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Hello, we're really excited to talk today to Brent and Tara from Sailing Vessel

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Ripple as we continue our series focusing on other cruising couples.

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Hello and welcome to Covert Castaway. I'm Holly.

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Je suis Stéphane. Join us as we share what we learned and how we're making the

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transition to liveaboard cruising. Stefan why don't you paint a picture

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set the scene of where we are so we're in the ragged islands so it's a south

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of Georgetown and it's the key we're at is called the hog key which is amazing

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hog key and there's like 20 hog keys were around the Bahamas I feel like everywhere

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we go there's It was a hot key, but in the Ragged Islands, yeah, it's really cool.

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So it has a little hut on the beach, which is a social meeting point for the

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six boats around Anchorage here. Yeah. And so, yeah, totally enjoying this area.

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Cool. So we're sitting on our boat and we're excited to talk to you guys and hear your story.

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So I'd love to maybe start with talking about where you're from and how long you've been sailing.

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Thank you for inviting us, guys. Yeah. We, as a family, are from Bend, Oregon.

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Brent's from the East Coast. I'm from the West Coast. Mostly left coasters?

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Mostly left coasters. For the last 20, 20 plus years on the West Coast.

1:27

Cool. Yeah. But we had our kids up in Bend, Oregon. We lived there for 10 years.

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During the pandemic, Tara's family's from Southern California.

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So we wanted to get closer to them. And we were starting to dream about this life out on the ocean.

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And so we decided to head back down to San Diego. And that's where we left from

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was San Diego. go. Great. So what kind of boats do you have? We have an Atari's Cataract built in Buenos

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Aires, Argentina. We are hull 71.

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71. Okay, cool. So what has your point, what kind of, how'd you get to the Bahamas at this point?

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The boat was splashed in Buenos Aires. Right. It's kind of far away.

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So we were in the water in Buenos Aires for a couple of months doing the final fit out of the boat.

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And then we sailed from Buenos Aires to Rio, Rio to Grenada.

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And I did that primarily with crew and others that were building the boat.

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And so Tara and the kids met us in Grenada in the middle of December.

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And we've been essentially island hopping since then to get to here. Okay. So what's that?

2:25

December, January, February, about three and a half months now.

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And we met you down in Angra dos Reis. We flew to Rio and spent a month there as well.

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And what's it like sailing with kids? We don't have kids, so we don't have the

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same adventure you have. But you're one of those courageous couples who figured it out.

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It makes it for a big adventure. I think it brings the best out of you and sometimes the worst.

2:51

Really? What do you mean? Please elaborate. You see the size of me you never thought you'd see.

2:57

Well, I think that happens on any boat. It says Stefan and I,

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too, like we we can be happy in a broom closet, you know, but then you get on

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a boat and you're like, oh. this is a new little dimension I'm learning.

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And I think that's the case on boats when you go sailing together.

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Yeah, no doubt. I mean, the kids are, we're very lucky. I mean,

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our kids love to sail. They love to be on the ocean. We had concerns when we first began because our daughter does get seasick. Our son does not.

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She's been weathering it very well, getting better and better with each passage.

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And we have kids that love what we're doing. They have great patience.

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They can entertain themselves on longer passages.

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We learned a great lesson early on from a couple of other the cruisers,

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which was when you're at passage, yes, of course you have to take care of the

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kids, but you don't have to look after every one of their needs.

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You need to look after your own. You need to make sure you're set up and you're getting your sleep.

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And our kids are able to make the use of that time. They're able to do it independently.

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And we're very lucky for that. We have met others where that's not the case and it's a very different boat experience.

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So we find ourselves very lucky. But we also don't worry about it too much.

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I know we have an agenda, like we don't want too much screen time.

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We want them to be reading. And when we do passages, we throw it all out and we let them manage however

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they want to use their time. Yeah. It's really cool to watch the kids interact. We're here at Hog Key.

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We're the only non-kid boat here, which has been cool because we can get a kid

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vibe and then go back to the boat. But seeing the kids interact was amazing because it's like, wow,

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you know, as a normal kid on land, And you would go away for your sleepaway

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camp or whatever for a week or two weeks, whenever you do that.

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And those are lifetime memories. And your kids are getting that literally every day.

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So it's just an incredible, I would think, memory that they're going to have taking this away.

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Tara was just going through photos last night and sort of made the remark that

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just in the past four months, it feels like we've gone through 10 years of experiences.

