Category Archives: Eric’s Posts

Educational, Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Pain in the Aft

Living aboard Kandu, our Tayana Vancouver 42, in Ventura creates an unexpected feeling of pointless discomfort, akin to living in an RV on one’s driveway while purposefully avoiding the house.  We sense how we could so easily be more comfortable living inside a house.  In some ways it feels like we are unnecessarily taxing ourselves, navigating the confines of boat living.  The challenge comes from straddling two different lifestyles.  We have not moved aboard to live a landlubber’s life on the water, as many of our neighboring live-aboards have done.  If we had, we would be making different choices, like clothing, galley, and on-deck storage solutions.  We are, instead, preparing for long-distance, mostly tropical, cruising and making decisions based on that future paradigm.  In some ways, we’re becoming more like the proverbial fish out of water . . . and sucking air is not enjoyable.  It’s not evolution; it’s de-evolution.  The extra burden comes from having to support a land life, which is so much easier from a house; while at the same time incorporating far-away, self-supportable, small-spaced, warm weather, humid solutions.  Schooling and extracurricular activities and all the inter-family networking still occur with homebound counterparts we meet from Bryce’s and Trent’s schoolyard friendships.  We’ve done it before, when we lived in a house, and we did it well.  But things are obviously different now.  In the morning, we will design a large no-see’m net to fit over our cockpit.  I’ll order the materials over the Internet, and Leslie will sew it using our bulky and powerful sailmaker’s sewing machine.  I make lists as to what all needs to be done before I feel we can safely and comfortably leave America and sail to fifty other countries across multiple oceans and seaways.  In the afternoon, we drive to soccer practice, attend a science fair or a choir performance, or drive to LA for a Cub Scout event.  Sleep-overs on the boat, while it’s torn apart and we have to use facilities that are 1/4 block away, are difficult to consider and thus, for now, avoided.  We do much of what we did from a 1500 sq. ft. house, only now from within a 250 sq. ft. sailboat in repair/upgrading.  For this, it’s cramped living.  Leslie estimates everything requires 40% more effort to get anything done, especially daily chores like cooking, dishes, laundry, typing emails, taking a shower, etc.  Trent states, “You know what I’m looking forward to when we get back?  Moving into a house.”

Of course we recognize that this is a transitional period, perhaps the most difficult part of the whole process (so the experts told us last week at the Strictly Sailing Pacific show, another landlubber activity).  We get how important it is to get the living space right, to adapt it for our needs and preferences, to work out the kinks . . . but we sometimes feels like we’re Noah, getting ready for the big flood—we’re the only ones in the village preparing a boat for a five-year “flood.”  As a result, sometimes you feel you’re a little crazy, and have to talk yourself into the dream again, remind yourself of all the great reasons for taking on such an unconventional and all-encompassing journey.  I’m glad we have the time we do to get ready.  We need it.  We’re getting a lot of great work accomplished.  And there’s no place I’d rather be than in Ventura, doing all this “transitioning” . . . but it’s still a pain in the aft.

It’s the night before Easter.  Time to go to bed so the Easter bunny can hide baskets and eggs for Bryce and Trent.  One thing we’ve learned about a cruising boat–there are nooks and crannies aplenty within which to hide things!

Pain in the Aft
Return Trek from Shower
Educational, Eric's Posts, Prepping Kandu

WinchRite Cocktail

Hanging out at the Strictly Sailing Pacific boat show in Oakland, CA last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Marty and Sven of Sailology.  Their WinchRite product turns every winch on Kandu into an electric winch, enabling everyone on board to crank in the furling gear, hoist up a crew member to the top of the mast, or lift our dinghy safely on board deck. Both Marty and Sven are very resourceful, a this video proves:

http://youtu.be/k4wQCbw589M

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Movin’ On Up, to the “V” Side

When we moved from Westchester to Ventura, CA; Bryce and Trent left the only neighborhood they’ve ever known.  Like most parents, Leslie and I were concerned how moving would affect our sons.  Unexpectedly, it was a positive change.  Trent immediately made excellent friends and loved his new school.  Bryce captured the lead in several stage productions and enjoyed Wood Shop.  Both earned the equivalent of “straight ‘A’s’.” Although they no longer attend piano lessons, swim team practice, or Cub/Boy Scouts; they are active, bicycling to and from school and surfing regularly off Mondo Beach.  We’re so pleased for their healthy transition and proud of their good work.  Here’s a scene from Oliver that Bryce and Leslie performed together at Ventura’s Festival of Talent last month:

