As I write this, it is mid-February 2022 and we’re sitting anchored in Bahia Santiago near Manzanillo on the central Pacific Mexico coast. It’s been months since I’ve updated the blog, sorry about that. I’ve found that my monthly columns written for Vancouver Family Magazine have been enough to scratch the writing itch, and life’s been busy, after all.

But I’m going to post a series of blogs in the coming days that will run through all of what I’ve written for Vancouver Family Magazine, including our adventures and travels over the past 6+ months since leaving the Pacific Northwest. I’ll keep these posts in order written, and the first can be found below.

This is my feature article, published in Vancouver Family Magazine, my hometown’s family magazine, in October 2020.

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Mosaic Family Voyage: Sailing Away from the American Dream

By Rachel Messerschmidt, written for and published by Vancouver Family Magazine, October 2020

In 2014 I was a regular, young Clark County mom with a husband, a 4-year-old son, a newborn daughter, a full time job and a home in Battle Ground, complete with mortgage and mounting expenses. Little did my husband and I know then that watching a single documentary would change the entire course of our lives and land us living on a 40-something-year-old sailboat and preparing to cast off the dock lines to go sail the world.

Brenden and I had become quite disillusioned with our life. We were both working full time jobs and had a roommate to help spread the financial load, and yet we were still barely scraping by each month. Most of my wages were going to pay for daycare for our son and we didn’t know how we would manage when it came time to add our daughter’s daycare expenses into the mix once my maternity leave expired. I had already started dreaming of downsizing into a tiny home and living mortgage-free when we happened upon “Maidentrip,” a documentary about a 14-year-old Dutch girl named Laura Dekker who sailed solo around the world on her 40-foot sailboat. My husband, Brenden, commented that she seemed normal—not the super-wealthy type we’d imagined for sailing enthusiasts. He became curious. When he suggested that our tiny home might be a sailboat, allowing us to travel and see the world, work less, and spend every day with our kids, I was all in.

A Dream is Born

Brenden dove headfirst into researching the sailing lifestyle, which we came to understand was known as “cruising.” He read blogs and books on the technical aspects of sailing, and how to live on a boat and cruise on a tight budget with a family. We watched sailing YouTube channels back when this type of content was extremely limited, and we were always left hungry for more.

Summer turned to fall, and fall to winter, and we fell more and more in love with the idea of selling our home and moving our family onto a sailboat. Gradually, we introduced our extended families to the idea, knowing that we might meet some resistance. Thankfully, they gave us complete support in following our dreams—with the expectation that we would plan properly and thoroughly, especially for the safety of ourselves and our kids. After all, neither of us had ever even been sailing. We honestly had no idea if we would even like it. But we were bound to try.

In the spring of 2015, we bought a small sailboat in a Portland marina with the intent of learning to sail. Over that summer, we took a few lessons and learned the basics. But to get out on the water, we needed the stars to align perfectly for a free afternoon and evening, with good wind and weather, and childcare lined up. Those stars aligned only about a dozen times that season. Nevertheless, we remained utterly enthusiastic. Throughout the following fall and winter, we continued to pour every free moment into learning and preparing to sail full time.

Falling in Love With the Fuji 40

In late October, we drove to Seattle to view the very first boat, in person, which could feasibly house our little family. The boat was named Amazing Grace and was a 1978 Sparkman & Stephens designed, Japanese-built Fuji 40. Brenden, of course, had researched the design and build of the vessel, and as we made the 3-hour drive, we discussed its potential. We loved the layout and knew that the boat was a strong, capable, bluewater cruising sailboat. Only about 13 of these boats had been made because the company had gone out of business in the second year of their construction. We knew that if we liked this boat, we would need to make an offer quickly or risk losing our chance at a Fuji 40 forever.

Upon stepping foot onto Amazing Grace, we immediately fell in love. The boat seemed to truly have a soul and I could imagine my children growing up within her safe and sturdy hull. We pondered how that boat might change the course of our lives. We finally agreed that we loved the boat but we weren’t financially ready to make an offer. We needed to sell our house first. It was time to get serious.

