One man, 3000 miles, zero qualifications. – by Al Valvano

Dear Reader:

If, like me, you’re new to sailing, then you might encounter the term “Bilge Rat.” From some light internet research, it’s a “friendly insult for the lowest-experience person on board.”

No one’s actually called me that, but that’s definately me. *waves*

About a year ago, Jay and Liza mentioned they were planning to build Yet Another Boat — this time the wind-powered kind. And, oh yeah, they were going to sail around the world for 16 months on the Oyster Rally. But before they could even start that trip, they first had to get the boat to the official starting line via another long distance rally — which is about 3,000 miles away from where the boat was being built.

I, being an idiot, said, “Hey, if you need a hand, I’m free. Sounds fun.”

To everyone’s surprise — including my own — they said yes. So here I am, nearly a year later.

My real-world sailing experience consists of exactly two short afternoon sails on Donna’s boat on the Cape where I casually watched Jay do some cool stuff on a boat but didn’t really participate. I have never done any kind of long-distance passage. I have no relevant knowledge or skills. But I do have a good attitude, a decent work ethic, and a willingness to be useful in whatever small ways a barely qualified human can be.

So this post is for anyone like me: the total newb who has no idea what they’re signing up for.

Here are a few observations I have been saving up.

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On Describing Distance Sailing

A few days ago I messaged this to a buddy:

“It’s like being in an RV you can’t get out of. For three weeks. Shared with four other people. With the constant fear of injury or death.”

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On Bathrooms

This boat is beautiful and far more luxurious than anything my level of competence deserves. The bathrooms are no exception. Yes — plural. There’s a primary bathroom inside the aft cabin and a shared secondary one toward the bow. This one is the one I use, and it’s honestly not much smaller than the primary bathroom in my last house:

But let’s get into the real talk.

As I’m a dude, I’m used to handling bathroom business in a certain… standing-up way. That system does not work on a boat. Gravity, motion, and splash angles all conspire against you. So you sit. Always. No exceptions.

And while the toilet is electric — which sounds simple — it still feels like operating a small industrial appliance with your pants around your ankles. You press one button to “wet,” another to “flush,” and you pray you’re not holding either of them too long or too short or waking up the person in the cabin next door or needing to be rescued from a FRICKIN’ BOAT BATHROOM because you fell down and hit your head with your pants around your ankles. 

It’s amazing how much focus it takes to do something toddlers master on land.

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On Showering

I was surprised to learn showering is allowed while underway. Every three days or so I take a fast one — mainly to remove the sunscreen, sweat, and general “boat film” that accumulates on a human living in a moving salt box. Procedure: briefly wet yourself, turn the water off; lather up; quick rinse; squeegee the interior surfaces; dry off. All while the boat flails about and sways up and down and side to side. 

But here’s an actual thing that’s happened to me not once, but twice: I’m showering after an evening watch, soap in my eyes, boat rocking, reaching blindly for the tap, and suddenly someone turns off all the interior lights. So now it’s full darkness, a bucking, rocking tube, slippery floor, and me trying to find the faucet, the towel, the latch, the towel again because I dropped it, and the damn light switch.

I know it’s you, Jay.

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On Night Watches

I can’t be trusted with a solo night watch. My job is to look at the stars, keep an eye on the instruments, stay alert, make an attempt at companionship, and help with whatever adjustments or taks that need doing under the supervision of someone actually competent. My watch mates have been kind enough to teach me small bits of sailing & navigation lore as we go.

For example, just 15 minutes ago, Hiten walked me through the cheerful step-by-step procedure for what to do when someone gets sucked overboard in the dark. Comforting!

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On Eating

The schedule is variable. People are awake at odd hours, asleep at odd hours, eating whenever they come off watch. Time loses meaning — not in a philosophical way, but in a “what meal is this?” way. Good food helps anchor reality.

Thankfully, Hiten and Melissa provisioned like pros: a shockingly diverse supply of actual healthy ingredients, snacks that don’t induce scurvy, and enough options to keep morale intact at 2 a.m. Some meals are full sit-down productions; others are whatever you can grab between watches. Either way, good food makes the whole experience feel less like a survival exercise and more like an adventure involving real humans. You rock, guys.