 

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Lights, Camera, Sizzle

http://youtu.be/VeOXI2Is6SE

Four years ago, Brian Boring and Jeff Bown put together this sizzle reel to help them pitch a reality show they wanted to produce about our trip.  This was before we even purchased a boat.  So we borrowed yacht club members Tom and Pat Ramey’s new boat.  My aunt put together a crowed of friends and relatives to play along as our bon voyage party.  Brian and Jeff did a good job.  Nothing ultimately came of it, but it was fun pretending and a great experience for all involved.  Hope you enjoy

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Farewell Email to Sony Pictures

My 12-year-old son asked me how I felt leaving work after 20 years.  “I feel grateful,” I said.  “I got to work on some very cool projects, with some really smart people, at a major motion picture studio, helping people entertain the world.  I walked by Spider-man, Batman, Captain Kirk, and Thor.  I feel blessed.  But most of all, I’m looking forward to the future, spending time with you, your brother, and mom.”

My 10-year-old son started to ask me a question, then stopped, mumbling, “It makes me cry to ask the question.”

“What is it, Trent?” I asked.

“Well, . . . you have a lot of friends at work.  Aren’t you gonna be sad to leave them?” he asks and sniffles as tears well up in his eyes, remembering what it was like to move to a different school.

“Yes, I am going to be sad, . . . very sad.  But we can still write each other and they can watch what we do on our website,” I said. “Let’s give them something to see.”

I started as a laborer in the stock room and leave as a vice president.  What a great ride.  Believing we are the sum of passions pursued, I’m pleased for what was and for what is to come; for both me and the studio.  Sony Pictures Post retains managers and operators capable of developing the world’s smartest, most innovative, most modeled post operation.  The group will always be of great interest to me. In my own corny way, I paraphrase a line from Out of Africa: “Sony Post may not always remember me, but I will always remember Sony Post.”  I don’t know whether I’ll start something right away with another post opportunity, or if instead I’ll press the “pause” button on the career for awhile and the “record” button on the family.  Whatever happens, it won’t be boring.  But, I’ll miss my Sony family.

Thank you for your well wishes, love, and support.  May your wildest dreams come true, your passion and life merge into one, your fantasy be your reality.

Check out our website www.rigneyskandu.com, post positive comments, “Like” us on Facebook (when we get a FB page), watch our channel (once we get it one up), and stay in touch. Don’t make Trent sad.

All the best,

Eric

Eric's Posts, Itinerary, Prepping Kandu

Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

“Westchester Family Prepares for Trip Around the World” – Hometown News Article

Starting this October, Westchester’s Rigney family will embark on the trip of a lifetime as they leave their home, their friends and most of their possessions behind to spend the next three to five years traveling the world and its most exotic locations on a sailboat.

For Eric Rigney, the trip is the culmination of a lifelong dream that started when he was just a teenager, when he and his uncle, Bill Kohut, sailed to Hawaii on a cement sailboat they built together. Later they would travel to French Polynesia and spend 18 months living on the island like locals. The experience left Eric with the dream of working hard and one day recreating a similar experience with his own family.

Now Eric and his wife, Leslie, and their two children Bryce, 12 and Trent, 10, are renting out their home, tying up loose ends and getting their 42-foot sailboat named “Kandu” ready for the trip that will bring them to 70 different countries if everything goes according to plan.

While the snug living quarters or the danger of sailing in the open sea may scare most families from making a similar trip, the Rigney’s see this as an experience to grow as a family and take a break from the instant gratification, video games and fast food culture that is prevalent with a lot of teens these days.

“We are trying to pull them [the kids] out of the commercialism a little bit and pull them out of the Internet and the texting world. Life seems so fast right now, that we are going to slow things down. It’s also an opportunity as a family to grow,” said Eric. “I think it’s rare that parents get the opportunity to live with their kids, shoulder to shoulder, almost like back in the day when people were farmers. We have that opportunity where we can work along side each other and then have a unified goal to take care of the boat, maintain the boat and get to where we need to get. We need to rely on them and they have to rely on us, so it makes us a stronger family unit.”

