Growing Up on the Water
I’ve been sailing since I was seven years old. It was part of growing up on a lake in northern Michigan. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s and earned a captain license that I started cruising around as a charter captain, although I always imagined sailing around the world. For other young kids, it wasn’t quite the same. Unlike me, some had sailing parents, and it was through them that many children learned to sail because being on a boat was their daily life, their home. I’m sure you can imagine life is quite a bit different than growing up on land.
“We lived in Mexico, and around 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, my family decided to go on a boat. My mom grew up on sailboats her entire life along with her eleven brothers and sisters,” says Kalle Manzano. His dad took a three-year voyage through the Caribbean and Mediterranean. “My parents wanted to pass that on to me and my sisters because boats give an education to kids that you don’t get anywhere else.”
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Education While Cruising
Manzano was 13 years old when his parents pulled him out of school. He recalls not knowing what was going on, but soon found himself getting used to a much smaller home and taking classes through an online education program. “Basically, the school you do by yourself,” he says. “They give you all the materials, the books, and you just read through it, and you answer questions, and you submit it online. My parents were a little involved if I had a question, but it was mostly independent, which I think was good for me because it taught me a lot of discipline. It taught me how to learn by myself. And it was a big offload for my parents that they didn’t have to teach me, so it was a win-win on both sides.”
Graded through the American educational system, it proved beneficial as Manzano continued to high school. “The online course is not an easy program, it’s challenging,” he says. “After four years of doing the online school, I went back to Madrid, where I live now, and I went into an American high school. It wasn’t as hard as I thought to go back to school
on land. You’re very well prepared in a lot of things.”
Life Skills Kids Learn Living Aboard
Parents are instrumental in teaching their children the basics, such as grammar and math, as well as the tools to approach life with sensibility and logic. Growing up on board, traveling the open ocean, and anchoring in different countries is an entirely different type of learning experience.
“We hopped on our fifty-foot sailing catamaran not knowing how to do anything, and we learned how to sail together,” Manzano describes. “We learned how to fix engines. We had to change our sail drive a bunch of times, change the oils, fix our watermaker, so I learned everything, like plumbing, electricity, mechanics, and carpentry just to keep the boat in shape. And it’s not just fixing the boat. You learn a lot about marine diversity, all the animals. You learn about the reefs, taking care of the environment, and weather, especially when we had to cross the northern Atlantic in 2022. I learned everything about storms, how the wind comes, and I even learned celestial navigation, how to sail with the stars at nights.”
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The Social Challenge of Cruising With Kids
But there’s one aspect of cruising that children do miss—friends to play with. Living on a boat isn’t the same as growing up in a neighborhood filled with yards where kids can meet up after school or participate in group activities such as after-school programs and sports. There isn’t much room on a boat to throw a ball around, you can’t bicycle to a friend’s house or…you get the idea. The only time where that opportunity exists is in an anchorage or marina setting.
“You see a boat and try to figure out if there are kids on board, but there was no real way to do so,” says Manzano. “We had strategies, like if they had a bunch of laundry hung up, or if you saw kids jumping or playing, or if there were a bunch of toys in the water, you could kind of figure it out, but there wasn’t a way to tell if there were kids on that boat.”
Even if there were kids on board, he wondered if he could just go and say hi. Would it be awkward? “You’re very shy,” he adds. It was those experiences that prompted Manzano to come up with the “flag.”
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The Kids-Aboard! Flag: A Simple Solution
“One of the biggest challenges my sisters and I faced growing up on a boat was a lack of friends to play with,” he continues. “However, one day, while hoisting the yellow immigration flag, I had a brilliant idea. I decided to design a unique banner that would signal to other boaters that there were kids on board.…The point of the flag is, ‘Hey, over here, I’m a kid. You’re welcome to say hi.’ And if you see a flag, you know they’re open to you for a visit. They’ll play, so that’s fantastic. There’s no comparison between going into a port alone and going to a beach with a bunch of friends that you just made.”
And that’s how Kids-Aboard! was born. The flag signals there are kids on board and its design is bright orange, so it stands out when flown from the mast.
“I think the most valuable part of the idea is connecting with people who share the same values of boating and share the same experiences and creating lifelong friendships,” says Manzano. “The people that I’ve met while sailing and that I’ve kept in contact with, I’m still super close to them. I’ve met them in different ports, and the whole point of Kids-Aboard! is to meet more of these people, to make a community out of kids who are on boats, and not just for people who are on boats, but people who want to get into the boating industry.” For parents thinking about taking their kids cruising, flying a Kids-Aboard! flag lets other families know that the boat is a safe space for kids, and for parents too.
By Steve Davis