For Christmas that year, our respective parents banded together and purchased tickets for Brenden and I to go north to the San Juan Islands in March of 2016 and take a weeklong course living on and learning to sail a large sailboat. As we anticipated that trip and worked hard to prepare our house to be put up for sale, we suffered a difficult blow when we learned that Amazing Grace had sold. The boat that we wanted so badly was no longer available.

Despite a bit of heartbreak, we maintained course and put our house up for sale in March. Thankfully, we were selling at a good time and got full asking price, even finalizing the sale remotely during our sailing class and coming away with approximately $70,000 which became our “boat budget.”

Sailboat Hunting

As soon as we returned from our time in the San Juans, having loved every second that we spent on that 40-foot boat and soaking up every bit of knowledge we could, we kicked it into high gear to find our perfect boat.

We spent the spring and summer living with my parents and traveling all over Oregon and Washington looking at dozens of sailboats with the potential to be our new home. Unfortunately, none of them lived up to our memories and the emotions evoked by that very first boat, Amazing Grace. She was the Fuji 40 that had gotten away and we mourned the missed opportunity.

Becoming desperate to find a boat, we put in an offer on a sailboat in Portland. She was a beautifully maintained Tartan 37. She sailed like a dream and checked many of the boxes for us. But, during our survey and sea trial, we found some concerning issues which brought the purchase process to a screeching halt. But, on the same day, destiny found its way into our lives when Brenden happened across a listing of a Fuji 40 just put up for sale in San Diego. We called and put an offer in, sight unseen, and booked a plane ticket to sunny southern California for Brenden.

I waited at home with the children, seemingly holding my breath the entire day that he went to see the boat for the first time. I’m sure I jumped for joy when I got his initial text message, “The boat looks good. I think this might be it.”

Two weeks later, and after dozens of phone calls and emails to make arrangements, Brenden and I flew together to California to do our survey and sea trial aboard the big blue Fuji 40. I remember seeing her for the first time, stepping aboard and feeling my chest constrict with emotion and my breath catch in my throat. This boat, too, had a soul.

She came through her survey with a few issues (she was nearly 40 years old, after all), but nothing too concerning and we ecstatically decided to move forward with the purchase of the sailboat that we would rename Mosaic and which would become our beloved home.

Moving Aboard Our New Home

By October of 2016, we had shipped Mosaic north over land to Portland and we eagerly moved aboard shortly before Halloween. We had two weekends of decent weather on the boat before being slammed with one of the worst Pacific Northwest winters in recent history.

The learning curve was steep, trying to figure out how to live aboard a sailboat in the cold and wet weather. We suffered through months of freezing cold temperatures with ice and snow storms every other week. The water of the marina even froze three inches thick around Mosaic’s hull. Condensation rained from our ceiling and walls as we didn’t yet understand the difference a really good dehumidifier could make for us. Due to faulty old wiring, we caught the engine on fire and had to move off of Mosaic for a weekend, then spend weeks getting everything put back together to have a functional boat again.

In short, that first winter was absolutely miserable. But, through it all, we came out on the other side still utterly devoted to our dream. We decided that if we could make it through that winter, we could make it through anything we put our minds to.

There’s a saying that sailors live by, “Plans are best written in the sand at low tide.” We’re rarely able to plan well in advance and our lives, our boats, our plans are all at the mercy of the wind, weather, and water. We cannot predict what next week will bring so we have to learn to be patient and flexible. We have to adapt. But our plans from the beginning have included steps on a path to sailing into the sunset. At this writing, we are cruising in the Puget Sound while working remotely and schooling the kids from the boat, all while preparing to depart the Pacific Northwest waters and sail south to Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. Beyond that, who knows? Maybe cross the vast Pacific Ocean to explore the thousands of islands of the South Pacific? Maybe transit the Panama Canal and take the boat east to the Caribbean? We’ll see. Only time will tell.

Rachel Messerschmidt and her family are Clark County natives currently living and cruising full time aboard their sailboat, Mosaic, in the Pacific Northwest. Rachel blogs about her life and journey at www.mosaicvoyage.com and will share her family’s adventures in a monthly column in Vancouver Family Magazine.

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