If there was ever a personification of the concept of a “water baby” it would be today’s guest on the SHIPSHAPE podcast. 

James Evenson grew up on the water, joined the navy at 19, spent 5 years on a submarine, for years he has been documenting his adventures as a mechanic, musician and round the world sailor on his YouTube channel to both entertain and educate and has now started a boat charter business. 

He tells us how, to date, he has sailed over 70,000 miles, across both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and has called a boat his home for the last 16 years. As you would expect of someone who has spent so much time on the water, he has an absolute plethora of tales and anecdotes to recount and, at our behest, he does. 

He tells of encounters with seemingly fluorescent dolphins and of performing underwater acrobatics with baby whales.  Storms, fires and a lovely German couple that replaced all his mooring ropes. And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Hop aboard and learn of what motivates and inspires him to keep on exploring and why he thinks the boating community is, simply put, the best.

Sailing Zingaro YouTube
Sailing Zingaro Website

Brought to you by SHIPSHAPE

Transcript —-

Farah [00:00:07] Hello and welcome to the Shipshape Podcast, a series of podcasts where we meet amazing people and talk about their experiences, personal, technical and all related to the maritime world. Come and dive in. Dive in, Dive in.

 

Talha [00:00:41] Welcome to the podcast, everybody. This is Talha Bhatty. With me is our brand new podcast host Shannon Law. And today we’re going to be interviewing a very special guest, and his name is James Evenson. Welcome to the show. He’s been halfway around the world already. He’s got dreams of sailing the other half. And we’re going to learn about his adventures and what he’s been up to. Welcome to the show, James.

 

James [00:01:05] Thank you. Hi, James. Thanks for having me, guys.

 

Talha [00:01:08] Yeah. So where should we start? How did you get into voting at all? Where does it all begin?

 

James [00:01:12] Well, I grew up near the water and I always had an affinity for it. And when I was 19, I went in the Navy and I was on submarines for five years. And I met a guy there that was a sailor. And right when I got out of the Navy, he reenlisted for another term and he was moving his boat around Hawaii. He was on a Wahoo. He had gotten a slip inside of Oahu Harbor. And if you know that island, there’s only one protected harbor and it’s all controlled by the military. So if you’re military, you can get a slip inside. Anyway, it wasn’t the best conditions. His rudder broke as he jumped in the life raft. He abandoned the boat. And there’s these storms there, which are similar in a lot of the world. There’s these like really, really small condensed storms that happen when like two huge fronts hit each other. And usually it’s like in Panama, it happens. They call it cooler. They pull you a little bit farther north, they call it. That’s one to pick winds in Hawaii. In this case, they call them cone of storms. And basically they’re like mini hurricanes, like 60 knots for 20 minutes or 30 minutes or something like that. And he got hit by one of these. And, you know, it just makes it goes from a nice day of sailing to hell in 10 minutes. And he drowned. And I it was his it was always his dream. He was always talking about sailing around the world when he got to the Navy and I kind of bought a boat on a whim after he died. And I was just kind of thinking like, what was Rob into? I want to see. And I ended up moving on that boat and I’ve never lived on shore.

 

Talha [00:02:38] And that was how many years ago.

 

James [00:02:40] So I’m thinking that was like 16 years ago.

 

Talha [00:02:42] Nice.

 

James [00:02:43] Yeah. And I really liked the I got to know. I’m sure like you do, I got to know the boating community and it’s just a little bit more tight knit. Like one time when I first bought that boat, I came back to the boat and there was all new dock lines on it and I was like, What the heck?

 

Talha [00:02:58] What happened here?

 

James [00:02:59] Yeah, yeah. And so the people around me told me, Oh yeah, the German couple on the next dock, they brought over some lines because your boat was heading around and it was banging around in some strong winds. And so I went over to them and I was like, Hey, guys, here’s 50 bucks the dock lines. I really appreciate it. And they’re like, No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. That’s not the way it works. Just pay it forward. And then ever since then, I’ve heard this thing over and over and over, and it’s so ingrained in me now. And I, you know, boaters help each other, and it’s such a cool community that I love it. I don’t think I’ll ever leave.

 

Shannon [00:03:31] And you mentioned right before we we kick this off, you had mentioned the first boat you got was kind of not the not the right boat for you. Can you tell us a little about what that was and why it was wrong?

 

James [00:03:41] That wasn’t the first boat. That was my first cruising boat. The guy chose to sail around the world was a morgan 41, and I didn’t know what I was doing. So that is not the best boat for sailing around the world. It’s a full meal, shallow draft, you know, It’s really, really, really thick fiberglass, but it sails like a brick and it’s just not the right boat. I’ve seen like one, maybe two sailing around. And they don’t really make it that far because they can’t point. And like the way the dynamics on a sailboat work on Monohull anyway is the deeper the keel, the higher you can point. And the if you have a long keel, it’s just a really heavy boat. And you know, both those things together is just not a good combination. Anyway. The first boat I had though, was a really nice boat. It was a Bob Perry designed island or 28 and that thing, that’s the one that got the new mooring lines. And I don’t know how that I stumbled into this really good sailboat, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing that either. And I paid five grand for it. And I what? I burned out the promoter within like six months because it didn’t have a budget.