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Because it's just another beautiful experience once a week, once every other

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day, whatever the case may be. It's not always hog day, let's be honest.

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But it's real special when we find places like this. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

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So let's just back up a minute. So how did you, did you guys sail before or

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how did you get into sailing? Like how did this whole thing? I was fortunate enough to grow up sailing when

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I was younger. I spent a couple of summers in Kennebunk, Maine.

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So I was out sailing and racing lasers and things like that.

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So I got a sense for the ocean and wind and whatnot.

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When Tara and I got together, we were living in San Diego or when we first started

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dating, we were living in San San Diego, which is obviously a beautiful sailing capital.

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And so one of the first things we did was to get into ASA and begin classes.

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But even before that, our third day ever, Brent chartered a sailboat and they

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were dolphin jumping the sunset. I felt like I was at the front of the Titanic. You were like,

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I love you. Let's get married. Wow, this guy is great. And so, yes, then it fell into a love and slight competition

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of ASA classes and then sailing.

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And then every holiday ended up becoming sailing. Well, so then it was unique

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because we started, we had our kids. First child was born at 14, second at 16.

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And then the pandemic comes around and all of a sudden. So even before that,

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we started doing a lot of chartering. Then the pandemic came.

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We only did chartering. And then it's been what we know.

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I mean, our kids, honestly, I think they know of maybe two or three vacations

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in their lives where they weren't on a boat. So that's kind of where the sailing came from. It was all about San Diego.

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It was all about having a shared experience there. And so what was the moment of clarity?

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Like, what was the moment where you were like, you know what?

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Let's do this. So we wanted to do it when we retired and that was already a conversation.

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And then our daughter had some medical problems and we were home for four years and then COVID hit.

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So we'd already been home and I was reading a book on, on a guy circumnavigating.

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And then I went into Brent and I said, at the end of his cliff notes say, you got to set a date.

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And how many days later two days later you came out and you said all right january

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of 2023 that was it that was it just like that might have been how it went for you.

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But tara's right i mean daughter consumed a tremendous amount of time and sort

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of showcased to us early in her life that the challenges in life are not ones

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you choose they are the ones that come and you better be prepared for them it

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also made you believe pretty quickly in all of us that we better be living this life to its fullest.

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You know, I was at really the height of my career at the time we made this decision.

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But what we did come to and we continue to be fully committed to is that the time is now.

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It's not tomorrow, it's now. And while we might not have everything we need,

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we have everything we need. And I hope that makes some sense.

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It's not like we have a clear picture to the future that, oh,

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well, this is how it will all play out and financially sound and everything is perfect.

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No, but the real answer is, but if you don't do it now, when will you do it? Never gonna do it.

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And so we had to do it. And that's when Tara did come in and say,

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if we don't set a date, we won't. As she said, two days later, I named a date and luckily she agreed to it.

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We were going through, I think I had a common theme is when is enough enough?

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And truly, I just come back from a retreat as well. And this is enough, whatever it is you have.

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And then you figure out from there how to do it. That's so true.

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And I think when you get in the rat race of life, in your career,

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whatever, it's like, oh, this one more thing, this one more thing.

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And, you know, I even fell in that trap and Stefan had to kind of set me straight,

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you know, because at other points when we were between boats,

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I was like, oh, this one thing would be like, maybe we just wait a year.

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And, and he's like, Holly, to do what? Like to at some day, buy a boat and sail

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into the sunset when you can just buy a boat and sail off into the sunset. set.

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And it doesn't, you know, you doesn't have to be a certain kind of boat.

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It's like you're starting the journey and starting the transition.

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Yeah. Yeah. My brother said to me when I shared the newsroom,

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then he said, I don't understand. I mean, how will you have enough money?

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And I said, Joe, I don't know if it's about having enough money,

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but it's choosing how you want to spend the money you have. Yeah. Right.

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Totally. It can be very different. Yeah. If you just change the way in which

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you live. Yeah. And this lifestyle forces that. It allows that. So.

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And the time And the time you have, because you don't know how much time you

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have. There's too many stories. Yeah, so many.

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I mean, you know, and then you get to that sort of thing. Like,

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well, where does that decision really come from? I think for each of us, it's a very personal thing. You know,

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I lost great friends. I lost my mom when I was young.

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There was just things that made me think differently about life all the way

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throughout the life that I was living, which other people, you know, just don't get.

