Bordered by both the Andaman Sea in the southwest and the Gulf of Thailand in the centre and southeast of the country, Thailand has a coastline stretching a bit over 3,200 kilometres, providing not only for much needed active and healthy marine life and resort locations, but also for a vast stretch of open waters where one can take out a boat or a yacht – “a pleasure boat” – and go sailing in the tropical seas.
Photo by Paul Phillips
Tales of adventure at sea have fascinated humankind for centuries and such classics as Melville’s Moby Dick, Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and London’s The Sea-Wolf are just a few examples of books that have had a long lasting influence on the readers’ psyche. However, according to both CNN and BBC news reports in early 2013, sea piracy in Asia is seemingly on the rise, with pirates targeting oil tankers with low to no security in place but Tim McMahon, an American in his 50s living in Pattaya in Thailand, has a very different adventure story to tell.
Captain Tim, as he is known among his students, customers and employees, is the owner, director, manager, and instructor at SailQuest Sailing School, a company which strives to offer great quality training for those who would like to sail, charter or own a yacht of their own. Tim sailed into Koh Phuket more than a decade ago after leaving Hawaii and having completed a seven-year, liveaboard circumnavigation of the Pacific Ocean. During his extended sea journey, he cruised many islands in the Pacific and then sailed around Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Borneo, and Malaysia.
While in Koh Phuket, he started undertaking chartering on his own boat and then worked on a 60-ton schooner, taking tourists out to sea on diving trips. During his six years in Phuket, he cruised all over Asia, managing to drop anchor in some really remote and unexplored areas within the Andaman Islands and the Burmese Mergui Archipelago.
Photo by Scott Murray
Tim McMahon relocated in Pattaya where, together with his former partner from Gulf Charters Thailand, they set up their own company. At first they organized daytrips on an old schooner and, after some years, Captain Tim went his own way and started the SailQuest Sailing School, an international sailing school affiliated with International Yacht Training (IYT), an organization based out of British Columbia in Canada. They are now one of the 160 IYT partner schools, located in every coastal community worldwide.
At SailQuest one can train to receive the IYT Bareboat Skipper’s Certificate as well as several other certificates, including the ICC, the International Certificate of Competence, which you would need to have if you ever planned on chartering, sailing, buying or owning a boat in the European Union.
The ten-day IYT Certificate course is open for new students once or twice a month, depending on demand. It is a well-rounded course that Tim has been developing for the last eight years as a sailing school instructor. It’s got an action packed program which includes classroom time for the theory of navigation and chart reading and plotting, lots of sailing drills, sail handling, docking the boat in the Marina, and learning how to operate the vital parts of the yacht from the engine to electrical systems. Participants also get the chance to spend three nights on the boat, usually sailing up to Koh Si Chang and also the busy shipping port of Laem Chabang in order to experience sailing among container ships, barges and oil tankers. “It’s a program geared to people who would like to learn how to charter a yacht and get out there on the oceans of the world to pursue their sailing goals and dreams,” summarized Captain Tim.
Photo by Paul Phillips
The ten-day program costs 60,000 Baht and includes the IYT registration, all the necessary materials, the yacht and instructor costs, meals and non-alcoholic beverages while onboard the boat, plus accommodation costs for the nights on land in bungalows at Ocean Marina in Pattaya.
For those sailors who already have the needed certification and want to put their sailing skills to use or just want to be part of a new and exciting experience, SailQuest organizes monthly four nights and five days live-aboard sailing trips. The yacht will travel within the region, usually from Pattaya’s Ocean Marina to Hua Hin and/or Koh Samet. The costs vary depending on one’s cabin choice, ranging from 16,000 Baht for a shared cabin to 40,000 Baht for a two-person private cabin.
Regarding as to how safe sailing can be, this is what Captain Tim had to say: “I always feel safer in water than I do while driving around on my motorbike or in the car. As an experienced sailor, getting out to sea is about as safe as you can get. We also train people how to sail within their own limit and how to recognize potential dangers and hazards that occur at sea and how to deal with those, so that they can minimize the risk. I personally think that sailing is a very safe activity to do. There are a lot more people getting hurt while driving around on the road than sailing on a boat.”
Photo by Paul Phillips
The skeptics might need to know that Tim’s record is impeccable. While in Hawaii, where he took up to seventy people a day on daytrip charter boats out to Waikiki Beach, he had eventually taken about 30,000 people sailing there in total. Here in Thailand, while in Phuket, he had registered a staggering 800 liveaboard nights and he had brought every single customer safely back on land in both locations!
