Planning a sailing trip
Anyone who books a sailing trip as skipper usually looks forward to the practical side, to the manoeuvres, the wind and the evenings at anchor. For the trip to run smoothly, though, quite a lot has to be organised beforehand, from the route and the crew list to the safety briefing, and the skipper almost becomes a bit of a project manager along the way.
This series covers the preparation and the running of a voyage, with proven routines for skipper and crew, from the packing list and the safety briefing to weather briefing, logbook and ship's kitty at sea. The checklists linked below can be downloaded free of charge as PDFs and are a good starting point. If you would rather have it digital and even simpler, you can plan and run the whole voyage together with the crew in the CoSkipper app, from the checklists to the logbook.
In short:
- A route with legs, fallback harbours and activities that the crew knows early, so everyone can prepare for the week.
- The details for the crew list are best collected weeks before the trip, because the charter company wants to see them at check-in.
- Checklists for the safety briefing, provisions and packing that the crew gets in advance, so the preparation does not rest on the skipper alone.
- Along the way weather briefing, logbook and ship's kitty are part of it, so the whole crew knows what is coming at sea too.
To take along
What is involved in planning a sailing trip?
Before the trip it falls to the skipper to prepare things so that the crew can sail safely and as relaxed as possible. That includes the route with alternatives for different weather conditions and with activities at the individual stops, for which the skipper should read up on the cruising area in a cruising guide. The route is best shown on a map and shared with the crew early. The skipper should also collect, in good time, the details of each crew member that the charter company needs for the crew list. Checklists for provisions and the packing list give sailors without experience in particular something to go by. The checklist for the safety briefing should also reach the crew before the trip, so they do not hear everything for the first time on board.