Web series / How to start a family cruise project?

Christmas 2017, on a road between Toulon and Hyères. In this late afternoon, the cloudless sky takes this dark blue tint proper to the beautiful winter days. Léopoldine and I have left our four children at my parents' house and have been driving silently for a few kilometers along the Var coast, caught up in our respective thoughts. As we arrive at Carqueiranne, Léopoldine breaks the silence and says to me: "What if we went around the world?

Our project was born like that. No more and no less.

She and I did not grow up in a family atmosphere of sailors. In our parents' living rooms, there were no patiently varnished half-hulls overhanging chests of drawers inspired by the maritime furniture of the great hours of the transatlantic liners. The ashtrays were not shaped like anchors or shells and the old cupboards were not secured with old issues of Chasse-Marée. We were landlubbers. My parents had a watercolor of an 18th century frigate that we had inherited from my grandfather, but that was all.

• Leopoldine (don't call him "Leo"!) grew up in an apartment in the center of Lyon, far from the sea in fact as in spirit. Her nautical experience is limited to coastal outings with uncles or friends. By temperament, she is a firebrand, ready for any project, as long as it doesn't fit into stereotypical patterns. With the exception of boating, which is a new hobby for her, she loves art, reading, movies and more than anything, her children.
  

  

• Ghislain Intruder in my family of sailing refractors, I put on the foulies quite early: first at the sailing school (Optimist, dinghy L'Equipe, 420...), then on "Loups de mer" (schooner-schooner with auric rigging that the French Navy lent to the scouts troop I was part of) then on various habitables, both for cruising and racing (X412, X442, Mumm 30, Jod 35, First 31.7euros). All this mainly in the Mediterranean. In short, I quickly became part of the vast category of small Sunday sailors. Since then, my professional life as an executive in the food industry has taken me away from the sea.
  

  

To carry out our project, we count on the support of our four children:

• Helion the eldest is 14 years old. What he likes is to talk! He is able to talk about (almost) everything: history, literature, cinema... which he embellishes with cleverly chosen puns. Only mathematics still resists him (but it will come!). He keeps an excellent memory of our first night navigations and is impatient to live these experiences again. And as he is strong as a Turk, he will be a precious help on the boat.
  

  

• Berenger is 13 years old. He is the sportsman of the family: rugby, athletics, sailing... It is necessary that it moves! With his efficient and deadpan repartee, he often makes us laugh. He loves the Toulon region, its climate, its rugby and its coast. He would like us to move there when we return from our trip (and even before, why not?). To do what? First to prepare our trip, then the Mini Transat, the Route du Rhum and finally the Vendée Globeeuros
  

  

• Ferréol 11 years old, is our doudou, our fatal fluff. He is cuddly and has a particular talent to make us crack with a glance. He is a homebody and loves his home, his cocoon. He shares his leisure time between reading, tennis, friends, his rubik's cubeeuros and his bed. With him we face a big case of conscience: he only wants to leave on condition that he has on board his beloved slippers, which are in the shape ofeuros big earseuros cousin of the hareeuros well you know what I mean. Negotiation in raceuros
  

  

• Pia the only girl in the gang of four is 7 years old. She loves life: she loves school, her friends and her dolls. Not a day goes by that she doesn't ask us to invite her friends, with whom she methodically transforms her room into a battlefield. Always on the lookout for a helping hand in the kitchen, she does not disdain to tease her brothers, who return the favor.
  

  

• Frigate the mascot of the house, our dog, an English springer. I introduce her to please the children, but unfortunately for them, she will not be on the trip. Although she loves water more than any of the six of us, we will leave her on land, in the country. She is a hunting dog, not a fishing dog!
  

  

First screenings

Quickly we start the first calculations: what time? what route? what boat? what budget?

We start to think and sort through the multitude of ideas that come to us in a haphazard way. How to take into account the security? When to leave? On which route? Will we be able to take care of the children's school? When we don't even know the price of a euro-boat, we quickly organize all this mess and start to sort out the problems.

Duration and departure date

We are in December 2017 and we quickly agree that a departure in the summer of 2018 will be difficult to prepare: buying the boat, preparing it for ocean sailing, doing the necessary training (radio telephony, safety, mechanics and others). These prerequisites will take us a good year.

reluctantly, we admit that a departure before summer 2019 seems unthinkable. So let's go for July 2019! Not later either, because our children are growing up and if we feel our shoulders are broad enough to support Hélion in his second year class, we are much less confident in our abilities to accompany him the following year. On the other hand, planning a departure in two and a half years is not compatible with our impatience. And we are limiting our trip to the two summers of 2019 and 2020 so that only one school year is involved.

The course

A quick calculation leads us to limit our journey to a maximum distance of 15,000 miles. Indeed, if we want to sail on average one day out of three, we cannot consider a longer journey. We also want to come back with the boat, so we have to make a loop. And 15,000 miles is a round trip. The 18,000 miles required to circumnavigate South America seems ambitious to us in one year, with average speeds that we estimate to be lower. As for staying in the Mediterranean, it would certainly be exciting, but rough in winter.

Of course, we will refine the stops, but the decision of the route was quite quick!

First supporters

We warn a few people in our close circle. If some of them are not convinced that we will go through with the project, they have the delicacy not to let it show. Our good friends are happy for us. While we were afraid of sideways glances and dismayed pouts, this positive reception is a wonderful relief for us and adds an exciting spice: it anchors our decision and prevents any potential desire to back out.

Finally, I warned my employer that he would have to do without me for a year. To my great despair, he welcomed my decision with astonishment, but without showing any regret or concern. A nice lesson for me who thought I was indispensable!

From early morning to evening, Leopoldine and I talk to each other about our project. Our dreams take on blue reflections, the grey sky is blue, our morning coffee is blue. We rock ourselves in the sweet unconsciousness of all the difficulties we will have to face. But step by step, we manage to catch some threads of this inextricable ball and start to pull them. We progress.