20 Unique Games and Activities for Sailing Kids

“I’m bored.”

Easily amongst the most frequent kid’s complaints. Not on a boat, it isn’t.

Living on a boat is far from boring. Activities for sailing kids abound. Few require fancy gadgets. All are incredibly unique and adventurous. Here are just 20 of the fun things we have done with friends, on the water.

Find all kinds of helpful posts, including a long one on how to socialize and find friends on the water:

Traveling with Kids – No Texting and Tacking

All games and activities in a table

True to my very well-organized nature, I must compartmentalize fun.

Activity	Ranked	For Young Ones?
Ditching School	Best overall	Yes
Beach Bonfires	Best for s’mores	Yes, with enough s’mores
Water Toys	Best for purchased fun	Yes
Water Toys Sharing	Best for caring	Sharing level dependent
Snorkeling	Best for “just browsing”	Yes
Spearfishing	Best for dinner	Nope
Dangerous Jumps	Best for adrenaline rush	Nope
Land Field Trips	Best educational	Absolutely
Not taking marked trails	Best to annoy mama	Yes, if modified
Board Games	Best for rainy days	Yes
VHF Games	Best during passages	With supervision
Video Games	Best for creativity killer	Keep away
Partying	Best for boat alone	Nope
Dating	Best for drama	Nope
Boat Schooling Co-ops	Best structured	Yes
Craft Workshops	Best creative	Yes
Hide-and-Seek	Best to include everyone	Yes
Island Treasure hunts	Best to put older kids to work	Absolutely
The Fabric Swing	Best for any time, any day	Yes, with supervision
Walking the Plank	Best for “punishment”	Nope

20 Unique Games and Activities for Sailing Kids:

Ditching school – Best overall

Splashing and giggling near-by, usually means the day for doing school work is over.

Even if we sail together, for a while, we typically do not know how long our new friends will be near-by. So, the kids waste no time to join in the fun.

Since “hello’s” are as frequent as “goodbye’s”, school schedules have been ignored more than once, in favor of swim and beach parties!

Thankfully, many other world-schoolers have to follow some sort of school routine. Generally, the mornings are a bit quieter, with everyone doing school, before heading out to socialize!

Beach bonfires – Best for s’mores.

Beach bonfires are a favorite for kids, adults and dogs alike!

They are such a natural get-together activity, that almost every island we have visited, has some kind of a firepit set up.

Oh, and be that boating family – bring the marshmallows. Do not buy sticks, duh.

Buy these before your sail away, and keep in a cool place aboard, they are a bit tricky to find in smaller islands.

Water toys – Best for purchased fun

Wakeboarding anyone? Kitesurfing? Seabob?

Boating families have all kinds of cool toys aboard. From swim platforms, through paddleboards, via wakeboarding and all the way to kite surfing.

We purchased a used wakeboard before we left the US, and a wonderful IKEA fabric swing. The swing was one of the best boat toys we owned, the kids did all kinds of acrobatics on it.

Hint, hint – families, who are out for a just a few months of sailing, usually have the fancier toys. Which brings me to the next point:

Water Toys Sharing – Best for caring

Most boats have a limited amount of space and budgets. Exchanging cool toys is another favorite activity for sailing kids.

We have towed friends on our wakeboard, while others have offered us a chance to try kiteboarding, sailing, and so on.

While we still lived on a small monohull, our friends took us out on their catamaran for the day. That was enough for the kids to declare,

“We want to live on a boat and sail more, but ONLY on a catamaran!”

Choose the toys carefully!

Snorkeling – Best for “just browsing”

Image all the colors in the world, in fish! Welcome to the Caribbean.

Snorkeling is one of those activities for sailing kids you simply will have to do. We have never met anyone, who did not find snorkeling amusing and amazing.

Bahamas was one of our most favorite sites for watching cool fishes and coral. There are a lot of sharks in the Bahamas, however. They never bothered anyone, but I never got used to those kinds of play dates.

Tip: Buy one of those Fishes of the Caribbean books, to identify everything you see.

Spear fishing – Best for dinner

Some older kids will love a “hunting trip” with an adult, or two.

It is not everyone’s cup of tea, but some of our kids enjoyed them. I was in change of cooking and worrying about the gang.

Always stay with a buddy when spearfishing and get your catch out of the water as soon as possible.

Dangerous Jumps – Best for adrenaline rush

If it hangs over water – kids will jump off of it. Platforms, rocks, bridges…

But have you heard of Catapult?

While in the Bahamas, our friends from a neighboring monohull, introduced us to a game called “Catapult”. My stomach still turns every time I watch the video!

Wanna see what I’m talking about? Check out our YouTube Episode featuring the craziest catapult game ever!