And I am still mesmerized by the stove on swivels that pivots with the action of the boat so your hot coffee doesn’t spray everywhere…

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On Drinking

Full stop — we don’t. Wet sea, dry boat, no booze — which is the correct rule and completely appropriate. 

But perhaps the hardest part of sailing if I am being honest.

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On Sleeping

I call my room “The Night Coffin.” That’s not an insult. It’s also not accurate since sometimes it’s a Day Coffin. It’s a raised bunk above the tool storage and workbench area in a cabin midship, and it’s genuinely lovely & cozy. The mattress, pillow, and bedding are plush (thanks, Liza!), and there are thoughtful touches everywhere: USB-C chargers within arm’s reach, shelves for gear, lighting options that don’t blind you. Even a fan for air and white noise!

It also has this weird medieval rope and sheet apparatus called a “Lee Cloth” — it’s almost like assembling another sailboat inside a sailboat — that you rig up after you crawl in your bunk so you don’t fall out of the bunk and bonk your nog when the boat flails about. ISN’T THAT FUN!

You sleep whenever your body demands it between watches. The first few days I slept like a baby — the rocking is incredibly soothing. But the last three days? Almost nothing. Doesn’t matter how tired I am or how much opportunity I have. My brain has apparently decided that 5 days into a crossing is the ideal moment to stay wired.

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On Boat Time

Time zones on a crossing are kind of pointless. Between the Canary Islands and St. Lucia there’s a four-hour difference, and rather than constantly shifting schedules, alarms, and watches as we headed west, we split the baby: two hours behind local Canary time. We all then set the boat clocks and our own phones and watches to that time. It’s arbitrary, but at least it keeps everyone’s bodies from mutinying.

So right now, I am six hours ahead of Seattle, where Traci is; 3 hours behind The Netherlands where my daughter Natalia is; and 11 hours behind South Korea, where my son Avery is. At least I think so. Boat math is hard.

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On Wildlife

So far, wildlife has been light. We’ve had a pod of dolphins, some flying fish (which we usually find as sad little corpses in the morning), a couple of seabirds in the distance, and one allegedly bioluminescent squid that Jay and Melissa claim slithered aboard during a night watch. They, of course, took zero photos — so I’m filing that one under “fish tales” until proven otherwise. Photos or it didn’t happen.

Still waiting on whales. Still hoping for another dolphin show.

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On Boat Jargon

Boat people love special names for everything. Or they take a perfectly normal word — like “rope” — and insist you call it something else, like “line.” But when I arrived in the Canary Islands, I was informed that actually yes, it’s still called “rope” here. So that’s perfectly clear.

I thought I had a handle on boat language. “head” (bathroom) and “galley” (kitchen) — got it. Port and starboard — duh. But then came the rest of the vocabulary, and my brain started filing things under “probably important, maybe problematic if you get it wrong.”

There’s a sheet, which isn’t a sheet of anything — it’s a rope that controls a sail. A halyard? Another rope, this one used to raise the sail. A painter is the rope on the bow of a dinghy — yes, it has a name. A fairlead is basically a tiny guiding device that changes the angle of a line — or, in my terms, “rope go here, rope go there.” And then there’s the sail itself: the clew (corner), the luff (leading edge), the leech (trailing edge), and the foot (bottom). In other words, everything you thought you knew about left, right, top, bottom? Forget it.

And here are a few phrases I’ve already heard that are unintentionally excellent:

• “We’re in irons.” Sounds like a prison sentence.

• “Ease the sheet!” Usually not said in a bathroom, surprisingly.

• “Give me some slack.” Literal here. Metaphorical everywhere else.

• “What’s our course over ground?” Because the compass and reality rarely agree.

(Have more? Leave them in the comments!)

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Conclusion

This is my first post from the boat. I’ll try to write a few more as we go, assuming I don’t break anything important or get thrown overboard for messing up the head.

Huge thanks to co-Captains Jay & Donna for letting a complete idiot onto their boat, and to Melissa & Hiten for their patience, kindness, and willingness to explain the same thing eight times without shoving me into the dinghy.

Love from the Atlantic. More soon.