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They haven't had similar experiences or they've been trained in other way.

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And what did you guys do before? I was a nurse, but when Libby was born,

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I stayed home and I have been taking care of both of my kids since then, managing her medical.

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And I had a company with four friends. We owned and operated hotels,

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our own and operate hotels throughout the United States. Cool. All right. Yeah. And I love hearing all the different places people come from.

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And, you know, it's so interesting because you could come from so many different

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industries or careers and end up in the same exact place in terms of your personal

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decision to a lot of both. So what's next for you guys?

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That's the big question. Do we know? I think that one thing we've learned from

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this journey so far is that we do like some stability and some plans,

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yet we find ourselves in a situation to where we're still saying,

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well, are we going to do plan A, plan B, or plan C?

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But currently it's to go to the States and spend some time with family and then

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possibly the South Pacific 2025.

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It's a big jump from there, isn't it? We haven't figured out how to get there

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from the Scouse jet. No, but the idea currently has been that we want to get,

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we, like many others, are forced out of the promised land here in the Bahamas

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by July 1, right? Because of the insurance.

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So we have to be out of here. And so we have felt a little bit like we're sort

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of being forced because of the insurance. And we want to find a little bit more stability.

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For the kids, it's very important, right? Because we're doing homeschooling.

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We're schooling on the boat. And if we're constantly moving, it certainly doesn't make it any easier for us or for them.

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So we want to be up on the East Coast. We have some work to do in North Carolina

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on the boat and then head up into Maine for a couple of months,

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then come back down through Annapolis, the boat show back into the Bahamas.

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And then the plan is to go back through the Bahamas, down to the ABCs,

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over to San Blas and into Panama, through the canal and then out towards the Pacific.

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And it's amazing. You talk about sort of how extraordinary this life can be, but

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Just in the short amount of time we've been traveling from Grenada to here,

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we already have three or four other kid boats that their plan is to meet us

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there in five months, six months. And we don't have kids, but we intend to maybe cross with you.

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Perfect. Perfect. So we'll add you to the list.

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We'll be the aunt and uncle. That's so great. We love that.

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I don't know if we'll babysit, though. We'll see. No, just kidding.

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Cool. So, yeah. So how did you come about deciding on the boat you have?

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Two different answers to that one, for sure. I think Brent was a driving force on our boat.

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At the end of the day, I was a bit more like Stefan, where I was like, go now.

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Let's just get the boat and have the lifestyle as a focus. And Brent wanted

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to enjoy sailing while we were doing it. Yeah.

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So that's my take on it. You?

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Well, everybody comes down to having a decision to make, which is monohull or

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catamaran. Yeah. Maybe trimaran, but let's leave that out for this conversation.

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Monohull or catamaran. There we go. We needed the catamaran for our daughter

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because of the seasickness, right? Because we have less roll and an anchorage and all the rest of it.

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So let's just now, now we've already made that decision. Then it was where can we get the boat?

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We were looking at buying boats during the pandemic. And unfortunately,

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many other people had the similar decision, which was to go buy a boat.

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So inventory was quite low. But we did get a look at a lot of great boats.

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The Antares, for us, because of its safety features, because of how it's built,

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it's low air draft, it's a much smaller beam, it's quality of build.

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And then I think equally important are two things with the Antares,

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one of which is its fraternity, its family. Like I said, we're boat 71. If you took all the Antares Catarans and laid them

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up side by side over the past 25 plus years, you wouldn't know which one was

13:07

built yesterday and which one was built 20 years ago. The identical model one after the other after

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the other there are small amounts of innovation that are

13:15

happening but you wouldn't notice it really from the outside fiberglass for

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what is it completely so small but so that was kind of number one is that you

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had a tremendous network of people that will help you with your boat now what

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we've come to find out is that's true of every boat doesn't matter which has

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that too i mean some yeah you can own a fountain brujo 47 or whatever you're

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going to find other people that have the same boat and they want to share their

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ideas for the same reason. But Antares prides themselves on this and they make it available to you and

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everybody's contact information and whatnot. So that's amazing.

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The other part was that it was launching, it's a hybrid model of the boat.

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So that really got us excited. So it's both diesel and electric motors. We have a lot of capabilities other boats don't.

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And we are very, we have capabilities for off-grid sailing that many other boats just don't have.

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And our dream was to be in those types of situations, was to get to the Pacific

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islands and not to be worried about being really off grid for extended periods

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of time, not a couple of, not days, but months.

