Special Report: Helen Fretter on Sailing With Young Children

Would you take your preschooler cruising? Or are toddlers and yachts a recipe for stress, sleep deprivation and restricted sailing?

- By Helen Fretter

While going on a bluewater adventure with your family is a popular dream, the advantages of having a child that can understand instructions, occupy themselves with a book, and have mastered at least the basics of swimming, keep many families ashore until school age. But cruising, and even liveaboard bluewater sailing, can be done with babies and preschoolers. Four families cruising and living aboard with young children share their tips on how to manage – and enjoy – sailing with very small crew.

SOONER RATHER THAN LATER

There are many reasons for setting off with under-fives. For some families it is simply a case of not waiting – especially where older siblings want to rejoin formal education before their senior school years. Casting off sooner may enable you to sail for longer, even if taking it easy for the early stages. Going when children are younger may also negate the need to move up a size of yacht to increase the number of cabins.

For many families the ability to go sailing without having to factor in ‘boat school’ is a huge draw. “I found home schooling for pre-school and early primary school aged children was very easy and stress-free,” recalls Carolyn Simpson, mother of four boys aged four to nine.

She and her husband have lived aboard their 47ft Herreshoff ketch Moon River since their youngest son was born, cruising the Pacific when he was two and his brothers four, six and seven years old.