 

Talha [00:04:44] Yes. It sounds like you were having a lot of adventures to have, like, figured out all these weaknesses in these boats already. So tell us some stories. Like what sort of adventures did you already have when you had these first two boats that already made you realize this is not I need a bigger boat or whatever?

 

James [00:04:58] Well, the Morgan was my fourth boat, I think my third I can’t remember. I’ve had five sailboats. I was.

 

Shannon [00:05:04] About to.

 

James [00:05:05] Ask.

 

Shannon [00:05:07] How many?

 

James [00:05:08] Two of which are now not with us anymore. And breaks happened while the first one burnt to the waterline. I had hired a guy to fix the engine. Remember? I told you? Then I burnt the engine up. I hired a guy to fix it and I went to work and I got a call from one of my dock mates and said, Hey, man, you’re both on fire. You better get back here. And I was like, No. Can’t be my vote. No, no, no, no, No way. And he’s like, Yeah, the master’s down. Dude, you need to get back here. And I came back and it was I mean, I lived abroad, too, so it was like all my surfboards, my dive equipment, everything. Luckily, I took my dog to work that day, and even the guy that was working on it got all burned up and he tried to sue me.

 

Talha [00:05:51] Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s sad to hear. So I went down in a fire, and the other one.

 

James [00:05:56] The other one broke apart in a storm off the coast of Hawaii. And. Oh, this is.

 

Talha [00:06:01] The one that you made the videos for that you tied together?

 

James [00:06:04] This one’s documented. Yeah. And I actually one thing I haven’t told anybody is I just found out, like, two weeks ago, that boat got crushed up and sent to the trash. And. And when I heard that, it made me cry, man, I. I cried for that boat. Yeah, Some super size. It’s like a girlfriend, you know, like. Like you get to know her and you take care of her, and you guys have a relationship and she takes care of you. And to see her go is not fun.

 

Shannon [00:06:27] Yeah, absolutely. What you mean? Yeah. So is that the when that one boat ripped in half, that’s kind of what kicked off your Kickstarter, Is that correct?

 

James [00:06:37] Yeah, that’s right. I had looked at different ways. I had a lot of subscribers and patrons at that point, and patrons are through my patron site and they had all suggested, Hey, man, we want to help you. Why don’t you set up some kind of like, go fund me and then we can donate to it and you can raise some money. And so I looked into the different ways of crowdfunding another boat because I didn’t have insurance on that boat. I for one, it was a homemade Eric’s farm, really old cat, and I looked for everywhere. I got quotes and they were all like 10 to 16000 per year and I paid 60 for the boat. So there’s just no way I was I was going to spend a third of the money that the boat was worth anyway. So that was a no. I just kind of took the risk and obviously it didn’t end up well. I had about ten grand left and I was like, Well, I really don’t know what to do now. So I looked at all the ways to do it and I was like, You know what? I don’t think Go fund me is the right way. I think doing a Kickstarter campaign and having the series be the thing, the rules of Kickstarter state that you have to have some kind of physical thing that you’re either making or like a series of videos or some tangible thing that people can have or watch. And I had the series that was going to be canceled now because I didn’t have a boat. So I decided to make season two of my YouTube channel the reason for having the Kickstarter and then set it up in a way where it was really, really easy to follow. And I’ve read a bunch of books and I did a lot of research on like what makes a good Kickstarter campaign, and it killed it. It was like within 36 hours it was fully funded. It was great that people we had a cool story like, you know, we were sailing all around. We had gone like 45,000 miles on this cat. And, you know, we still wanted to continue. And we at that point we had like maybe 7 million views on YouTube total. And so all I just like spread out all these numbers and told the story really fast. And then I had some of the footage from us tying the boat together and stuff and everybody was like, Yeah, no problem here, here’s ten bucks and you know that time’s up by 700 and you get a lot of money. Yeah. So we originally wanted to get a catamaran and right then, like literally the day after my Kickstarter ended Cove, it started Boy and I had framed this whole Kickstarter to be a down payment on a loan on a bigger loan so I could get a nice car and then I could have people aboard and then kind of do like, like what I’m doing now, like a hybrid YouTube channel charter business thing. I wouldn’t able to do that because I didn’t want to take a loan. You know, taking a loan during COVID for 200 grand without knowing what was going to happen was just not in the books. So I ended up putting my feelers out and I said, Look, I talked to all the people that supported me. Not one of them cared. I was like, Look, I can’t get the cap. I don’t feel comfortable getting a $200,000 loan. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the channel. I broke up my girlfriend, He was leaving, so I didn’t know if everybody was going to jump ship or something. So I nobody cared. So I was like, Look, guys, I’m looking for a model now because I can’t afford a cat. I got 100 grand, you know, let’s just send me boats if you know anybody want a boat. And I got inundated with like, I don’t know, a thousand different leagues. Crazy shit. People were contacting me like, Hey, man, I’m going to come build a boat for you. We’re going to do it in my backyard, move to Virginia, stay with the pigs. And I’m like, Guys, I really just want to buy a boat and keep going. I’m a great man once told me some nail them and some Salem. And that is so true, where some people love building boats and just love working on them. And it’s it’s like so satisfying to make it better all the time and like, change the systems and have color coding and really get labels. I am not one of those guys. I just want to sail. So I just wanted to buy something that was done or close to done for a good price and go That didn’t really work out either, really, Because what I found was one of my friends called me and he was like, Hey, man, I got this family friend that’s got an oyster for 85, which is. About. They’re like one of the best boats made. And I was like, okay, great. He said, I don’t know what they’re asking for, but just talk to him. So I talked to him and he wouldn’t budge. She was asking 150 grand, 180 grand or something like that, and she wouldn’t budge from that. And I was like, okay, well, that’s way, way out of my price range. So that’s kind of good. And I ended up sending before I tried to get her down, I sent survey over there and he took a picture that thing and I took those on a delivery that I did across the Pacific. So I had 21 days to kind of look at them. I decided I was going to manifest this boat. I was like, This is my boat. I want this. This is the one. So I after I was done, like freaking out about this boat, I went through every single detail, zooming into the pictures and, like, wrote down everything that I thought that was wrong with. The boat needed to be replaced and updated and stuff because it was on the card for like five years. She didn’t really realize how bad that is for Sailboat. She thought we had just done the standing rigging. Well, five years on the hard in Curacao, which is a small island, doesn’t have a lot of trees. I mean, all of the breeze is picking up the salt and just blowing it right on the boat. The whole rig was totally, totally a write off. So in her mind, she had just spent 30 grand. But in my mind that didn’t matter at all. And so what I did was I just flew straight to her, knocked on her door, and I said, Hi, I’m James. And she’s like, What are you doing here? I said, I’m here with 150 pictures. I’m going to sit down with you. I’m going to buy your boat today. And that’s what happened. And she was super cute. She was super sweet about it. We still talk. And then I started the journey of like refitting this boat, which, you know, my first four boats was my education to learn how to do it. But, man, this boat has been a force. It’s a huge boat, and it’s every single thing I have replaced, every single pump, every through hole. I’ve written it all the windows, every catch it before.