About 30% of the customers who sign up with SailQuest are expats working somewhere in Asia, all the way from Hong Kong plus other cities within mainland China to Malaysia, Singapore, the UAE, Dubai and, of course, Thailand. “They are looking to do something special on their holiday and enjoy their time off work so they come to us,” explained Tim. Another group of possible customers which SailQuest is increasingly targeting is sailing enthusiasts from neighbouring countries, especially from China, Malaysia and Singapore, simply because the concept of getting out on a yacht for pleasure is gaining a very strong foothold here in Asia. There are also those who are in Pattaya on a sailing school holiday, coming all the way from Australia, the USA or Europe because they have an interest in Thailand but are also looking for a certified sailing course as well, during their stay.
In Tim McMahon’s personal opinion, the yachting movement in Thailand is definitely a growing field: “I have been involved in the yachting scene ever since I landed at the beach in Phuket and I have seen it grow hugely with new marinas, lots of new boats, policy changes – with the new import duty costs still at 0%. When I first got to Pattaya, the Marina was just one third full; now the marina is almost 100% full. I have also seen some significant growth with a lot of large boats in the mega-yacht category coming over and bringing along infrastructure and money. I believe that we will see yachting grow vastly over the next decade or so.”
Photo by Scott Murray
Therefore, if you decide to pick up yachting as a hobby, then be fully aware that, throughout the year, there are lots of racing regattas organized in Thailand which you can participate in. Most have international sponsors and, while Phuket remains the centre in Thailand for yachting, Pattaya and Koh Samui are also receiving a lot more exposure to these boating festivals. These events are well attended by racers from all over the world, are professionally run and have earned a very good reputation among both local and international yachting aficionados.
Yachting in Thailand is essentially trouble-free, benefitting with such great weather which allows year-round sailing, excellent winds in the Gulf of Thailand with around 300 decent sailing days a year. “Overall, it’s a fantastic sailing experience,” mused Tim. “Back in my home country, where I grew up in the state of Maine in the New England region, it was quite cold and we had a limited sailing season. But in Hawaii you generally have a year-round sailing season!”
The difference between yachting in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries is that, in Thailand, when you land ashore, you can also have a great time of relaxation. “There’s the possibility of great sailing down in Cambodia as well, but Vietnam is not really yacht friendly as they’re not open to having foreign vessels coming in and just cruising their waters. It’s the same situation in Indonesia, which is a beautiful place to sail but you do need to apply for cruising permits as the situation there is more regulated,” explained Tim. “But, overall, Southeast Asia is a great place to sail; one of the best things about sailing in this region is that there are very few yachts and there’s a real sense of adventure. I’m always discovering new beaches while stopping at little islands which may have seen only just a few yachts. There’s lots of exploring to do in Thailand too.”
Photo by Paul Phillips
Yachting is for anyone who wants to embrace life on the water and SailQuest Sailing School is particularly geared for people who would like to learn to sail a larger, liveaboard type of vessel with the possible intention of undertaking their own holiday sailing in any of the hundreds of possible destinations around the world. “We teach them how to deal with the wind, the currents, the tide and we provide a great deal of nautical know-how. Although we cover a vast field of knowledge, it is obviously not that easy for someone to just pick up on their own without any previous experience at all,” said Captain Tim. Being a sailor can be a physically challenging job, as getting the sails up, adjusting the sails as you go, and even just hanging onto the boat can be incredibly energy consuming. Following that, you then have to get the dingy into the water if you want to travel out onto the beach and there’s a lot of work involved with sending a yacht safely out into the sea waters. “You won’t be just sitting in the back of the boat drinking cold beverages all day long. People who sail tend to get a lot of exercise but, if you like doing a little bit of exercise, it’s not something that is really too difficult to achieve,” Tim reassured.
The SailQuest Sailing School is located at world-class Ocean Marina Yacht Club which faces Jomtien Bay in Pattaya in Thailand. For more information about SailQuest contact them by phone on 0845 399 689 or simply look them up on Facebook.
The next exciting sailing event is the 27th Phuket Kings Cup Regatta, Asia’s premier yachting event, which will take place between November 30th and December 7th 2013. For further yachting events in the region, check out the sailing calendar.
Initially published in Mango Metro (September 2013, Vol. 7, No.10)
Browse our collection of “yachting in Thailand” photographs by Scott Murray and Paul Phillips:
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