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Jacek G. wrote:Dimitri I really like your new picture. I have five year old daughter too. She also like to play on the boat.

Jacek G.

P.S. Sorry this message is not really about the topic "Disappointing 26M", but I could not resist to say something to Dimitri.

Jacek, thanks! She is my youngest crew member who is 14 months old, although that picture was taken last Halloween when she was 11 months. I have three others too, aged 3, 5, and the oldest is almost 7. Last year, we sold our 175HP jetboat (too small and fast) and O'Day 272LE sailboat (too deep and slow) and consolodated to a Mac26X. The Mac seems to be the perfect family boat (kids love playing at the dinette and front hatch while underway) and we use it a lot for day trips. Hope to do our first overnight trip this Spring but that is going to be a challenge with 6 of us. I know a few people on this board do it with 4 kids though so it must be possible! I've been researching some marina-hotels to try to ease them into cruising. Maybe start out with alternating nights in a hotel for example....certainly don't want to turn them off by roughing it too much at first. Hoping to sail Tampa to Sanibel/Captiva the week of March 22 even if its one-way trailering.

Anybody do any significant cruising with lots of young kids? I would love to hear your experiences, either in this public thread or privately.

We have been cruising with our kids for many years. We got our first boat when we just had one child and he was 2 years old. We now have 3, all boys, ages 6, 9, and 13. We spent many enjoyable days on our previous boat, a 21' Venture with the kids in all stages from infants, toddlers to well, real kids. I added lifelines and netting to the Venture to make it as kid friendly as possible.

Once our 3rd got out of the toddler stage it became obvious we needed a bigger boat with more places to sleep so we moved up to the 26x. It has been an excellent family investment. I notice many things are different when we are boating. The family interaction and adventure you get out boating is hard to match any way else. Living together in a mac can be at times trying, but in the end is always rewarding. As my 13 year old put it at the end of one trip, "He was amazed how he actually enjoyed living with his whole family for a week in a space smaller than his room."

I also find that boating is great for the kids confidence, and brother to brother relationships. They can't get away from each other, there is no one else to play with, so they have to play together. In the course of this they have become much closer. As we tell them " friends come and go, brothers are for life." They also are developing independance through the experience. We will take them to shore and drop them on an island while we retire for some quiet back on the boat. Even though we are only anchored 30' away, and can hear every word they say, to them we are not there. They can't cry to mommy when they feel wronged by their brother. They have to solve their own problems and find a way to be happy playing together. As they grow in both age and their boating abilities they are taking on more and more responsibilities of operating the boat and this is great to watch.

Our longest trips have been 6-7 days. More comfortable is 3-5 days. We prefer to be anchored out or on a mooring buoy than at a dock. All the park docks around here are usually covered with landlubbers trying to get near the water any way they can. Fishing is always part of the action, though rarely any real catching. Crabbing is another favorite. Trips to the beach to build forts out of driftwood are also a must on each trip. Hikes, and occasional things like a dinner out can be a nice change. Swimming and tubing in the summer is a hit. We will try knee board and wake boards this summer.

For us launching and getting under way is always a stressfull time. We are almost always behind schedule and therefore take shortcuts in our loading and preparations. We have gotten in the habit of doing what we have to to get on the water and getting under way as quickly as possible. Once we arrive at our first destination my wife then heads to shore with the kids while I get the boat really ready for the trip. They then come back and we have our traditional first night dinner, weaners and beaners.

The key to multi-day cruising in a mac with kids is organization. The motto is "a place for everything and everything in it's place". You have to come up with a storage system that eliminates the need for tedious conversions as you move from event to event. If you are endlessly moving things around the boat to make room for the next activity (ie: cooking, sleeping, playing, movies, etc) things can get real old quick. We also typically have a time each day where my wife takes the kids off the boat and leaves me alone for a bit to restore order to the boat. Without this daily attention the mess can become a nightmare.

I can think of no better affordable, flexible, multi activity boat than the mac. It lets you 'get out there' rather than just dream. Even though in the minds of some boaters it may be low end, in the minds of all those stuck on land you are one of the lucky few on the water with your family having a blast.

Check it out, 2 X's, 2 families, each with 3 boys, tied up side by side on the dock having a blast. My kids are the left ones in each pair.

The happy parents, we're on the left.

The previous post was from me. I wasn't logged-in.

Mark

The difference between an ordeal and an adventure is your attitude.

My wife does not enjoy boating and gets seasick. We have 3 daughters aged 3-11. The couple of times all 5 of us tried to sleep on board have not worked out well.

The first year we had the boat we watched the fireworks and planned on sleeping aboard. But the baby (1 year old) was restless and wouldn't settle down. My wife, who had major doubts to begin with, gave up at around midnight and we all drove home.

The second year, the two olders girls and I sailed 30 miles downstream to St Helens OR and my wife drove over to meet us with the 2 year old. Tried to sleep on board and was pretty much a repeat of year #1. At 1 AM she left with the younger girls and drove home (one of whom threw up all over the back of the car on the way there!).

