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Odds are …

2.5%

There’s nowhere to hide. Odds are not particularly in my favor. For sure, my project of circumnavigating Earth on a small sailboat faces many hurdles. I’m not delusional. I know it. I estimate the odds of starting the circumnavigation to be 1 in 10 (for no particular reason, and the odds of finishing without stops 1 in 4 (so far only one Class40 in 4 attempts has succeeded in completing a circumnavigation solo non stop). That’s about 2.5% of success. In other words, success is marginal at best.

0.0125%

I’m reading Dodge Morgan’s book “The Voyage of American Promise“. In there he mentioned D.H. (Nobby) Clark of the Guinness Book of World Records. He would have said: “Ninety five percent of those who say they are going to sail around the world do not get their boats in the water; ninety five percent of those who get their boats in the water do not get underway; and ninety five percent of those who depart do not complete a circumnavigation.” That’s a 0.0125% chance of success. Not great by any standard.

Fifty Fifty

Those are only anecdotal odds. Let’s look at some facts. I think of this project along three axis: the boat, the skipper and luck. There’s no way out of simply being lucky. There are too many risks over which one has no control: collision with submerged containers or a whale, freak weather events, a rogue wave, catastrophic failure of equipment, debilitating sickness, etc. Plans can be devised to help manage the dangerous situation; experience and good planning come in handy here. For example, having antibiotics aboard can help control an appendicitis. But most likely a stop would be required to prevent the situation from spiraling down. Although, here, I must admit that some of the first solo circumnavigators had some serious grit about them (read Vito Dumas’ book; he’s not the only one).

It is hard to quantify the odds of not being unlucky. Looking at the Vendée Globe results for the past 5 years, with top professional sailors and very large budgets, I can see that about 45% of the sailors have to retire.

Fifty fifty. That sounds like a great boat name.

Now, that’s only for boats who started the Vendée Globe. In effect, we also need to quantify the odds of actually leaving in a well prepared boat, with a well prepared skipper. And that’s an all different conversation …

Boat purchase fees and taxes

Let’s do a bit of math about where the money goes when you buy a boat. For the sake of our conversation, let’s say that the seller has listed a boat for $100,000 with a broker. The broker commission I’ve been told is about 10%. So the seller is only going to see $90,000. In other words, if the seller wants $100,000, the boat must be listed for $111,111. Right, so that’s 10% that neither the buyer or seller are seeing but sits there between the two of us.

Here in California, the government, not content with taxing my income at the source, will want to tax all that is exchanged. Again for the sake of our conversation, let’s just round this up to 10%, which, where I live, is near damn what I get taxed. So now, my buying price is $110,000. Wait, there’s also a registration fee, which is about 1%. So the buying price is increased to $111,000.

But, that’s not all, again here in California, there’s property tax on boats, about 1% every year. Let’s assume that I want to keep the boat for 5 years. My buying price is now $116,000. In order to offer the seller $90,000 for the boat, I need to pay $116,000, which represents about a 30% uplift. This is large enough that it can make or break a deal. In fact, I am looking at a boat that I could afford if it weren’t for all this.

Let’s not forget that the income used to pay for this boat was taxed in the first place. Ok, if you can afford to buy a boat for $100,000, let’s assume that your combined tax rate is about 40% (state tax, IRS, house property tax, and all the other stuff plucked out of my paycheck). To have $116,000 for the boat, one needs pre-tax $193,333, which is more than twice the amount of money that the seller will see.

Do I sound a little frustrated?

Budget, boat choice, and crowdfunding

Hello friends of SF2SF; we hope you like our new name. We may even soon have a logo. Read on as we talk about our crowdfunding campaign to circumnavigate Earth on a small sailboat

It’s time to make hard choices. Acquiring the right boat, just like buying a house, is a difficult process. We’ve talked about boat choices here and there before. Last week, we had an opportunity to discuss boat choices with a very experienced offshore sailor. There was no doubt in his mind that for the course we’ve selected the best boat choice is a Class40 sailboat.

However, as we discussed here, our budget is not enough for this type of boat: we’re short $25,000. We’ve decided to give crowdfunding a try and see if maybe family and friends can help bridge the gap. We’ve got two donations already. Help us get to a good start by visiting our crowdfunding campaign to circumnavigate Earth on a small sailboat.

Check it out at https://gofundme.com/SF2SF and decide if you want to be any of these:

  • Deckhand: $25;
  • Crew: $75;
  • Assistant watch leader: $150
  • Watch leader: $250
  • Navigator: $500;
  • Skipper: $750;
  • Captain: $1,000;
  • Admiral: $2,500;
  • Admiral of the fleet: $5,000;
  • Neptune: $25,000.

Philippe Jamotte aboard Double Espresso on his way to Hawaii.
On our way to Hawaii

We’re looking forward to hear from you.

A great evening at the Sequoia Yacht Club

The Sequoia Yacht Club, based in Redwood City, CA, USA, was hosting their kick off dinner for the summer racing series today. I was also invited to speak and present my story as a participant in the Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race. I have been racing with the club members for the past few months, as crew on SP’s boat Frequent Flyer. Everyone was welcoming, encouraging and good-natured. I had a wonderful time chatting with the club members. Presenting my story brought back good memories. I must admit, every time I watch this little video, I want to go again! And for a moment I do toy with the idea of buying a very small sailboat and try to do this again in 2020.

The club facility is well organized and all the equipment works. The chef did a fantastic job with the menu and set aside a plate for me to enjoy after the talk. It was really a good night and I’m thankful for everyone at SYC. Here are the Google slides of the presentation I did. It has a bunch of links as well.

Crowdfunding?

My wife and I have been discussing the possibility of starting a crowdfunding campaign to boost our budget. So I thought I’d put the idea to the test tonight. Who better than sailors would understand some’s desire to sail 4 oceans? At the end of the presentation, I asked for a show of hands for folks who would contribute if invited to help a crowdfunding campaign for our circumnavigation attempt. To my surprise, about half of the crowd raised their hands, which was both emboldening and encouraging. I know what I have to do next! And tomorrow I talk with a Class40 broker.

Use the Contact Us form if you would like to host Philippe for a presentation as well.

Philippe’s quick speech after the award ceremony at the Nawiliwili Yacht Club

Looking for our boat

We’re still looking for our sailboat. Selecting a sailboat for this course is rendered extremely difficult due to our limited budget. For the sake of the proverbial stake in the ground, let’s state our budget to be around $150,000 for a 3 years campaign. Note that the boat may suffer major damage, so we have to assume that it will be a loss for the sake of planning. In other words, we cannot plan to recover some of our costs by selling the boat after crossing the finish line.

Many books, many blog posts have been written about the important characteristics of a sailboat for circumnavigating. The focus is often cruising, not so much racing, which is closer to what I will be doing. Looking at boats that have raced singlehanded around Earth is a good way to identify possible candidates, as race committees usually define very strong safety requirements for the participating vessels. But those vessels are often supported by sponsors, which we’re not (yet?).

It is of course of primary importance that the vessel is safe. We would also like the boat to be fast and comfortable, at least to a spartan level.

Where we’re looking

So we’ve been browsing a few web sites: local craigslist, yachtworld.com, class40.com, Owen Clarke Design. But with no luck so far, so we’re still looking for our sailboat; it appears that we will need to find another 100k, or go slower than we want. A decision will have to be made: fast or slow.

When I looked for my first sailboat I received help from the SSS. It took a while but someone informed me of Double Espresso, which was really a perfect fit at the time, as proven by my results with that boat.

How I met my first sailboat.
After sailing to Hawaii.
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