Feature: The Ward Family
Imagine you're having a conversation with someone at a party, and at one point they casually tell you: "I grew up on a boat."
Woah woah, what? You're instantly intrigued, right? So many questions, so many details wanted. This is the person you're talking to for the rest of the party, hands down.
For the three youngest members of the Ward family, when they grow up, they'll be that person you want to talk to. The crew of five is currently navigating the globe, calling their boat home.
After learning about their journey and finding out how many SEEKR by Caframo fans they have onboard, we had a lot of questions, and they were kind enough to provide many details!
Read Ben Ward's letter below and be sure to check out their website for even more insight in the nautical home life they've built.
Ahoy! We’re the Ward family, a crew of five living aboard our newly refit 1984 Passport 47 sailboat “Koinonia,” which is the Greek word for communion or fellowship. We moved aboard our boat full time in September, 2020 along with our three girls, ages 13, 11, and 6.
Currently, we’re located on the lower Chesapeake Bay, in Sarah Creek, just off the York River. We are neighbors with noisy osprey, watchful blue heron, hungry rockfish, feisty blue crabs, and a few other lucky boaters. It’s been a wonderful place to start this new chapter of our lives!
While the pandemic may have disrupted life as we’d known it, there are silver linings to every tragedy, and this was no exception.
The plan of cruising and exploring together as a family had been a dream ten years in the making. We had everything we needed: the will, the boat, the know-how. What we lacked was a clear means to sustain an income.
For us, living on a boat wasn’t about early retirement nor was it a mid-life crisis; it was a vision of living a more simplistic and fulfilling life with more experiences and fewer possessions. Then suddenly, the unthinkable happened: Within a few weeks, almost everyone was working remotely. While this was a major upheaval for the world, for our family, it was also a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was what we had been hoping and praying about for years!
With permission to work remotely indefinitely, we had a realistic path to pursue our dream of living and working aboard our floating home. Within a few months, we sold our “dirt house” and moved aboard.
While the initial leap was definitely the hardest, making our boat feel like a home was easier said than done. Many people are in love with the idea of sailing as a lifestyle but very few are prepared for the daily realities.
Making a happy home out of a confined living space requires prioritizing the comfort of the entire crew. Little things make a really big difference! Here are some of the steps that we took:
1. First, we swapped all of our 12v lighting to LED which is bright and efficient. We prefer the warm white light spectrum. We also installed rechargeable magnetized LEDs in every closet and cabinet.
2. Next, we improved airflow with all new SEEKR by Caframo fans, which are energy efficient, easy to clean, and provide a lot of airflow. Since our fans run 24/7, reliability and noise level were major considerations. To date, we have installed four Sirocco II’s, one Ultimate, and one Bora in different areas of the boat. These fans have been indispensable to our overall comfort. Our favorite fans are the Sirocco IIs. In our opinion, they are the best looking, most versatile, and quietest fans on the boat.
3. Following that, we installed a forced air diesel heater and insulated all the rooms on the boat with high density foam, which helps reduce condensation in warm or cold climates.
4. In addition, we run a portable dehumidifier, as needed. We find keeping the humidity level in the cabin to 50% or less is ideal.
5. Finally, we keep our bilges dry with a dripless shaft seal and dry bilge pumps which help keep humidity and condensation to a minimum.
As a result of these steps, and many others, our boat feels more like home every day.
We’ve managed to winter on the Chesapeake Bay very comfortably and the morale of our crew remains high. We don’t stay confined to the boat. Our goal is to get off the boat at least once a day and to explore new places at least once a week. Sometimes weather makes this difficult, but there is always something to do on a boat.
Our plans for the future are always penciled in, which is part of the reality of life afloat. We plan to travel north in the early spring of 2021, exploring historic and popular destinations here on the Chesapeake Bay.
In April or early May, we will transit the Chesapeake / Delaware Canal, making our way north east along the Jersey Shore, then to New York harbor to wave at the Statue of Liberty. From there, we'll continue our northward journey to Newport, RI, then Cape Cod, Boston, and ultimately spend the bulk of the summer in Maine, exploring the beautiful rocky coast of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. When summer comes to a close, we will begin the migration south again. Our goal is to spend the winter and early spring in sunny south Florida and, hopefully, visit the Bahamas and beyond.
While living aboard a boat is still far from mainstream, growing social media communities, the proliferation of YouTube sailing channels, and the impact of a global pandemic forcing remote work adoption have caused a growing number of people to realize that:
1. Life is short and precious
2. Working remotely at scale is not only viable but smart business
3. Travel and work are not incompatible
From our own observations as well as discussions with cruising friends and boat brokers in North America, the number of people who have recently moved aboard, or are planning to do so soon, is surging to new levels.
Demand for used but well cared for cruising boats is high. This is also consistent with what has happened with the explosion of sales in the RV industry. While it’s impossible to say whether this unprecedented trend will continue, we have every reason to believe the combination of an increased desire to work remotely, increased awareness, better resources, and improvements in technology will continue to lower barriers and inspire families to break with convention and pursue their dreams – even dreams of living on a boat.
Ben Ward
S/V Koinonia
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