Sometimes Fate intervenes. The Kaufmans appear to have done everything right and yet, a sick child and an unforeseeable boat problem conspired to turn their dream into a nightmare.
There is only so much one can do before rolling the dice with Mother Ocean in other words. You do those things, then hope, pray and work for the best.
Was it wrong to bring the children? Should they have waited, as many have said, until the children were older?
Well, perhaps we should be asking that question of long time liveaboard families such as Tom Neale’s family, who raised his family onboard. Granted, they didn’t go around the world, but the waters between the US and the Bahamas are as dangerous as any, and boat issues and sick children aren’t geographically mandated, are they?
Why don’t we ask that question of the parents of the young child recently airlifted out of the Bahamas with breathing difficulties. Oh, say the haters, another child victim of negligent cruising parents...
Except the child was on a cruise ship...one of the most dangerous of all forms of travel when you consider how many people are/have been sick with norovirus or Legionaires Disease on these boats. Were those parents negligent? Why aren’t they being castigated for exposing their child to the well known dangers of cruise ships?
For those of us who live and travel on small sailboats, we understand and accept that we are doing something different. Our lives far more satisfying than those of people simply living in a concrete box, then traveling in a metal box to yet another concrete box to work or shop, and who never ever get to meet or know the people they see all around them. The strictures of a life on land doesn’t permit that luxury, you don’t know who the next serial killer might be. I have a worldwide group of friends because of this lifestyle, people I’d otherwise never have known, and who enrich my life immensely.
Did the Kaufmans do the right thing? By their standards they did - and that is ALL that matters. Just ask the children who grew up on boats in years past if you need any confirmation of that.
Wally Moran
Contributing Editor, SAIL Magazine
Sailing South, First Timers' Guide to the ICW
Cruising Editor, Waterway Guides
