About Catamaran Guru

As we see it, our job here at Catamaran Guru is not merely to entertain and inform, but also to educate. To that end, we devote this section.

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As the name indicates, the ‘Catamaran Guru’ is a yacht expert. Now, we do not profess to be the only and ultimate authority in all things sailing (since there are at least five correct ways to do things on a yacht) but we have through years of sailing the high seas, teaching sailing and working in the industry, accumulated an enormous amount of information, knowledge and experience that could be valuable for many of you in the planning and dreaming stages of cruising as well as the boat owner in charter management or yacht business and tax related financial issues.  

With Catamaran Guru you will get to experience through our (Stephen & Estelle) travels, the essence of life as live-aboard cruisers. We have not only worked in the industry (manufacturing, selling, chartering and sea school training all over the world) but have been long term live-aboard cruisers ourselves. We have personally taken the HUGE and difficult step of cutting all ties with the land and going off into the wide blue yonder on our yacht from Cape Town. We went through the same stages of self doubt (as many of you will or have done) while extricating ourselves from good and very lucrative careers and our lives in suburbia. We had all the trappings of a good life, the nice house, the fancy cars and life in the fast lane. Making the leap was not easy but we were determined that we did not simply want to exist, we wanted to live our lives and be free to do so how we pleased!

We built our 45ft Bruce Roberts sloop and set off from Cape Town in 1992 and lived aboard our yacht “Royal Salute” for more than 15 years. We sailed to foreign lands in Africa, Red Sea, Mediterranean, Caribbean and North and South America and landed in strange countries with even stranger cultures, languages and customs, where sign language and “gifts” to the town elders could get us priceless things like a gallon of rum and a fresh chicken! We loved the other not so strange places also, like Gibraltar where the friendly Irish pubs are a haven of camaraderie served up with a steak and kidney pie and lukewarm glasses of Guinness. Mmmm…Heaven! We also worked occasionally in different countries when the boredom of beautiful beaches and palm trees set in…or the cruising kitty got low. We “integrated” easily with the local population and worked as delivery crew, bar tenders, day laborers, divers etc. When the ocean called again we simply stocked up and moved on, just to do it again and again somewhere else in the world.

In the 20 some years that we have been involved in sailing, we have built an extensive knowledge in every aspect of sailing, mostly by trial and error...not the the recommended way to learn! We hope that you will learn much from our experiences and "wisdom" and will not have to suffer our fates of having to trade our rum supplies for information from “old salts” all around the world!

Stephen & Estelle's experiences, stories and anecdotes have been assembled in the pages of Catamaran Guru for all sailors to use and learn from, for as Annie Van De Wiele once said: “The art of the sailor is to leave nothing to chance”. This website should be used as a resource for people to navigate the stormy waters of buying, selling, cruising and enjoying your yacht. Remember, "Proper Planning and Preparation, Prevents a Piss Poor Performance"! On this journey with us you will learn just how easy and fun sailing could be if approached correctly. We will bring to light all the ‘intricacies’ of sailing, like navigation, crossing an ocean and the challenges of living aboard.

We here at Catamaran Guru believe that sailing is the only freedom left on the planet! We are passionate about sailing and about exploring the planet and we want everyone to experience life like this!

There was never a more true word spoken than this from Kenneth Graham…

“There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats”.