For couch surfers who want to get beyond the couch, Robert Patrick and Marco Grasso have just the thing: Vagabond Sailing.
Couchsurfing is an international online forum connecting travelers with locals to promote hospitality and cultural exchange. Travelers board for free in a host’s home and are shown a local’s perspective of a city.
Grasso and Patrick became friends through couch surfing when Patrick stayed at Grasso’s home in Rome the summer of 2005. “I love couch surfing. What I don’t love is time in-between couches. I wanted to have a solution for myself and others, and that solution was Vagabond Sailing,” Patrick said.
Vagabond Sailing is an online forum designed to connect diverse people for inexpensive sailing trips and to refresh the love of travel.
According to Grasso, flying from Rome to Barcelona takes two hours and sailing non-stop would be about three days. The point is not how long it takes, but how many stops can be made along the way.
“It’s like life: it’s not about where you’re going, but about how you get there. That’s what Vagabond Sailing is all about … It’s about providing a more engaging way to move between two places,” Patrick said.
On Vagabond-sailing.com, a group of 9 to 13 people from anywhere in the world commit to a voyage lasting one to three weeks. Berth reservations start at €250 [approx. $350]. It is more expensive now because the boats are rented, but once they own a boat [and someday a fleet] the prices will drop, Patrick said.
Because of the added plane ticket cost for Americans, Patrick and Grasso are starting to market Vagabond Sailing to exchange students in Europe.
Vagabond Sailing’s maiden voyage is not until this summer. On May 30, the “Iron Lion” group will set sail from Rome along the western coast of Italy and arrive in Tuscany on June 6. Where the crew stops along the way is up to the crew. “Once on board, they can easily sit down and chat with a map in front of them,” Grasso said.
Grasso is in England studying for his doctorate in microbiology. Patrick is in Texas working as a business analyst for a management consulting agency. In spite of the Atlantic dividing them, they work together online long hours outside their full-time jobs.
“Rob is more the IT guy at the moment,” Grasso said. “He has all the knowledge about the Web things, all the public relations, all the thinking going behind the creation of the organization. While I’m more concentrated about the sailing thing because I know more about it … Together we are a good team that can work on these things.”
Having launched only a few weeks ago on Jan. 5, the forum is still small at just more than 100 members. Armed with enthusiastic responses from their Facebook survey, they are hopeful about connecting 500,000 people in the next five years through the forum.
“We want people to share the sailing life, the love of the sea, the feel of the wind,” Grasso said.
“The sailing is just the means to the end of connecting to other people,” Patrick said.
Grasso’s cousin, Matthew Rocket, is planning on sailing this summer if his schoolwork doesn’t get in the way. “Whether I go depends not on the opportunity, but on my availability,” Rocket said. “I definitely would like to go on one of the trips.”
More information can be found at vagabond-sailing.com.