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So that was another big feature of the boat. And you've been happy with that system. We've been very happy.

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I mean, listen, like every new boat, you're learning new things.

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I think Antares is as excited as anybody that HH Catamarans came around to copy the same design.

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It puts more people using similar technology, testing similar technology,

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failing with similar technology. And we're all sharing notes. I mean, our guys are in contact with H&H just as

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much as they're in contact with us. And so we're all learning, but you know, for, for the time being,

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we have had a boat that has performed, it's performed ridiculously well.

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We made power this morning and it worked, so thumbs up.

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So you've learned a lot. And I always tell people the first year is kind of

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a shit show, but you learn a lot about yourself, a lot about each other,

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a lot about the boat. Yes. So do you have any advice for sailing couples who maybe have kids your kid's age?

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What are your kids' age again? Just 10. 10, just turned, we're in 10.

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Maybe your kid's age, maybe a couple pieces of advice you would give?

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I definitely say, we just talked about it yesterday, but anything that you're

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dealing with at home is going to be amplified, whether it's their behavior,

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something going on in your marriage. So you can't fix everything right before you go, but it will amplify it.

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And hopefully if you get through it, then you come out stronger on the other

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side and it makes it better. So with the kids, I'd say we've gone through a couple hard patches,

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but it's also being together all the time would be one of them um and teaching

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each other grace and kindness and. Assuming that everybody has good intentions yeah

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one of the key things that we've taken out of it right for sure

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and you just to yeah build upon those ideas i mean we're with our kids now 24

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hours a day right it's a lot for them too right so let's be clear we need to

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step away we need You need to find more places like Hog's Cave.

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Because you're parent, teacher, coach. I mean, my gosh, we're all these things to them now, right?

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We're friend, coach, parent, teacher, counselor, therapist, all these different things.

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And we're on 24 hours a day. And best friend. And best friend. I said friend.

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So we have to find places like this more often. Listen, for me personally,

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I think it's having a great awareness and having a family that's willing to communicate it to you.

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You know, I'm not lying. I definitely came into this with, you know,

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ideas of how the boat needed to be done and and how we needed to sail and how

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we need to do passage making only to come and find out, right. That it's not my boat.

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It's their boat. Yeah. Right. I, what, here's a great one is that one of the

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first things that happened is we were leaving from South America,

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from Buenos Aires and on our way. And the, you know, Tara, let the kids play with a toy.

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That was, that, that was a very fast moving toy inside the boat.

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And immediately it slammed right into the brand new wood.

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You could see like you, like I was like a cartoon, right? Night fire came out of my ears.

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But Tara literally just had to look me in the eyes and say, it's not your boat

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only. They know they made a mistake. So there's a lesson. I think I hear this from a lot of fathers,

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really, that are like, I had to remind myself, it's not my boat.

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It's our boat. They need to be as comfortable as I want to be comfortable.

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So I think it's a willingness to be open and to hear what they have to say.

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I think that's really excellent because I...

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I have a lot of empathy in general, I think for men, you know,

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whether they're the more experienced sailor or not, because they feel,

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they, they feel this huge burden to keep their family safe.

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And, and so, you know, you can start to be really intense about every little

17:46

aspect and you realize, well, wait, like, you know, that's, it's,

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it's a boat, which is a home. So it's kind of the same, you have to kind of apply the same thinking.

17:55

So I think that's really insightful. And it's built to withstand a tremendous

17:58

amount of pressure. Yeah. Let it. Right? And that you can take in so many different ways.

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Like if there's a mistake made while sailing, the boat will fix itself.

18:07

Yeah. Right? But won't be fixed. A good, excuse me. Yeah. A good boat will watch out for itself.

18:13

But what won't is the interaction you just have with your wife or the interaction

18:17

you just have with your child. Those things just fester. Yeah. Right?

18:20

So why do it? Yeah. And I had to learn it. So it's a tremendous lesson.

18:23

And I do think this is the stuff that gets sorted out the first year. You know, so for sure.

18:28

Well, it's so great to chat with you guys. It's been amazing to get to know

18:32

you and we're looking forward for a few more days here.

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It's super windy. So we've been kind of chilling and doing campfires and potlucks

18:40

and, and inappropriate movies on the beach with Talladega nights with a bunch of kids. Anyway.

18:53

But thank you so much guys for joining and fair winds for now.

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Music.