However, if one's purpose is to travel, explore, witness other cultures, etc, it just isn't necessary to circumnavigate at all. .
I agree.
But if you want to do more than just one ocean then you 'must' circumnavigate (Unless you want to sell your boat in some foreign country; or buy in a foreign country)
For example: If I am from the USA and start in New York and do the Atlantic and want to do the WHOLE south Pacific (not just Panama and Mexico) then I end up in Australia with a 6,500 NM UPWIND sail back to Panama and 2,000 back to NYC. So its easier to do Asia and Africa and back around that way with the wind up my bum.
Its the same in any other ocean. If you want more than one ocean then circumnavigating is the 'only' way to go.
Interesting what you said about "the sense of accomplishment that one has sailed around the globe. It certainly give one creds."
The sense of accomplishment, for me, wasnt high till I did the last 10,000 miles solo. even then it was treated as ho-hum but other sailors
unless they were American. Americans seem to think its a big deal.
It does give you 'cred'! It stops wankers coming up to you and saying "You shouldn't have your snubber like that!" I can say: "Well, on my first circumnavigation...."
that shuts the mugs up!
I dont really agree with the thought that a circumnavigating boat needs to be hugely different from other crruising boats... unless we are talking about weekend sailers that pop up and down the Chesapeake. The one error I think people who
set out to do a tropical circumnavigation do is over think (or read too many forums) and buy a too old, and too solid, too traditional, too full keel, too poorly ventilated, too 'sea kindly' old heap of old style crap just because they think its a blue water boat.
For 30,000 nms they are bound down to a stupid decision made from reading horror stories on forums. They end up driving a maintenance nightmare, their wives walk off and the wallet escapes. Retirement descends into a living hell where some guy hung himself by the neck off his mast because he could afford to go on, couldn't sell the boat and couldn't afford to go back. (The marina, which was free at the time, towed his boat out, anchored it on the far side of the bay and stole his dinghy and OB as the new marina work boat.)
The horror stories are simply stories. The real horror comes to those that read them and believe them.
One horror story in the making is these threads where they say you can live circumnavigating for 3 years on $10,000. I'm sorry but you can't. I can't. No one can.
If I write a book I'm gunna call it:
Circumnavigation: It was Nice. Nothing Bad Happened.
But will that sell?
I do believe in "Go Now"; I do believe it can be done on a tight budget. I do believe we can die tomorrow so we must make use of today. There is a whole world to see and seeing it will educate us more and better than anything else in the world.
I do NOT believe horror stories. I dont believe in floating containers. One doesn't need 1 inch think fiberglass. They didnt make them better in the old days. We make them better now.
But mostly I believe if people did not read the horror stories more people would be willing to go further than the Bahamas from the USA; go further from the Med from Europe; go further than the Whitsundays from Australia.
The world
is our oyster and I hate people stealing clichés!
Mark