While the chances of encountering a pirate ship, a whale bumping into their sailboat, or a direct lightening strike are rare, the Rigney’s are confident they can handle any situation that comes their way. They have carefully calculated their route to avoid storms and they will stay away from areas where pirates are known to congregate. They have been studying navigation, practicing first aid and will have shipwright, “Uncle Bill,” on board for the first seven month. He brings decades of ship maintenance and sailing to the team.

When the group sets off this October, their first stop will be Cabo San Lucas for the Baja Haha, a sailboat cruisers’ rally. There they hope to meet up with other like-minded families before heading off to such exotic locales as the Easter and Pitcairn Islands. For the Rigney family, the more far-off and unusual destination, the better.

While their days will be filled with cruising the oceans of the world, learning about the cultures they are visiting and all of the chores that accompany life at sea (laundry, fishing, taking care of the boat), a few creature comforts will be smuggled on board, including the Xbox that the boys will be allowed to play every once and a while. Leslie and Eric hope that once the trip gets started the experience and the hands-on learning will far outshine the lure of electronics.

While their friends and their family’s reactions to their trip range from excitement to concern, the Rigney’s hope their trip will motivate people to go back to basics and spend more time with their families.

“For a lot of people what [this trip seems] to do is inspire them to want to do something with their family and do something as a group for an extended period of time,” said Eric.

Interested in learning more? The Rigney’s will be detailing their travels through their website at rigneyskandu.com. They are also looking for schools or organizations to team up with to collect data and information.

Posted August 2013

http://www.thehometownnewsonline.com/familypreparesfortriparoundtheworld

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Soft Hands

“Your hands are sooo soft,” Leslie coos in my ear, her thumb stroking the inside of my outstretched palm as we dance across the Valentine’s Day dance floor.  Her knowing tone supports her awareness that soon, soft hands will no longer be the case.  These hands that now gently guide her across the dance floor to the beat of a Neil Diamond impersonator are the unblemished hands of a motion picture executive and a father of two young boys.  For the past 20 years from a climate-controlled corner office in Southern California, these hands drove cars, tapped computer keyboards, and held phones; growing more pink and tender with each passing year. Leslie shared the ups and downs of my professional growth, from laborer to executive, the struggles and triumphs.  Well aware of the effort and sacrifice it took to get us where we are today, her eyes clearly indicate a relish for our current circumstance, inhaling the memory, and appreciating the effort it took to make my hands so smooth.

It’s our twenty-fourth Valentine’s Day celebration together, and I adore her as if it were the first, well okay, . . . the second.  We spent our first Valentine’s Day as a couple apart.  I was five hundred miles out to sea from Los Angeles, captaining a 32-foot sailboat bound for the Marquesas Islands.  She was finishing her French Literature studies at UCLA.  After graduating, she would meet up with my crew and me in Hilo; and sail through the Hawaiian Islands and from Kauai to San Francisco with us.  Sailors call this long distance, casual type of sailing, “cruising.”  Leslie knows what open ocean sailing and anchoring do to a sailor’s hands. Pulling sailing sheets, lifting galvanized anchor chain, and tools would soon be the objects these hands hold.  Additionally, the elements of sand, sun, and sea play their role, transforming princely baby-bottom palms into salt-encrusted instruments of adventure.  What does Leslie know that should make her wax so?  She knows that soon, we will be out to sea again—this time together, with our two young sons; for an undetermined duration; possibly 5 years . . . or more.

Righthand 2014

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Habits Strangely Missed

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My first day as a non-working member of Sony Pictures was odd.  I awoke as normal, 5:30 a.m., but didn’t shower.  I took some time to blog.  Leslie made breakfast as normal. But then I didn’t have to rush off.  I handled the business of transitioning my cell phone plan.  It was stress-less because I didn’t have to be some place else.  I even joked with the associate on the other line, learning a lot about Mali, his home country.  Trent and I left the boat and drove off to consolidate items in a couple storage locations around Ventura. We cleaned the minivan and lunched at a place we hadn’t been before.  It was good.  I find myself considering cost unlike before, noting the prices on the menu, wanting to be economical.  When I worked at the studio, lunch was my little reward to myself for going to work.  That’s not necessary now.  The best part about yesterday was that I was able to work well with Trent.  He said he liked working.  I was patient and helpful with him.  He found it fun to work on tasks that are simple.  It felt good just to hang with him.  Being April 1st, we played a trick on his brother.  Bryce took it in good humor, catching me soon after on one of his own April Fool’s pranks.  It was a good father and sons day.