 

Talha [00:12:18] Hold your inhaler now. Is that what I’m hearing? That sounds like it’s totally backfired.

 

James [00:12:23] The whole asylum thing totally backfired. And I got the thing. So it was done. And then as I was doing this thing and as my life was changing because now I was solo, I didn’t have a girl, I was doing the channel and the refit on the boat at the same time, which was horrendous. And I decided that I was just going to tangent off and do something else in sailing but something else. And so I was going to get the boat to the best shape I could sell the boat, make a little profit, and then fold that into something else. I wanted to have a different kind of adventure and I did another transatlantic delivery, and on that delivery I thought about it and I was like, You know what? I can’t give this boat away without having an adventure on it. I need to have, you know, so the fruits of what I’ve been working on for so long. So I decided that I was going to go around in South America and I was going to see Patagonia and South America, because the last time I was on the Cat in Easter Island, five boats came up from Ushuaia through the Beagle Channel and came to Easter Island, like from there to Australia. And they were all the coolest guys, I mean, like the coolest boats, weird, crazy shit, and then the coolest people, coolest stories, best pictures, most chill sailors like they just, you know, just cut from a different cloth kind of thing. And they all told me, you know, it’s like a litmus test for for sailors. If you go down there, you’re you’re real. You’re not just doing it on on the weekend on a lagoon. You’re out, but you’re know what you’re doing. You got to because it’s dangerous.

 

Talha [00:13:53] Mm hmm.

 

James [00:13:53] So ever since then, I’ve always wanted to see that. And at the same time, I thought, it’s been seven years on the YouTube channel. I think I want a break from the YouTube channel. Not to stop it, but just not to rely 100% on that income alone. Yeah. So I decided to launch another business doing charters so I would sell I can sell 3 to 4 spots on the boat depending on what kind of leg it is, how much room we have. And I put together a website. I taught myself WordPress and I did all the research on how to usually I don’t really make a sale plan more than a couple of months in advance. This is 18 months in advance that I’m trying to figure out, like what’s the best time to go around the horn, What’s the best time to be in east? When what’s the wind, what’s the prevailing winds to go up to the west, the eastern coast of Brazil. It’s all things that you’ve got to think about. And I finally got all the information and I put it together and I just basically worked backwards from the horn on both ways, both directions. And then I launched that, not even knowing if anything would sell. This is like three months of work or something, and I’m sold out and sell Easter Island right now. Man, it’s really awesome. I saw that.

 

Shannon [00:14:58] On the website. That’s congratulations. That’s exciting.

