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Sailing with Young Children
Warning and Disclaimer:
This web page discusses sailing with children on fixed keel sailing vessels. Smaller boats with a significant risk of capsizing represent a greater risk for very young children and many of the comments made on this page do not apply to smaller boats. This page is intended to provide pointers for experienced sailors who are simply new to sailing with young children. Use common sense and remember that safety of the children must always be the number one priority.
Sailing with Young Children
Sailing with children, even very young children, can be a wonderful experience that enriches the lives of both the children and adults involved. It can also be challenging and even dangerous if not done with some forethought and common sense. My wife, Julie, and I have three children and all began sailing with us at a relatively young age.
Our oldest child is twelve years old now and has developed a passion for the ocean. She is becoming an accomplished sailor herself and is now also a certified SCUBA diver which provides her with another exciting activity on some of our multi-day sailing trips. Our other two children are twins and are now seven years old. They too thoroughly enjoy our sailing trips.
Julie and I started sailing regularly in 1990, five years before our first daughter, Sarah, was born. We then mistakenly set aside sailing for nearly two years thinking that sailing would be too difficult with a baby onboard. When Sarah was 20 months old we finally took her out on a day sail for the first time. I won’t lie – that first outing was complicated and even a little scary at first, but we all survived the day and nobody got hurt. We were only away from the dock about 4 hours, but it was long enough to begin figuring out ways to safely deal with a toddler on a sailboat. At the end of the day we weren’t yet completely comfortable, but were confident that we could safely sail as a family.
Our next trip was a few weeks later and we sailed to Santa Catalina Island for a long weekend. We recognized that during our previous outing, the only time we had problems were the few times when both of us were needed to tend to sailing tasks (e.g. reefing, mooring, docking, etc.). We decided to take our daughter’s car seat and strap her in it during those short periods of time when neither of us could easily tend to her. That made all the difference and the entire trip went amazingly smoothly.
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Car seats are a great trick when sailing with kids. Most young children are used to being strapped in them and are content there as long as they can see what is going on. You can strap the seat in the cabin or the cockpit and if placed appropriately, the child can see everything. All three of our kids tended to fall asleep in their car seats when we were sailing. As long as a car seat is tied down firmly, children are quite safe in them while the adults are busy performing sailing related tasks. Don’t forget though, children must be dressed appropriately and protected from the sun.
When our oldest daughter was 5 years old the twins were born. We started them sailing as infants and even with two of them we had no problems at all. They made their first crossing to Catalina when they were less than a year old. Today, our kids all love our sailing trips and it provides a great family activity for us. They are learning a lot about boating and the ocean in general.
Our trips provide many educational opportunities in obvious subjects such as seamanship, navigation and chart reading, marine biology, and even occasionally boat repair. Our trips also include many opportunities for them to learn about not so obvious subjects such as geology and history (the Channel Islands are rich in both), astronomy (on dark clear nights the kids can’t believe how many stars are in the sky), and even physics (most of these lessons they learn without realizing they learned anything). Perhaps the most important lessons learned on any boat are those of “common sense”. Common sense is important on a boat and I believe that kids on a boat have a unique opportunity to develop “common sense” assuming an adult explains not just how to do things, but also why.
Our Advice
Take a few short day sails to just try it out at first. Children are all different and what works great with one child doesn’t necessarily work so well with another. Experiment and find what works for you. Here are a few specific suggestions – some just common sense and others based on our experiences:
Bring a car seat for toddlers or younger – there is no substitute if all adults are needed for sailing related duties. Strap a car seat securely in the cockpit or cabin and use it any time you don’t have an adult to dedicate to the child (e.g., docking, changing sails, reefing, etc.)
For toddlers and young children, you may want to consider a harness and tether. We never felt we needed one, but it may work better for some young children.
Get a good quality, coast guard approved Type II PFD that is properly sized. Test it on the child in a pool to make sure it will float your child head-up - an emergency situation is not the time to test the PFD.
Don’t forget sun protection! Sunscreen, a tethered hat, long sleeves – use anything and everything you have to protect young children from sunburn. Apply sunscreen multiple times throughout the day.
Don’t allow young children in the cockpit unless they are wearing a lifejacket or they are strapped in a car seat. Never allow them on deck without a PFD and an adult with them. Teach them this rule and enforce it consistently.
Teach children to stay away from the companionway unless they are actually going up or down. It’s a long way down for a toddler or young child. This is good rule to for older kids also.
Rig a net in a berth below to keep a child from rolling off the bed.
Bring lots of bags to put dirty diapers in. Try and find a place to store them that is out of the cabin.
As children get older, teach them as much about boating as they are interested in learning, but don’t force it on them. Every kid is a little different and they don’t always become interested at the same age. As long as they have fun on boating trips, they will eventually become interested in learning about boating. By the time they are 8 to 10 years old it is amazing how competent many children can be on the water.
Relax – don’t stress over minor problems and challenges. It will make the adventure more fun for everyone.
Additional Reading
There are a couple of books you might be interested in if you are getting ready to sail with young children. No book can provide all the answers, but there are a number of books that discuss sailing with babies and young children and they provide a number of good ideas. The first book listed below we bought and read after our first trip with our oldest child. The other we have not read, but it gets good reviews from most who have read it.
Babies Aboard by Lyndsay Green, ISBN-10: 0071560300, 160 pages
Kids In The Cockpit by Jill Schinas ISBN-10: 0713672293, 180 pages
Conclusion
Sailing with children is an extremely gratifying and highly recommended experience. Plan your first few trips carefully, but don’t over plan. Be aware that no matter how much you plan, things probably won’t happen quite like you expect them too. Be flexible and prepared to improvise a little. As problems occur -- and they will -- find solutions unique to your situation and keep a positive attitude. Before you know it, everyone on board including the children will be having a great time. Remember to keep safety the number one priority, but make sure having fun is a close second!
Last Updated: 18 Feb 2008
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