Luxury, comfort, and speed come at a price not only measured in dollars, but in time and effort as well. Sterling looks can be deceiving.

Have you ever looked across the anchorage and seen a gorgeous yacht shimmering in the sun, thinking that seemed like it sailed right off of a yachting magazine cover and felt a twinge of envy at all that glistening stainless steel, speed, comfort, and limitless hot water? You may be surprised to hear that the crews of these boat may very well be looking out at your boat, presumably smaller, and wishing their boat’s systems, and by extension their lives, were as simple.

I recently had the chance to crew on a 77-foot, 80-ton steel motor sailor from La Paz, Mexico to San Diego, CA, up the Baja Peninsula. This was my fourth trip along the Baja Peninsula, and, after sailing our 35-footer up against contrary winds and seas that are the norm for northbound boats, I knew the weather would be against us for most of the 835-mile trip. The captain, a good friend of mine, his girlfriend, and I started prepping the boat for the trip. It soon became apparent that what would ordinarily be simple projects on a small boat were now major nautical productions. First, we had to stow the dinghy. The dinghy is not your everyday inflatable that fits in the lazerette, but rather a 14-foot, rigid inflatable Caribe with a 65-horsepower engine that hangs on davits. Is this thing a blast to drive, the Ferrari of dinghies? You bet. It’s a rocketship on water and the accelerating g-forces pin a smile on the driver and the driver to the seat. Are you going to land this through breaking surf and then drag this several hundred pound thing up on some secluded beach? Not a chance--this is strictly a marina animal. And since this gleaming piece of machinery will need to stay gleaming, there’s a lot of time spent washing the dinghy after every outing. One oily night in a harbor is enough to keep the crew busy for several hours undoing the damage. And if you think your 15-horsepower engine is a chore to get onboard, how about stowing a 400-pound gorilla without banging it into the new Awl-grip job, the varnish, or marring the teak deck? Getting this crossed off the list was a delicate ballet of block and tackle, topping lift, and big winches that consumed most of the day.

Now, think about what the optimum wind speed is for your sailboat. For my 35-footer, 15-20 is a pretty sweet ride. While bigger boats have bigger sail plans, and granted this particular vessel was a motor sailor, many seem to need lots more wind. Twenty to 35 knots of wind seemed to be what this boat wanted, and even then it was five days with the motor on--perhaps forgivable when going to weather against wind chop and a distant generated Pacific ground swell. I’m not sure how well the boat would have sailed to weather without the engine assist.

Seemingly simple projects on a small boat have a way of becoming engineering feats on a large boat. Stowing the tender outboard.

But on to a related topic--fuel. On a cruise through the Caribbean aboard my 35-footer, we took on fuel twice. Once in the British Virgin Islands, and once again in Venezuela, and then only because diesel was .28 cents a gallon. Contrast that against 1,100 gallons we took on before leaving Mexico at $2.75 a gallon--enough to motor to Vancouver. The other thing about showing up with a big boat is that people in power--marina managers, boat agents, department of agriculture officers, customs officials--seem to perk up and be a bit more inclined to enact extra attention, paperwork, fees, and other administrative costs. Big boats taking on big loads of fuel at this particular marina in La Paz were subject to a $50 fee, just to pull up to the fuel dock. “That’s a great deal,’ one captain said sarcastically in the marina office when he went over the specifics of his marina bill.

And in some ways bigger boats are more vulnerable to breakdowns. There are simply more thru-hulls, hose clamps, wires that can come loose, and more hidden places on the hull and more parts to break. This in turn also means more spare parts. We had four different size impellers on this boat, and the only way to be sure which one went where was to extract an impeller and size it up. The generator also becomes essentially the heart of the boat. Many yachts of this size have electric stoves, which, if you own a small boat with a propane stove, takes a bit to wrap your brain around. This means that if you want a cup of coffee, the generator gets fired up. Lunch? The generator. Dinner? Time to start the generator. Time to start the watermaker? Refrigerator or freezer getting warm? Time to start the generator. A short circuiting solenoid or a shredded impeller, and the entire program comes to a halt. Many yachts are designed for entertaining at marinas or at anchor. This particular vessel had a non-gimbaled stove that made cooking underway pretty interesting. Pots and pans were literally tied with line and bungees to trim pieces to keep them on the stove.

Going upwind against the elements, keeping dry and warm is definitely appreciated, but luxury interferes with other things to do while sailing from point A to B, like star gazing, dolphin watching, and fishing.

And as a testament to the crews that run these boats, when things break, they’ll have to be pretty versed in the repair department. When something breaks on my boat, there’s at least some flexibility in getting it fixed. But when it comes to a critical piece of equipment that packs it up with the owner and his guests on board, the time to fix it is pretty much immediately. The owner is likely a time pressed individual, flying in and out on a tight schedule to begin with before returning to whatever business enterprise that allowed him or her to buy the boat. The captain and mate had plenty of stories of plugged heads, sumps, cantankerous generators, and guests aboard that couldn’t quite figure out the difference between boat and house. The crews on these boats will be the first ones up and last ones to go to sleep, and they won’t be sleeping in the best bunks. On this trip, the bouncing to windward literally had the crew airborne in their bunks. Luckily, since no guests were aboard, they could retreat to other state rooms.

Was it a pleasurable experience crewing aboard the boat? Certainly. I had my own state room with a stand up shower and we were insulated from the elements by the wheel house. Spray slatted on the windshield while I ate ice cream, listening to music on the stereo while staring at two computer screens, one for the radar and one for the plot charter. Every now and then I turned the autopilot this way or that. If I felt brave, I took the binoculars out into the cockpit and scanned the horizon and more than one small boat was spotted visually before it showed up on radar. But when it comes to a pure sailing experience, there’s often a tradeoff. Comfort and luxury get in the way of wind blowing through our hair and marveling at the vast stretches of stars overhead. We didn’t catch any fish, in part because we were going too fast for them.

“I can’t wait to get back to my own boat and sleep in my own bunk, even if it is only for two weeks before we head up to Vancouver for the summer” said the mate, adding somewhat wearily, “Then, in the fall, it’ll be time to head back down again.“ So if you’re sleeping in your own bunk on your own boat and in charge of where and when you want to go, well, you may likely have a few things up on both the crews and the owners of these boats. And the next time that big yacht that pulls up into your anchorage, just maybe you’ll appreciate how good you have it.