Recently the Internet sailboat magazine SAILNET asked Liza Copeland to list the 10 most important requirements for successful cruising.
With over 20 years of offshore cruising behind her (most of which with her husband and three children), some 75,000 miles of navigation around the world in all conditions and half a dozen books on cruising, she is certainly more qualified than most on the subject. Here is what she had to say.

Requirement -1: a well performing boat.
By that she means a well built boat, structurally robust, that can perform well both upwind and downwind. She does not believe that heavy, full-keeled boats are necessarily more seaworthy than moderate displacements boats with spade rudder and other characteristics of modern design. Performance - she says- means safety, since on a faster boat you can spend less time under way and can avoid deteriorating weather conditions by sailing or motoring out of trouble.
I do not disagree with her argument or her choice of a boat ( I happen to own the same model of Beneteau that she owns). In addition to performance, however, I would emphasize stability, in particular the range of positive stability (i.e. the maximum inclination a boat can take before capsizing). Many naval architects believe that the range of positive stability for an offshore boat should be at least 115-120 degrees.
Incidently, Liza’s boat (and mine) just about meets this criterion.

Requirement - 2: sail handling ease.
Being able to hoist, douse or reef the sails from the cockpit is both safe and convenient. The Copelands have installed furling gear for the genoa and a Profurl in-boom furling for the mainsail. With this you can manage your sails single handed without leaving the safety of the cockpit - a definite plus when the sea is rough or when you are alone on watch.
Here again I agree: while a furling mainsail is less efficient than a traditional one, it is also much more convenient. Moreover, the in-boom furling design (as opposed to the in-mast design) is compatible with a full-battened sail, so the loss of efficiency is less.

Requirement - 3: a protected cockpit.
Anybody who has stood watch in the middle of the night under a torrential downpour or has been doused by gelid sea spray on a windy November day will agree with Liza on the importance of a good dodger or a nice bimini. Besides, overexposure to cancer-causing UV rays is more dangerous to the average sailor than tropical hurricanes or raging whales.

Requirement - 4: a comfortable interior.
Different people, I am sure, will define this requirement differently. For Liza Copeland comfortable interior means a well designed cabin layout, a lot of storage room and hanging lockers, good ventilation and lightening, a workable galley, efficient refrigeration, comfortable bunks with mattresses of humane thickness....
On my boat I still suffer from mattresses that must have been designed by the Spanish Inquisition. On the other hand, I have added a small television set/ VCR ( mainly to see movies in the evening) and a micro-wave oven ( why to spend 40 minutes cooking when you can do the same in 3 minutes? You can see here the effect of having lived too long in the United States....). I am now thinking of retro- fitting an air conditioner: but before you picture me as an effete landlubber, please consider that the Chesapeake Bay, where I do a lot of my cruising, has much more torrid and humid summers than the Mediterranean.

Requirement - 5: adequate electronics and electricals.
Liza says that when they started their first circumnavigation, mainly because of budgetary constraints, they only had GPS, VHF radio, depth sounder, autopilot, refrigeration ( no freezer) and a small short wave radio for news and weather reports. Eventually they added freezer, radar, an SSB radio for long range communication, a water maker, and an electric windlass ( which they use also to hoist a person to the masthead and to lift the dinghy). To keep all these gadgets going they had to increase their battery bank to 690 amp hours and add a high output alternator,solar panels and a wind generator. Now, one has to keep in mind that the Copelands spend a lot of time offshore and/or in remote locations. If you cruise in the Mediterranean, you may not need an SSB radio - most of the time you are within range of the VHF radio or even the cellular phone. Also, you may feel that the convenience of recharging your batteries without running the engine may not be worth the cost, clutter and noise of a wind generator. Besides, solar panels are much less obtrusive than wind generators. As for the water maker, it is a splendid convenience, if you can afford the price, if the sea water you use is clean, if you use it continuously, if you are prepared to do the appropriate maintenance, if, if, if....Otherwise, just filter the water you take on board and be selective when choosing your water source.

Requirement - 6: safety gear.
The Copelands are very safety conscious and their list of safety gear is accordingly quite extensive. In addition to what is legally required in many countries ( such as life raft, life jackets, flares, fire extinguishers, horn, search light, safety harnesses with jacklines, etc.), they carry items such as an EPIRB, a Life Sling, collision mats and a drogue. In my boat I carry a Life Sling, but have never felt a need for a collision mat and am rather skeptical about the practical usefulness of drogues.
On the other hand, having once been fished out of the Atlantic thank to my EPIRB, I am a fanatic believer in EPIRBs and carry one even when I cruise the Chesapeake.

Requirement - 7: good charts, light lists, tide tables and cruising guides.
Many boats nowadays use chartplotters interfaced with the GPS. I recently installed one on the console near the steering wheel on my boat and it is a splendid convenience, particularly when you navigate in narrow, tortuous channels or other difficult conditions. Yet, electronics can fail. Therefore Liza is right to insist on the importance of having good, up to date paper charts. Incidently, and for the same reason, if you carry ( as the Copelands do) a sextant, you’d be well advised to carry an Almanac and sight reduction tables, even if you have a navigation calculator with all these data in its memory.

Requirement - 8: insurance.
Having lost a boat in a storm once and having been hit by lightning another time, I whole-heartedly agree with Liza on the importance of being adequately insured, even if it is not legally required.

Requirement - 9: books.
One of the great pleasures of cruising is to have plenty of time to read, as well as to listen to the music you love and to watch some good movies. For these reasons, we (like the Copelands) always carry on the boat a good inventory of books, magazines, CDs and videos. If you cruise with your children, do carry a walk-man, as you can be sure that the boat stereo will be monopolized by them...

Requirement - 10: compatible cruising companions.
Given the limited space aboard, the lack of privacy and the unfamiliar environment, cruising can be a recipe for disaster if cruising companions are not (or do not try to be) compatible. Liza has managed to survive all these years without killing her children or divorcing her husband - she must indeed have found compatibility. But she is right to remind us that this is an important requirements, no matter how comfortable is the boat or enchanting the cruising ground.

http://www.sailnet.com/collections/cruising/ index.