Once you take care of the maintenance, trip planning, and administrative details like reviewing your yacht insurance, there’s more than fresh air to enjoy with your family when you head out on the water. It’s time to create family memories!

Boating is a wonderful way to build relationships and an ideal way for families to connect and get away from the demands of everyday life. Sure you will want to teach your children and teens about boating safety, but you also want them to treasure your family marine adventures.

All of our yacht insurance specialists are devoted to the boating lifestyle; many of us, raised by parents who instilled in us the love of the water. Here are some of our tips for creating boating memories with your family:

• Keep a record of where you go as a family. Some people like to have an old-fashioned logbook full of details about your adventures or track their destinations on a map. Others have a family blog – either private or public – to record their thoughts, experiences, and photographs to keep for years to come.
• Start a collection. There are the traditional choices, spoons or thimbles purchased from each town you visit. However there are simple free options too, some families look for heart-shaped rocks, or just a special one from each boat trip, and keep it in a special rock garden or huge glass vase at home. Perhaps you might like to make sure you take one family photo on each trip and keep it in an online album or special scrapbook. The important thing is that it should be meaningful and involve everyone to help anchor those precious memories.
• Learn together. Use your family boating time to build shared knowledge. This could range from understanding tidal changes and ship safety to learning to navigate (check out all the amazing boating apps on the market now!) or researching interesting activities to keep everyone busy. Maybe everyone will enjoy bird watching while you’re on the water or learning about astronomy. Don’t forget to record milestones like passing teen boating safety courses or swimming levels in your family marine records.
• Encourage your children to record their memories. As soon as they’re old enough to draw pictures and write, consider giving your children their own diary, journal, or boating log to fill out each year. You could have a special box in which to hold keepsakes from your family boating adventures – or surprise them with an album of memories when they’re old enough to go boating solo. You could build a family library of boat-related books and movies to keep on board or at home for use during the off-season.

As yacht insurance specialists, we love to help families make sure they have adequate coverage to protect their investment and favorite family pastime. Comprehensive yacht insurance will help you ensure that your family can continue boating even if your yacht is damaged, broken, stolen, or vandalized.

Contact the yacht insurance specialists at Global Marine Insurance to review your existing coverage.