Cruising Yacht
Yacht Cruising is a lifestyle that involves
living for extended time on a boat while traveling from place to place
for pleasure. Yacht Cruising generally refers to trips of a few days
or more, and can extend to round-the-world voyages.
Yacht Cruising is done on
both sail and power boats, although sail predominates over longer distances,
as ocean-worthy power boats are considerably more expensive. Many cruisers
are "long term" and travel for many years, the most adventurous circling
the globe over a period of three to ten years. Many others take a year
or two off from work and school for short trips and the chance to experience
the cruising lifestyle.
Yacht Cruisers can see traditional life
in remote areas of the world; here, a Kuna local paddles a dugout canoe
in the San Blas Islands. One of the first people to carry out a long-distance
voyage for pleasure, and who inspired many others to follow in his path,
was Joshua Slocum, who circumnavigated the world between 1895 and 1898.
As well as normal sailing
and seamanship skills, Yacht cruisers use a variety of equipment and
techniques to make their voyages possible, or simply more comfortable.
The use of wind vane self steering is common on long distance cruising
yachts.
The solar panels on this
28-foot yacht can keep her self-sufficient in electrical power. Though
in the past many cruisers had no means of generating electricity on
board and depended on kerosene and dry cell batteries, today most have
some sort of electrical devices on board thus, one of the key areas
is providing the electrical power to keep the boat's systems (lights,
communications gear, etc.) running.
Many Yacht cruisers still
rely on the older short wave maritime SSB and Amateur radio radio, which
has no running costs, and can with a compatible modem, Pactor, allow
sending and receiving of email at very slow speed, insufficient for
all but basic communication using ASCII text only, without html formatting
or attachments.
Water makers which turn
seawater into potable water are increasingly common on ocean crossing
yachts. Radar, GPS are usually present and electronic charting systems
are also regularly found on cruising yachts.
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