 

James [00:15:02] Yeah, we felt good. So we just finished our second charter and I’ve done chartering before, but not like this. This I’m, I’m packaging. I’ll say it more like a cruising experience. Not so much a charter. What I tell people is there’s only three rules in my boat. Don’t fall off either.

 

Talha [00:15:20] Don’t be in it.

 

James [00:15:22] That’s number three. I can’t remember Number two. Now, you got me on the spot here. Anyway. It’s just like.

 

Talha [00:15:29] And. Really broken.

 

Shannon [00:15:30] Yeah, exactly. Sounds like they’re bendable.

 

James [00:15:33] Yeah, well, basically, like, the whole idea is it’s. It’s cheeky. It’s tongue in cheek and really just be cruel. Don’t. Don’t be crazy. I don’t want anybody that’s going to freak out if we run out of ice or if there’s a problem with the fridge or something like that.

 

Shannon [00:15:46] And have you run some charters already and prior to this. Yeah, yeah.

 

James [00:15:50] Yeah, yeah. We’ve done, we did a few on the cat and the cat was really small though, so we couldn’t really do charters. And then I’ve always had paying crew, but usually the way I did it before was they just paid per day. So like 100 bucks a day and all the food is included, you got to buy your own home. And then now what I’m doing is it’s a blanket price for the whole time and everything’s included alcohol, beer, food by Spearfish every day. It’s been really fun in the sandbox because I get to go spearfishing every morning to get food for all these people. And after I’m done fishing, I’m pretty good. So I’m just there to like, Oh, you want to go snorkeling now? Okay, cool. We get to go out the dinghy or, Hey guys, we’re going to cook the fish on the beach. I’m going to go start a fire. Come over whenever you want. And then we have a bonfire on the beach. I bring the guitar. It’s just super, super awesome to invite all these people into that world.

 

Shannon [00:16:40] Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure you’re inspiring a lot of others to take a hard look at this lifestyle and figure it out for them because it’s pretty awesome.

 

Farah [00:16:55] Shipshape. It’s a one of a kind podcast that covers a range of information about the marine world featuring interviews. But we expand on technical know how business and magical see stories. It’s for anyone and everyone. A one stop world of knowledge and entertainment about the ocean all rolled into one. Come sail away with us.

 

Talha [00:17:28] So our listeners love dibs and James give us like because you sound like an entrepreneurial sort of guy anyway, even with the whole Kickstarter and, you know, like this sort of business didn’t exist and you just created out of thin air. Yeah. Like how do you think about things like happen? Where does it come from?

 

James [00:17:43] Well, thanks for the kudos, but I don’t know about that. I don’t know. I guess know, like the saying is necessity is the mother of invention. And, you know, I just it was either sink or do something. And that started. And a couple of people have followed my lead on the Kickstarter thing and done very well. So I think it wasn’t so much that I knew what I was doing or that I was super lucky. It’s that I had built a community around that already. And that’s the very most important part about like any sort of crowdfunding is you have to have community is the same as if you were a musician. People don’t get signed not being known these days. They sell 20,000 records and then they approach the record company and they’re like, Look, we need distribution. This is the deal. It’s kind of more of a artist based entrepreneurial program, and that’s kind of what I’m doing too. I just want to have like a couple of different income streams. I’d like to write a book and then, you know, they kind of diversify a little bit and then it makes it a lot easier to go through those swings because the lifestyle is a little bit cyclical to have a YouTube channel I’m talking about as far as I go.

 

Talha [00:18:45] As far as my body.

 

James [00:18:46] Yeah, no, no, no. But boating is the same way, though. The cycles are a lot longer, so you’ll do like a couple of years of really, really up. I think about it like a roller coaster. Like you’ll have a year or two of just awesome, awesome roller coaster stuff. They’ll they’ll be a little bit of up and down, but you’re doing cool shit and then you’re going to have to refit the boat when you in the boat, like that’s just a rabbit hole. How far you are you going to go? You find a little pin hole in your deck and then you end up replacing, you know, seven square meters of the boat. So that’s what always happens. Or how about like, I need to replace my exhaust hose? And when I replace the exhaust hose, I got to do the exhaust elbow and winter replace the exhaust elbow. I might as well rebuild the top in the motor. And if I’m going to do the top end with the bottom and minus the paint, the bills might as well replace the plumbing. I mean, like you can go down.

 

Talha [00:19:36] To me forever.

 

James [00:19:38] And yeah, yeah, I’ve been there so many times.

 

Talha [00:19:41] I mean.

 

James [00:19:42] Yeah, but the most important thing I would say if you’re going to buy a boat is make sure that you get that bastard watertight. And not just one. Because if it’s rain and it’s watertight, that’s it’s a whole different thing than if you’re out to sea and the boat’s flexing and the water’s pouring and it’s getting all over, your guests like that just can’t happen. So reburying is the most almost the most important part of having a plastic cup. And now I’m on a tangent. I don’t know where I start, you know.

