Sailing Like A Millionaire

An Adventure with Newport's Bareboat Sailing Charters

By Paul Pence

Imagine sailing in a 43-foot yacht, just you and your favorite first mate. You have a week to see the sea, watch the sunsets, and explore the villages of New England's coastline. The boat's top-loading fridge is stocked, your bicycles are dismantled and stowed in one of the two aft cabins, and you have nothing ahead of you except the open sea. As the boat slides out of Newport Harbor into Narragansett Bay under motor power, it's time to raise the 881-square foot sail. A forty-two foot boat is just right for a skilled skipper and an ablebodied crewman -- any larger and it would take too much work to keep on course, and any smaller and... well... who wants smaller if they can have a boat with room enough for a shower, a complete galley, two heads, a comfortable master stateroom, and even two smaller cabins for a guest or two or six?

Imagine the upkeep for the boat. Imagine just the storage and mooring costs. Imagine how much it costs just for the down payment. I guess by now you're imagining that your week of sailing like a millionaire requires that you be a millionaire.

There is an alternative to spending over $200,000 for a yacht that you could only sail a week or two a year. Try Bareboat Charters. Bareboats are just that -- bare. They come without a crew. For a week, the boat is yours; you're the captain and crew. If you're a certified captain and look for the adventure and pleasure of sailing your own yacht without the expense and hassle of actually owning one, then bareboat charters are the way to go.

Toward the end of the sailing season, the folks at Bareboat Sailing Charters in Newport supplied us with a boat for our own short sailing adventure. Not being sailors ourselves, but looking forward to a bluewater sailing adventure to Block Island or Martha's Vineyard, they also provided us a captain. Nope, Captain Bill isn't part of the charter. At least not normally. But Bill had the time, he loves to sail, and he helps the Bareboat Sailing Charters folks when there's a boat to bring home from the Bahamas. We also invited another couple to share the adventure with us -- Rachel Rome, a freelance travel writer who writes for AAA, and her husband.

We packed up a bottle of wine, steaks for the trip, and set off to Newport Harbor for our adventure on the "Summer Magic". Parking the car overnight wasn't a problem, and the water taxi shuttled us off to the boat with a minimum of fuss.

There we found a shiny white sailing yacht. Not being a sailor, I had to look at the literature to describe it. It was a 43-foot Beneteau 423, with a beam (width) of almost 13 feet and a draft (below-water depth) of about 5-1/2 feet. Its displacement (weight) was right at 10 tons. Oh, and it was the 2003 midsize boat of the year according to Cruising World.

We chose a windy day for our sailing adventure, not particularly out of desire for waves, but because we just happened to have wind on the day we set aside. And we did have waves. In the protection of Newport Harbor the boat rocked gently at its mooring, turning a little now and then when the wind direction changed, but when we motored out of the harbor into Narragansett Bay, the boat began to bounce on the choppy waves. A few of the other sailboats dared raising their sails up full against the 20-knot wind, but we reefed our sails, raising them only partway up and tying the remainder down tight.

Under sail, we cruised past historic Fort Adams, Jamestown Harbor, and Castle Hill Lighthouse. Captain Bill manned the wheel and gave directions on which lines to tie down and which to loosen. At that point, the wind built the waves higher. Alas, sailing off to Block Island or Martha's Vineyard wasn't an option for us -- the trip that would take the ferry an hour would take as many as five hours under sail. We turned around when we got within sight of Beavertail Light.

So now I dream of being a sailor. I imagine sailing in a 43-foot yacht, just me and my favorite first mate, with a week to see the sea, watch the sunsets, and explore the villages of New England's coastline. And I know that a Bareboat Sailing Charter is the way to do it.

You can visit Bareboat Sailing Charters online at www.bareboatsailing.com or call them at 800-661-4013. Newport's sailing season is May through September, and they have special weekend rates at the beginning and end of the season.