenager sailors anxious for a boat with a faster performance. Bed and Breakfast Inns |
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