So for family vacations that include the boat we always stay on shore. I have stayed at two places in the San Juans with marinas (Roche Harbor and Snug Harbor) and in Astoria OR at the marina motel (a Red Lion).

With my older daughters and just myself I have had severel nice overnight trips on the boat, including 3 nights in Poulsbo, WA with my (then) 6 year-old middle girl. Last summer the three girls (then 3-8-10) and I beached overnight on Lemon Island in the Columbia River. The three year old was a real hand full.

I think if you cruise with kids under 5 you need at least two adults (hopefully my oldest girl, now 11, will be more help this summer!). And both adults really have to be committed to and excited about the trip.

Doug
"Little Princess"

I have found sea sickness in kids, and even most adults, is far more mental than physical. I think it's why those wrist band really work, you can say it's pressing on a certain nerve, but really it makes the person think they won't get sick so they don't.

With kids. if you mention that they might get sick, or you ask them if they're sick, all the sudden they're sick. We don't even discuss it, they don't have it in their minds that the boat could make them sick, so they don't get sick. In 10+ years of having the kids on the boat it wasn't until a particularly rough crossing last summer for the 4th of July that any of my kids got sick. Even then, it was a non-event. My middle one, then 8 was down below playing game boy as we banged our way across from Everett to Port Ludlow. He told my wife he didn't feel good, she sent him up to the cockpit with a zip lock baggie. I told him he'd feel much better if he just got it over with. He got sick in the bag, we made no particular mention or fuss about it, and we went on with an enjoyable overnight trip.

I've also been amazed that in all the years of having them out on the boat in all the various stages of walking stability, that we have never had one ever fall overboard. The closest we have come was this summer with the group from this board on the San Juans Rendezvous at Blakely Marina. My youngest was screwing around on the dock and he stepped into the gap between the boat and the dock. Two of us caught him before he was even wet up to his waist.

Kids are very adaptable, put them in a situation, expect them to thrive, and they will. They will always rise or lower themselves to your expectations. Expect them to have fun, stay positive, and your family boat trips will be a blast. If only many of the adults we have boated with could do so well.

Thanks for the very interesting posts on this thread. I can see how using a Mac mostly as a fishing boat could be difficult, I looked at one almost a year ago when I was shopping. It was called MacDaddy down in Bradenton, FL and the guy was selling it cause he wanted a pure fishing boat. Nice boat, but I wasn't quite ready to buy yet. In our case, we use the Mac much more than we did our previous two boats. My kids have had tons of boating experience but we still haven't overnighted with them yet. In fact, my oldest daughter went out on her first sail when she was only 3-4 weeks old. We had to get the boat out of a slip in St. Petersburg and sail it to Tampa. Of course, we waited until the last day of the month and it was a pretty rough day with winds around 15-20 and a heavy chop. Baby slept the whole time but mom didn't have such a great day cause she spent too much time down below (this was in the O'Day we used to have).

I've also thought about trying it just with my oldest two (5 and almost 7). I think as long as I had plenty of food/drink and power for DVD's, it would probably work out fine. Still have to do some more mods to the boat in terms of storage and provisioning first though. We bought one of those little portable 7inch screen DVD players but so far have only used it on a car trip.

Talking about kids falling in, I've never had one fall in while underway, but a few months ago, my 6 yr old was getting off the boat after we had just washed it. Because the tide was high, she had to use the gunnel ladder to go over the side at the cockpit. I watched her as she started climbing down and lost both her foothold and handhold on one side simultaneously. She then dropped straight down between the boat and the dock and went underwater. I reflexively vaulted myself from the cockpit to the dock (biggest jump I've probably done since about high school) and was right there to pull her up on the dock as she surfaced. Poor thing was scared something awful but she is a good swimmer and held her breath as she went down. I was more concerned about oysters on the dock poles or her hitting the back of her head on the dock as she went down. Luckily because she fell straight down feet first, she didn't hit her head, and because the tide was very high, she never hit the bottom where she may have cut herself up as she was barefooted. She just got a minor scrape on the elbow where she must have rubbed the ladder going down...so, all in all, after her heart stopped beating so fast, she was fine and is much more careful now going down a ladder.

I have 5 boys and we have made trips to Florida, over two weeks and weekend trips around the area. Organization is the biggest problem, once solved the rest is enjoyment. The kids use their backpacks to store their things in and are held responsible to keep their things in them. One shelf might be dedicated to cd players and discs. one container for toys. I would not start doing mods on the boat until you have taken overnight trips to see what mods will work for your Mac. We have a mesh bag that holds the snorkles and masks that hangs over the stern during the day. The kids are expected to get out and put away their equiptment when using things. Fishing poles are on a rack. On the the rear sleeping area becomes the storage area for days.
All sailing and no pleasure boating will make for a unsettled crew... Life goes better if you do a give and take approch. The boys like to sail in big seas only, to booring in light winds.
Ken