T minus 2 days

The Screamometer and Other Signs of Madness

by Kirsten Kopp

I can’t quite believe this journey is about to start. Honestly, I think Ken and I have been drifting toward this moment since we met eight years ago. Back then, he already owned a 35-foot steel monohull—a Polish-built brute of a thing that looked like it had been designed by a man who enjoyed stubbed toes and mild concussion. He called it a sailboat. And it was his retirement plan Pre-K (Pre-Kirsten).

I think Ken imagined living aboard alone, like some Grizzly Adams of the sea, communing with barnacles and canned goods with maybe a basketball as his First Mate. I loved the idea of sailing—the romance of it, the Hemingway of it all. What I didn’t love was the leaning, or the heeling, to give it its correct name. He had this cheerful little gauge in the cockpit showing our angle of heel, which I immediately renamed the screamometer. Anything past 15 degrees, and I’d be shrieking like a banshee.

I got so good at helming (steering) just so I could point us into the wind whenever the boat started doing its impression of a drunk Scotsman. It wasn’t sailing so much as managing terror with a tiller.

Then came the catamaran years. We rented one in the BVIs in 2019—no captain, just us and some gullible friends. That’s when I fell for the dream again: the turquoise water, the island-hopping, the smugness of drinking wine on the bow at sunset while saying things like “we’ll see where the wind takes us.” But in truth, sailing is not for those with any semblance of time keeping, and a plan, so us Alpha types motored most places.

So naturally, we bought a small Gemini catamaran. And just as naturally, I discovered that rough weather in this bucking bronco of a boat turned me into a crawling, sobbing lifejacket enthusiast. I know that my darling Ken, ever the pragmatist, quietly filed “sailing with wife” under “not a retirement option” and resignedly stowed away his nautical dreams.

For a while, we turned to airplanes. Because when one expensive hobby disappoints, it’s important to have another equally ruinous one waiting in the wings—literally. And I got my pilot's license - which I feel somewhat vindicated my aversion to sailing inversion. But the truth was, we both missed the water.

Then fate—or possibly a family setup—intervened. Ken’s father and his wife own a Kadey Krogen trawler and asked us to “keep an eye on it” while they were up north. One weekend aboard that lumbering, but beautifully designed hulk of floating beauty, and I was in love again. No sails. No screaming. No heeling. Just steady, glorious plodding—the maritime equivalent of Gypsy our dog's rythmic and lulling snoring.

It didn’t take long before we found our own. Double the budget but triple the boat we had budgeted for. A year of outfitting later, here we are: about to cast off on a worldwide adventure aboard our own floating home.

Over the next months, we’ll share the details of what it takes to prepare for a journey like this—equal parts spreadsheets, vaccinations, and marital negotiations. Maybe some of you dream of doing something similar. Or maybe you’ll simply enjoy reading about two otherwise sensible people abandoning a perfectly nice life on land to chase sunsets and dog friendly beaches across the ocean.

Either way, bring popcorn. We’re just getting started.