Enjoying freedom and living in dreamlike places. That’s what life on a sailboat would be like, if reality didn’t sometimes throw well-made plans into disarray.

The first adversary of planning is nature because it always has the last word. Wind, waves, rain, and thunderstorms determine our fate and dictate the rhythm of our lives. We barely notice how often things change and plans must be adjusted. Landlubbers would probably consider us highly unreliable. Fellow sailors, by contrast, greet ad hoc changes of plan with an understanding smile at most. They know how it goes. No crew has ever done what they said they would. How could they? After all, the goal is to arrive safely at the next waypoint. However, if things go wrong, everyone helps each other out.

The second adversary of planning is technology and the boat itself. It’s rare for there to be nothing that needs repairing. Some repairs are more cosmetic or for comfort, and these can be postponed. However, anything essential or safety-related, such as the rig, generator, rudder or water supply, cannot be delayed. If we discover an issue during a routine check or by chance, we cannot set off until we resolve it. This may then be a matter of time or a logistical challenge. Although we carry plenty of spare parts, we still lack a feel for Nikola’s specific weak spots. In Marigot Bay on Sint Maarten, for example, we were stuck because the generator had an issue. In the Bahamas, it was the watermaker that threw our plans overboard.

Besides repairs, we spend a lot of time planning. When and how do we move on, where to, and why.

Long-term planning

We want to sail around the world. But we can’t sail everywhere at any given time. There are seasons when the wind blows from the wrong direction, when it’s storm season, when it rains too much or it’s too cold/hot. That means there are rough time windows for certain destinations. The Atlantic crossing happens from November on, the Caribbean hurricane zone should be enjoyed until June at the latest, the cyclones in the Pacific then start in November, and so on. Of course you can handle it differently, but then the risk of uncomfortable days at sea rises, or the insurer probably does not fancy it. So we know roughly which months we can spend where, and how much time is left to explore an area. Miss a window, and the journey stretches by a season. So if you want to enroll your child in school at some point, you’d do well to stick to the plan.

Medium-term planning

As we consider the coming weeks and months, we think about which countries and places within a region we want to visit, bearing in mind any fixed commitments. Shipyard chores, family visits or transit through the Panama Canal to name some. That’s also what turned the watermaker trouble in the Bahamas into a stress factor. Due to lack of time, we had to skip our favourite parts of the Bahamas, and we had less time for the San Blas Islands too — not to mention having to coordinate this with family visits. Since we can’t just hop in and set off, we need a generous time buffer. This means that every commitment we have blocks off a much larger window of time. This is probably also why all sailors try to avoid commitments regarding time and place wherever possible.

Short-term planning

In the end the weather plays its trump card. Sometimes changed conditions shoo us from bay to bay or cut right across our plans. Off Long Island, for example, we turned back after an hour because, after a wind shift, we simply wouldn’t have made it through the shallow Comer Channel anymore. And with that, the following legs already looked different again. Domino effect: wobble one piece and the whole thing has to be set up anew.

A few days before the Comer channel we’d actually meant to sail straight from Eleuthera to Panama. The fact that the wave forecast for the Caribbean Sea was worsening, and that we first had to make it to a particular island so we could clear out of the Bahamas, had led to a spontaneous stop in Calabash Bay. Long Island again instead of Panama. Within 10 minutes everything was replanned. It’s all half as bad, though, when you meet old friends at your last-minute destination.

The Bahamas and the built-in reset button

Over all these months from the USA down to Panama, it has often become clear to us just how crazy planning on a sailboat is. Florida, for example, we hadn’t wanted to see at all, and in the end we were there quite a while. Fortunately, we must say, because we had a fantastic time there.

In the Bahamas we started planning all over again most of the days. This could sometimes affect our mood, but ultimately it gave us plenty of time to spend with sailing friends in the Abacos, to experience the beauty of Eleuthera, and to become part of the incredibly endearing sailing community on Long Island, complete with cold days, woolly hats and countless provisioning runs ahead of supposed departures. Looking back, we had a good time: we weathered the storms with nice people, saw unexpected places, and practised being spontaneous and taking things easy. Long live the chaos! We’ll get to Panama somehow.