This seminar presented by longtime international cruising sailors, authors, television producers (Distant Shores sailing adventure tv series is broadcast on AWE in the USA) and YouTube creators, Paul and Sheryl Shard, is based on the couple’s decades of offshore cruising experience aboard their boats in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and beyond.
The seminar focuses on making offshore passagemaking feel achievable for ordinary cruising sailors. Key themes include:
- Choosing and preparing a suitable cruising boat for offshore passages
- Safety equipment and essential systems for ocean crossings
- Weather routing and understanding trade winds, storms, and seasonal timing
- Crew preparation, watch schedules, fatigue management, and seasickness
- Provisioning and storing food and water for long passages
- Communications, navigation, and modern forecasting tools
- Crossing strategies for routes such as the Atlantic passage to the Caribbean or Europe
- Mental preparation and overcoming fear of offshore sailing. The “O” words: overnight, offshore and ocean!
- What life is actually like day-to-day on an ocean passage.
Rather than presenting ocean sailing as extreme adventure, the Shards emphasize careful preparation, practical seamanship, and gradual skill-building. They use video footage and stories from their own voyages to show both the challenges and rewards of offshore cruising.