 

Shannon [00:20:07] So that’s a good tip, I think.

 

Talha [00:20:09] Especially because I notice that, like, I don’t know if if the McGregor, for example, isn’t a blue water boat. Right. But like, right. And by the island package you’re already into blue water sailing. Right. So what made you make that jump is I need a blue water boat and obviously and being watertight is super important on a blue water boat.

 

James [00:20:26] I never had a greater I had an Islander 28 that was the Bob Perry that’s the different but very pocket island packets are great boats to those are those are really nice blue water boats. What made me jump to the I mean, that was probably the plan all along I think the Islander 28 my internal boat like, okay, we’re going to try this out this cheap if I think it it’s not I’m not going to be like destitute although I will be homeless and you know it’s just been like a constant move like from the Islander I bought a Catalina 27 and then in oh, day 32 and then a morgan 41, and then that cat, I actually went down to a 37 foot, but I got a cat, so it was a lot bigger. Like I just wanted to try. A cat wasn’t even it was almost like a like a, Oh, well, I’ve had all these monohull boats. I might as well try Cat now and then that’s, that’s what I had. And then when I got that, I was like, okay, well how am I going to make money? I’ll start the YouTube channel and maybe I can teach people kind of what I know because at that point I’ve already that was my fourth boat, so I’ve already done pretty much every job. So I kind of wanted a venue where I could give back and like show people, okay, this is how you do that. This is how to do it correctly. And I like doing that stuff. Like right now I’m redoing the plumbing on my boat. I’m doing it with Pax. You guys know what that is? They use it in residential.

 

Talha [00:21:39] Yeah.

 

James [00:21:40] I think it’s the best plumbing to use on a boat. I don’t know why they don’t come stocked like that, but nobody’s done a video on it, so, I mean, this is the only time I’m doing it. And I’ll show you guys, you know, exactly what I’m doing, why I use this, what it’s for. Anyway.

 

Talha [00:21:55] Another tangent. I love it.

 

Shannon [00:21:58] And they’re great. They’re great and encouraged.

 

James [00:22:00] The point of having starting the YouTube channel was to kind of like show people and then make money and have money to be cruising while inspiring or showing people or, you know, I like to teach. And then the oyster kind of just fell after that. Like now that I’ve been around all these boats all over, what are my favorite boats? Moister. It was definitely one. I got really lucky.

 

Talha [00:22:22] To be in class of its own.

 

James [00:22:24] Boat.

 

Talha [00:22:24] Yeah, Yeah, I got lucky.

 

James [00:22:26] It’s not probably not my my most favorite boat, but up there in the top five. Yeah.

 

Shannon [00:22:32] So you mentioned you do. I was going to say, you know, back to, you know, your sharing in the community. I was really curious about, you know, you do document quite a bit of your life on board and I was curious of what you don’t share. And you know what? We’re missing out. What’s the behind the scenes?

 

James [00:22:48] We’re always naked. No, I’m kidding.

 

Shannon [00:22:52] You do your resolution and your resolution last year, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Talha [00:22:59] I love. I want to do a hashtag. Yeah, hashtag naked sailing and do it.

 

James [00:23:04] You’re.

 

Shannon [00:23:04] I love that. Yeah.

 

James [00:23:07] No, seriously, though, we are naked a lot. We have to, like.

 

Shannon [00:23:10] Ride with nature.

 

James [00:23:11] Every time. Yeah. Yeah. It’s part of surfing the other day. This is a funny story. I don’t know if you want this 100 times or not, but you can.

 

Shannon [00:23:20] Cut it off. Oh, please touch.

 

James [00:23:21] Oh, no. It was like, I don’t know, 11 and I had to pee. And I did one of this Superman thing where you like both of your fists are on on your hips, and you’re like, peeing off the ba superman. I get up and I look over and there’s a guy in this cockpit next to me. He looks straight at me and just looks down. I was like, Oh.

 

Talha [00:23:45] Do I think we can keep that? And then that happens. I mean.

 

James [00:23:49] There’s that conundrum.

 

Shannon [00:23:51] Well, we’ll get to a good.

 

James [00:23:52] Question, actually, because like in part, it’s going to be funny and part it’s going to be serious and real. So the real part of that question is like, you know what? Don’t you share? And man, I tell you, it’s I’m getting so sick of filming stuff. It’s just great. It’s been seven years, four videos a month, and I need a break, which is one of the reasons that I started the charter thing, because I just need to step back a little bit and, like, see what’s important to me. It’s not fun doing the same jobs over and over year by year. Like, okay, this is how you rebuild a pump. You know how many freakin motorcycles we built and pumps that I’ve rebuilt? It’s not fun for me to explain it anymore. So I’m trying to get back into the roots of like, okay, I want to do something beautiful again, because YouTube also is very limiting in our why you get from making fun. So you need to be putting out content. People need to see you as a personality. They want to know what you’re doing. It’s not so much about, okay, I’ve got this really beautiful sunset. Everybody needs to see it or I’m going to make this really cool. Time lapse. Those are cool, but everybody wants the good 4K stuff, which is very difficult on the boat because it’s not only about the cost associated with dealing with these files that are like, you’re talking like if I did a podcast in 4K, it would be 50 gig each one of our video. So I’d be dealing with 150 gigabytes of data that I’m trying to edit and knocked down to, you know, three gigabytes so I can upload it. StarLink is kind of changing that game now, but I don’t know for how long it’s going to be really non geofence because right now they’re not enforcing the rules, but the rules clearly state that you can’t take the thing out of your country really, but you’re not enforcing it. So there will be a time, I’m sure, where everybody is going to have that turned off. And for me, because I’m switching continents, I’m in this weird space, so I’d like to get it, but I just don’t want to end up having it for two months and it getting shut off with the monetary investment.