In order to save some money on my phone plan, I had to drive back into Culver City.  I called one of my former managers along the way, just as I had always done before leaving Sony.  In a strange way, I liked the whole habit.  Driving over a hundred twenty miles, checking traffic conditions, streaming “This American Life” over the car’s sound system, felt normal; especially driving up PCH at sunset.  But this time, I wasn’t mentally exhausted when I got back to the boat.  We watched “Life of Pi” together.  It was more comfortable this time.  I didn’t carry the struggles of work.

My first day away from Sony did not bring a feeling of empowerment and invigoration as I had expected.  Instead, I feel like I’m starting my own business, a family business. I’m excited by the challenge.  Best of all, I am enjoying the simple tasks.

 

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Last Day at “Work”

I’ve imagined this day for more than ten years.  When asked, “When are you going to leave Sony Pictures and start sailing around the world?” my reply was, “In two years.”  For ten years I was always two years away from leaving the studio.  Just as a broken clock is right twice a day, eventually my “in-two-years” prediction was correct. Today, looking back two years, it happened.  Today, after more than twenty years, I no longer wake up and prepare myself to go to the studio.

Imagining what this day would be like, I thought it would feel like the first day of a prolonged vacation, liberating and invigorating.  But it doesn’t.  Over that past few days, so many of my colleagues wrote and/or met with me to thank me for my service and wish me well on my upcoming adventure.  Not wanting to cry throughout the day, the last day was an exercise in burying my reflex to connect with my emotions, as I looked my friends in the eye, thanked them, and hugged.  I was on the verge all day long.  I love these people and I love what we’ve done together.  I made them all promise to stay in touch, to read our blog, to write in.  As the day came to a close and I walked out from my office for the last time, I felt vulnerable.  No longer would I so easily be able to provide for my family.  Income and insurance will no longer by at our fingertips.  We’ll have to develop other ways to support ourselves.  When I told them how I felt, my co-managers reminded me how well I’ve always done with anything I’ve started at the studio.  Any endeavor I started at the studio, when supported by the studio, did very well.  That these skills I take with me.  This venture would be no different.  Because I have the complete support of my family, especially Leslie, this endeavor should be just, if not even more, successful than those at the studio.  In writing this, I find myself not stating that I’m no longer “working,” for I will be working just as hard, if not harder than I did when I was at the studio.

So, this first day, I am not excited about sailing around the world.  I am concerned, just as I was concerned when I started every business venture at the studio.  And just as I have done with every business venture, I will pour my complete attention and effort into making this adventure, and sharing this adventure with an audience I hope to build, a success. Along the way, I will reach out to like-minded experts at every step, for I know that my best work is achieved through collaboration, that the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.  You, the reader, are probably an expert in something that can make this trip better, so help us; use your expertise to turn this trip into something wonderful for young people, to inspire them to reach beyond and see what’s on the other side of the rainbow.

Sony Rainbow

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Mindset, Prepping Kandu

You Can’t Always Get What You Want . . .

We had planned to depart on our adventure last year, joining the Baja Haha Rally.  That didn’t happen.  We were disappointed.  Ironically, a month after it was decided we would not depart as planned, a local newspaper came out with a wonderful story describing our proposed adventure.  And we went to the Baja Haha party in San Diego anyway.  After all, we’d paid for it.  It didn’t bother me to be seen as the family that wasn’t going on the trip.  I was learning important life lessons: patience and gratitude topping the list.  I looked for the good.  We now had more time to transition from our three bedroom house and into our 42-foot boat.  We had more time and resources to improve our future home afloat, equipping her with better tools and technology.  We had more time to learn new skills of safety and first-aid procedures, of marine weather forecasting, of how we can share our experience with school kids and use our voyage to hopefully make a positive difference in the world, and of how to make this experience a more positive one for our family.  And best of all, we’ve been able to establish new life-long friendships, and continue to do so.  In retrospect, as the song exclaims, . . . “we get what we need.”