<i> Editor’s Note: Jason and Piers Windebank are currently sailing around the world for three years. The brothers (Jason is 35, Piers is 34) grew up in Pacific Palisades and attended Corpus Christi School. They recently had an unexpected layover in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for repairs, which lasted for several months and altered their original two-year sailing plan. Jason told the Palisadian-Post, “This is much longer than we hoped to stay here, but the boat is complicated and we need full confidence that all the systems are ready for the next 10,000 miles, where yachting services are virtually nonexistent.”
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What surprises most people when we tell them about our around-the-world sailing plans is that neither my brother nor I has ever been very interested in the sport of sailing. The truth is that when we began our voyage a year ago, we really didn’t even know how to sail. Twenty-five countries and over 9,000 nautical miles later, we’re still not sure we like sailing, the sport, all that much. But our opinion about sailing is mostly irrelevant for our current objectives; what we care about is that a sailing boat is the best tool for exploring the planet Earth.
We sail because it’s a practical way to get from place to place. We enjoy the yachting lifestyle because of the diversity and enjoyment we get from waking up in new and interesting places that are inaccessible to most people. The idea of owning a boat in Marina del Rey and sailing for fun on the weekends sounds boring, expensive and a lot of needless maintenance work.
Our simple idea was born about five years ago: buy our own sailboat and take it on a photographic expedition around the world. The idea was a natural outgrowth from our shared passion for exploring and photographing exotic places and finding ourselves reaching the limits of what can be seen and done using passenger planes and three weeks of vacation every year. Back then we never expected our dream to become a reality until one day we looked around and noticed our lives had led us each to a place where this idea was possible. In now-or-never type circumstances, we decided it was time to take a leap.
Originally we planned a two-year circumnavigation, but to accommodate more time for working on the boat and exploring more on land, we now think our end date will be late 2014. Of course, we don’t expect anything to go according to plan. Plans are not compatible with sailing around the world.
Our journey began in Turkey on the east end of the Mediterranean Sea. Boats are relative bargains there, and the Med would be the ideal place for us to learn how to sail before attempting a major ocean crossing. After a few torn sails, crossed anchor lines, and “incidents” with the authorities in various countries, things have mostly gone to plan—we know how to sail, we’ve checked the Mediterranean off our “to do” list and we completed our Atlantic crossing, a major milestone for any circumnavigator.
The route we have planned is 36,710 miles in total and will take us through the South Pacific and Australia next year, across the Indian Ocean towards South Africa next “winter” (in the northern hemisphere), then finally full circle back across the Atlantic and up to the Caribbean in 2014.
Until some genius invents a warp machine, a trip like this is only possible by sailboat—the places we will go are too numerous and too remote to be done any other way. Our boat, Tamarisk, is a 1994 56-ft. monuhull specifically designed for long-distance, open-ocean sailing like we’re now doing. This means we have most of the basic comforts of a small apartment and it does feel like a home. But unlike an apartment, we’re fast, comfortable and safe in heavy seas and foul weather, and we can reposition ourselves any time we please. Costwise, we will recover the vast majority of our capital outlay at the journey’s end when we sell the boat. Our lodging expense for the next two years will be roughly zero, and because our motion is almost always under sail with the prevailing trade winds, our fuel bill is small enough to make even a Prius owner jealous (unfortunately our repair bill is a different story). These are the reasons for the sudden onset of our sailing passion earlier this year, although we admit that sailing for sport is growing on us as well.
One might think the transition from a stable life ashore to an unknown life at sea would be difficult…but one would be wrong. This may not be true for everyone—it helps that we’ve been adventuring for many years, that we have a commercial motive through our photography business, etc., but we also think the security of the sedentary life is overrated, if not outright boring, and we wonder why more people aren’t out here hobbing around on sailboats like us. That’s not a complaint by any means—we’re perfectly happy exploring the far corners of the world and uncovering its secrets in little bit of isolation. Come to think of it, maybe that’s the whole point.
<i> In May, Jason and Piers are planning to sail from Colombia to the San Blas islands in Panama, transit the Panama Canal and visit the Galápagos Islands. Follow Tamarisk’s adventure on tamariskrtw.com.
Jason’s professional background is in investment management, and he has recently been involved in the development and launch of the nonprofit enterprise, Focusing Philanthropy, based in Los Angeles. He is also actively building a photography portfolio under the label Jason Windebank Photography, featuring panoramic landscapes and seascapes from around the world.
Piers’s professional background is in real estate brokerage and finance. In 2005 he founded his own business, Axis Real Estate and Mortgage, which he remains actively involved in from the boat. Piers is also a founding member of the reggae band Sunny Rude and its associated record label, Sunny Rude Productions. </i>
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