 

Shannon [00:25:46] Fair enough. I can imagine how tough that is. Trying to record all this content, download this content, piece it all together with a crappy connection.

 

James [00:25:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me finish my other statement real quick thought. Real quick. So I draw a line with my relationship. I don’t give any information about my personal life and I don’t want that on the Internet. People ask me all the time for that and I just know that’s my line. And well, to get on camera, if you are thinking if you’re boat, say something and you pull out a camera, then you’re crazy. You’re the one that needs to be doing things. What I need on my boat and I thought about doing this is having a videographer and then giving them that spot on the boat for the entire trip. And I’ve tried to contact a few people about that. And that’s a very tough thing because then you get to the point of like, okay, what program do you use? Is it the same program I use? Okay, but what’s your personality type? Is it going to meld with us, both me and my girlfriend? Do I want somebody on the boat for that long? Just this whole big can of worms. I don’t know how some people do it. I think the LA Vagabond guys have a live in guy and I need my personal space. I need to be naked people.

 

Shannon [00:26:56] How is that going to go with all your guests aboard?

 

Talha [00:26:59] Yeah.

 

James [00:26:59] Yeah.

 

Shannon [00:27:00] And Antarctica might be a little cold. I don’t know.

 

Talha [00:27:03] Yeah, There will.

 

James [00:27:04] Be a naked polar bear jump off the boat for that.

 

Shannon [00:27:06] Oh, for sure. For sure. That’s necessary. Yeah.

 

Talha [00:27:12] So where you right now? And like, how much of the, you know, I want to see in the world part has happened 80%. 50%, 60%. How much is that?

 

James [00:27:21] All We’re just starting. We haven’t even started yet. We.

 

Talha [00:27:24] But I mean. But you’ve already done trans. Atlantic.

 

James [00:27:27] So you’re talking about the world. I don’t.

 

Talha [00:27:30] Have the world.

 

James [00:27:32] Of sailing around the world. I don’t. I’ve never had that aspiration. If I get there, great. But I’m just more of an explorer. I like to I like to see cool things. Like for me, my bucket list contains places that I want to see, like Easter Island, Pitcairn, Patagonia, Antarctica, the Horn. I’d like to do the Northwest Passage before I die. Those things are more important to me than like, I need to do a circuit circumnavigation. I don’t. When I started, that’s what I was going for. I want to circumnavigate, but now that’s melded into that’s totally secondary.

 

Shannon [00:28:03] So there’s beautiful places to say.

 

James [00:28:05] I’ve done 70,000 miles, which is roughly two times around the world, and I’ve been across the Atlantic and across the Pacific three times, and I’ve been probably a little over halfway around the world. Maybe if you if you take like Spain to Bora Bora, that’s probably about halfway that.

 

Talha [00:28:24] Nice. So in like that 70,000 miles, there’s got to have been a lot of awesome adventures, a lot of crazy adventures, like give us like a story or two.

 

James [00:28:34] I’ll tell you about a couple of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and then the scariest things I’ve ever seen.

 

Talha [00:28:40] Oh, let’s do it.

 

James [00:28:41] So a couple of the coolest things I’ve ever seen are about five different times. I’ve seen this in 70,000 miles. When there’s a lot of phosphorescence, there’s a wake. The sailboat kicks away. A lot of sailors have seen this. It looks super cool. You can just see this like blue lit up, wake coming, coming behind you. And when dolphins come to the boat, as they do sometimes at night, and if the visibility is good, which is if you’re offshore more than like ten miles, it’s pretty good When they come to the boat at night with the phosphorescence, they look like little hairy torpedo things. They’re cool. You can see them going down about 30, 40, 50 feet, maybe 60. And then they they flip and they play with each other and they’re like crossing each other’s paths and like almost hitting each other and veering off. And wow, it’s so cool to watch. And I’ve seen that’s.

 

Shannon [00:29:32] So cool.

 

Talha [00:29:33] Only applies.

 

James [00:29:34] And it’s like one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen and I’ve tried capturing it.

 

Talha [00:29:38] Yeah, that’s true of a Disney movie. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Shannon [00:29:41] I was literally just going to ask if you had to have this captured somewhere because I need to see it now. I’ll be Googling that immediately.

