This Ol' Boat

Circumnavigators Behan and Jamie Gifford dispense encouraging yet sober advice to starry-eyed sailors

- JIM CARRIER

LESSONS for the LONG HAUL

When Behan and Jamie Gifford warn cruisers to be realistic about budgets, they know of what they speak.

In 2010 in Tahiti, not even halfway through a planned three- to five-year sailing sabbatical with their three children, they had $100 left in the bank. Their house in Bainbridge, Washington, was underwater financially.

“We figured that we could either pull the plug and go back, or we could figure out how to make a living out of this,” Jamie says.

They proceeded to Australia, got shore jobs for a year and a half, and reinvented their sabbatical into a lifestyle: living aboard while selling stories, instructions, guidance and a fair amount of handholding to a growing clientele who dream of cruising. After circumnavigating and accumulating an encyclopedic body of practical knowledge, they established a cruiser counseling business that manages to be both inspirational and practical. In six years, under their brand Sailing Totem, they have coached more than 400 clients.

You may have read some of their 2,500 pieces, many of them written for Cruising World, or spent hours on their website and social media sites. Maybe you drooled a bit during one of their motivational talks. Their goal, they say, is to make dreams real and realistic.