Our yacht Frenesi anchored in the River Medway, Kent before our trip up the River Thames to Central London in summer 2009
Welcome to the family sailing site
Our aim with Float My Tribe is to provide a source of family sailing insights, ideas, resources, reviews and inspiration. It's written for family sailors - whether cruising skippers, family crew or friends.
Family & friends onboard
Unless you're going to sea alone, sailing's got to be a great experience for all those that come with you. If not, they might not come back for more, and if 'they' happen to be your family or close friends it would rather knock the wind out of your family sailing. I speak from my own experience, and what feels like more than my fair share of hindsight. So our focus is how to enjoy family cruising more, learning from mistakes and successes and all the small things that make sailing fun for kids and friends.
What sailing schools don't teach you
Few instructors at sailing schools can teach you the home truths about being both skipper as well as mum, dad, spouse, brother or daughter. These things are learned from experience. Nor for sailing couples starting out without any kids, do they warn you what will happen when they finally pop onto the scene.
If our experience is typical, it can sometimes feel like you are having to start all over again. Some sailing tasks that you had nailed as a sailing couple now need a major re-think. Thoughts of hanging up the wet weather gear (we do live in the UK after all) for a few years can start to make rather a lot of sense.
Eiliyah's introduction to sailing - summer 2009 (cold English summer's day)At the same time, you're still getting to grips with parenting (which parent isn't, at any age?) and new dilemmas and choices confront you about how to go sailing safely, without killing all the fun.
Family skipper learning curve
As our family sailing experience has grown, I've mellowed as a skipper, to everyone's benefit. Well, how much I've mellowed is perhaps a debating point around the Frenesi dining table. The point is, we've had some unforgettable experiences as a family. Some of them we might prefer to forget (sailing's not always easy, is it?) but most seem to have matured into cherished memories and favourite stories.
Float your tribe
My hope for this site is that it inspires and supports other family sailors to persevere through the inevitable hardships. And to get out more, and get more out of it. Family sailing is rewarding, and every trip is an adventure. We'd like to pass on the little that we have learned along the way, in the hope that it will make your journeys that little bit better.
Anisa, Thomas and Ismail in Portugal, 2007We will seek out the experiences of other sailing families, and share their insights. We will tell you - warts and all - what we are learning, review the kit we have used, share the best family-friendly places we have discovered, and discuss anything related to family boating life. We hope that you will join in the discussion, and share your own views and experiences.
More to come
We are starting with a blog, photo journal, and sharing our favourite web links and gear reviews. We have plans to add a family sailing forum, and to produce some videos or podcasts to bring things to life. As soon as we learn how to use the video cameras and editing software, we'll start uploading the results.
If you have experiences, suggestions, or ideas to share or a tip-off about something to do or a great place to go, then please gluide your pointer over to the Feedback tab to get in touch. You can follow our latest content by subscribing to the RSS feed, linking to us on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribing to our email updates.
We hope that you will enjoy browsing the site as much as we have enjoyed creating it. See you out there!
Frenesi at sunset, River Medway, summer 2009