 

Talha [00:29:48] Yeah.

 

James [00:29:48] No, I’m just I don’t have the right camera for it. I suppose it need some kind of like gimbal so it doesn’t shake and then really low light aperture. So the thing about cameras is the technology is the wider the aperture, and the longer that you leave the shutter open, the more light will come through it. Well, the longer you leave a shutter open, it makes the image blurry if you’re moving around. So like those huge night scapes that you see with all the stars, that’s like leaving it open on a tripod for 2 minutes. I can’t do that on a boat, so I don’t know how to do it. One of these days I’ll figure it out. Or maybe the technology will get there. But there’s a lot.

 

Shannon [00:30:24] Of there’s a lot of good video capture things out there. I think that can be good night sight for us. Yeah.

 

Talha [00:30:30] So then, okay, so that was one thing.

 

James [00:30:32] And then like next time you’re on a boat at night, you know, listen for the blowholes coming over from the dolphins at sea, you can’t see that.

 

Talha [00:30:40] It’s beautiful. So pretty. Yeah.

 

James [00:30:43] Let’s see. Other beautiful things. Swimming with whales. I really like swimming with whales. Every once in a while, I’ll be spearfishing, and then I’ll see something in the distance and I’ll go towards it, and it’ll be like a big humpback whale. And I always drop my gun because I want to freak them out. And I go slowly. And this one had a baby and the baby was like playing on the surface and the momma wasn’t doing anything. She was just kind of hovering down below. So I swam down about 40 feet. I just started doing flips and like quiet. And the baby came over to me. And then he came down and like, check me out. And of course I had to come up and they waited for me and I came back down and I started doing it again. And then the baby started doing it too.

 

Talha [00:31:24] So yeah.

 

James [00:31:26] I would do it very wrong. He would do a barrel roll and that’s nothing.

 

Shannon [00:31:29] Oh my God of done that.

 

James [00:31:31] I’ve done it with seals too. SEALs will do it to the.

 

Shannon [00:31:33] Puppies of the sea.

 

James [00:31:35] Of course, I didn’t get this on camera, but.

 

Talha [00:31:37] I’m.

 

James [00:31:38] Using an amazing experience and it seems like they’re like the really, really cool stuff. I just can’t.

 

Talha [00:31:44] Yeah, you know, it happens.

 

James [00:31:46] Fast.

 

Talha [00:31:47] And there has to be a Nat geo production, right? 50 cameras ready. Six months.

 

James [00:31:51] You imagine if I was playing that baby whale and he was copying what I did on camera and it would go viral.

 

Shannon [00:31:58] That would be a viral video. Easily. Easily.

 

Talha [00:32:02] I love it. So that was the cool stuff.

 

Shannon [00:32:05] The scary stuff being on this spooky.

 

James [00:32:08] Let’s see, a lightning scares me. I’ve I’ve been sailing through thunderstorms where the lightning is literally hitting like two bolt lengths for me. And I have no idea because everything in my mind says I’m the tallest thing out here for miles. It should be hitting my mast, but it just doesn’t. And then I’ve also seen a lot of not a lot, but I’ve seen waterspouts like tornadoes in the sea. Those are pretty cool. They’re cool. They’re pretty neat. But you don’t want to get hit by.

 

Talha [00:32:38] What I saw once. And it just it looked really cool. I just like that thing. Bigger would be so freaky.

 

Shannon [00:32:46] Yeah, they’re scary. They can be.

 

James [00:32:48] So it’s not going to, like, break your boat. I don’t think it would have done this. All your sales were up, but it would probably, like, suck everything off your boat like people thought.

 

Shannon [00:32:59] And I was almost finished my book now. Yeah, yeah.

 

Talha [00:33:03] Yeah. Well.

 

Shannon [00:33:05] You know what happens there.

 

James [00:33:08] I saw a couple of the other things are, of course, storms, like big storms and big, big waves. Big, you know, big waves don’t really scared me anymore. I’ve never actually seen anything bigger than about ten meters. It’s about 30 feet. And they weren’t breaking huge. So, like, a really, really nasty storm. But I have had my boat break a couple of times. And when you’re in a storm and your boat breaks, then it’s you’re in the ship. That’s what.

 

Talha [00:33:39] Really are.

 

James [00:33:40] Some really, really bad storms like bow and 45 sustained and just turned with it and ran with it, went inside, shut the doors, turn the autopilot on, and then it was raining so hard. I remember being inside and having the autopilot not being able to see. I was like, well, we got to look out like, what if we hit something? And I went out with a mask on and I still couldn’t see anything. It was just like torrential downpour. So hope to God we didn’t hit anybody. Yeah, no.

 

Shannon [00:34:07] Kidding. Yeah.

 

Talha [00:34:08] Yeah. That’s part of the package, though, right? That’s like. And then the next day there were dolphins in the water. Yeah.

 

Shannon [00:34:15] Get him out.

 

James [00:34:16] There. Yeah, exactly. There’s also. There’s always the calm after the storm. This is where, like, the the choice on electronics for the boat comes in handy if you’re going to buy electronics for your boat, which I am a proponent of not using any electronics on your boat except for obviously a VHF radio and some air. Yes, probably. But people should learn how to sail their boats without it. That’s all I’ll say about that. When you go to buy it. Like say, you know, if you don’t have an unlimited budget and you’re trying to budget $900 for this and $2,700 for a radar and, you know, wind instruments like 500 bucks plus all the other brain and stuff. So you’re looking at like, say, 15 grand for all this electronic electronic stuff. The most important things are autopilot. You got to have a strong autopilot and then VHF. And in my opinion, when you’re looking at things like radar, what you need to do is way out. Is this am I going to get to do a passage longer than ten days? Why ten days? Because that’s where current weather forecasting is at right now. They can forecast about ten days out. After that, it’s just best guess. And and basically it’s like 80% of the time it’s wrong. So if you’re going to go on a passage that that includes more than a week sailing, you might get hit by something big. And if you do what you usually what you do is you just turn with it and run with it. And as you’re running with it, if you’re in conditions like I was in and you won’t be able to see anything, hence having radar would be very helpful. Or if you’re planning on sailing into like north of 50 degree or south, then you’re going to up into like fog, maybe 45 degrees and you’re going to need radar for the fog. It does get down into like California has fog sometimes, but usually you’re not going to really need it. Although I will say one more story. I was sailing my Morgan in L.A. Bay and almost never gets fog there, so I doubt that I didn’t know where I was going. Like at that time, I didn’t have any electronics, no GPS, nothing. And I was coming back from Catalina Island about 35 miles, and I wasn’t sure exactly where to head, so I didn’t know that I was that close to the shore until I saw surfers next to my boat.

 

Talha [00:36:20] Which is pretty scary. Oh, no. I mean.

 

James [00:36:25] As we turned around really fast and I was like, okay, we’re not in the right spot. What’s to freak.

 

Talha [00:36:31] Those guys out? Yeah.

 

Shannon [00:36:32] No kidding. Yeah.

 

Talha [00:36:34] Like, ooh, he’s ballsy. Yeah.

 

Shannon [00:36:39] That’s the prelude to all those horrible videos of you see boats, you know, sailboats. These things along the coast.

 

James [00:36:47] There’s always one bad decision, says Jim.

 

Talha [00:36:50] So you’ve been doing this for a while. What sort of trends have you seen developing and how do you think things are going to turn out the next few years?

 

James [00:36:57] Trends So let’s in in the cruising space?

 

Talha [00:37:00] Yeah, I mean, generally, for example, they’ve been saying that they’ve seen the most in the pandemic year and seeing the most. Yeah. Boats sold, yachts sold ever. Yeah. And a lot more young people are coming through as well. The average age is also going down to 40 or something.

 

James [00:37:16] Yeah, I think it’s much more attainable, especially with everybody buying boats and not know what they’re doing. And then all those boats are going to come for sale in a few years. So, you know, there’s going to be a mass exodus. I’m sure. But it’s a hard thing to say because a lot of people get into it with because of the YouTube thing and then it’s not an easy life. So it’s it you know, there’s going to be a lot of people’s quitting. But yeah, I’ve seen a lot more people on bigger boats like plus 45 feet. I mean, as I look at this marina right now, almost every single boat is over 45 feet, lots more catamarans, which I think is good and bad. I think people need to be educated on the differences between sailing and Mountain High in a car, but that’s a different conversation.

 

Talha [00:37:56] Just a closing note, though. Maybe just anything you want to share with our listeners and where they can find you. And yeah.

 

James [00:38:02] Sure, I think you should get out there. Don’t be scared of it. It’s not easy, but if you’re the type of person that can, you know, change your oil on your car and you don’t mind doing that, then you can do anything on a boat, you can learn it. So there’s YouTube, there’s mentors. I would love to mentor you if you’re really thinking about getting into it. I do it for free. I don’t ask for money. I just want people to, you know, not buy the wrong boat or so you can find me at Sailing’s and Gawker.com. And if you’d like to sail with me, that’s another place you can find me there to see my schedule and my YouTube channel. And there’s contact me through my site, my channel, my Instagram, just look up sailings and go through and you can find all that stuff.

 

Talha [00:38:45] Awesome.

 

James [00:38:46] Thanks for having me. I really appreciate.

 

Talha [00:38:47] It. Yeah. No, no, it was great. We got to hear a bunch of stories, but I think this totally room for an episode too. So let us know when you get better. Yeah.

 

James [00:38:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I’m going to get started and I’ll do one for about to see.

 

Talha [00:39:00] You even better. Okay. And again, thank you so much. And best of luck with all your adventures.

 

Shannon [00:39:06] Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate you guys. They say that they’re.

 

Farah [00:39:19] Check back every Tuesday for our latest episode and be sure to like, share and subscribe to ship shaped up for.