Bahamas – Highborne Cay, Poker and Catapult! (E14) – YouTube

Not to mention that as we were playing, another sailor motored by to warn us of a large tiger shark out for a swim, right where we were jumping…

Land Field Trips – Best educational

Many amazing sites and parks are not accessible by boat. Such destinations present a great opportunity for a land field trip.

It is usually cheaper, if more people gather to rent a small bus. Group discounts are also appreciated.

Field trips always count as school.

The larger the group, the higher the chance that at least one person might speak the local language and help the rest navigate unfamiliar situations.

Speaking of a language barrier – check out my story about one of the most embarrassing times in my life! It happened on that waterfall trip, from the photo, in the Dominican Republic!

Dominican Republic Part 4 – Waterfalls – an Embarrassing and Funny Story

Not taking marked trails – Best to annoy mama

Trails are created to reach a destination.

Most people follow the trails, if they wish to reach a destination.

Then, there is my family.

To be perfectly honest, we usually follow the trail one way, but coming back must be a painful adventure, taking three times as long, and at least a couple of bleeding scratches and scrapes per person.

Board games – Best for rainy days

Another favorite activity for sailing kids, with other kids, is playing board games.

They are nothing unusual, until you end up playing with kids from different parts of the world, who sometimes barely share the same language. Yet, they somehow make it work.

World-schoolers rarely view the lack of common language as a barrier to having fun.

VHF games – Best during passages

The VHF is our home phone aboard.

During ocean passages, the adults in our buddy-boating group communicate positions, hazards, hobbies, encouragement, basically anything to keep each other awake and not bored.

One day, after being tired of parents chatting about sails and wind speed, the kids took the VHF into their own hands and to a whole new level. Hours went by in speedy drawing competitions, jokes, riddles, and “I spy…” games over the radio!

No one felt seasick during that passage!

Video games – Best for creativity killer

Socializing on the water does involve screen time, as much as we hate to admit. Sadly, devices are everywhere these days.

Lack of internet does play in our favor, because there is no way for the kids to disconnect from the present.

To charge a laptop requires quite a bit of sunshine. To charge five laptops is a miracle aboard. Feel free to use this as an excuse to cut gaming time short. It works.

We do not allow cell phones aboard, and the kids complained just enough, then stopped and decided to fill their free time with other fun things.

Partying – Best for boat alone

There are plenty of opportunities for older kids to get together.

On the water, formalities are skipped; dividing differences, popularity wars and make-up application take up too much valuable time.

The parents are just as happy to socialize without kids around. So, adults pick one boat, and all the older kids – another.

Dating – Best for drama

Since we never know how much time we have to spend with others, hang-outs, play dates and dating are pretty intense.

Yes, boat teens do date, they can be very resourceful and just like land kids are totally convinced that parents know nothing about anything.

I am not sure this counts as an activity for sailing kids, but I am including it.

World schooling Co-ops – Best structured

Boat parents have quite diverse resumes.

Once enough (more than one) kid-boats find each other at an anchorage, various classes are organized. Boats take turns hosting.

Guess what my favorite part of those cruising co-ops is – the incredible learning experience we present to our children?

No!

My favorite part about co-ops is sending the kids to other peoples’ boats, so we can get a break.

It’s lovely! I don’t need to drive them anywhere, because they have the choice of a vehicle – a dinghy, a kayak, a paddle board, or none (they often just swim to the other boats).

The classes cost nothing, it’s all barter on the water, and there are no uniforms required.

Craft Workshops – Best creative

Anything you know how to make can be turned into a crafting class. Painting, cooking, knitting, weaving palm branches…

If an older child aboard is the crafty one, delegate the class. Kids love playing teachers.

Our very own Sophie organized a crocheting class aboard, and somehow managed to teach a bunch of kids, with only a couple of crochet hooks.

Hide-and-Seek – Best to include everyone

Everyone loves hide-and-seek. Period.

We have yet to meet a kid, who finds running and hiding boring.

Hide-and-seek and tag are favorite activities for sailing kids, because every child is included and everyone knows the rules. It does not matter is there is a common language at all.

Island Treasure Hunt – Best to put older kids to work

Islands are readily available when sailing. Kids love exploring.

An island treasure hunt is a no-brainer. So, get to work – forget dinner and start burying treasures, right?

Wrong.

In your group of sailing buddies, gather the older kids, who can hide the treasures, figure out the hints, and supervise the adventure.

The fabric swing – Best for any time, any day

Any soft, fabric swing, or even a boatswain’s chair will provide hours of entertainment aboard.

Swinging and spinning around is a lot more fun on a monohull, due to the much larger swing radius. But we have used our swing on a catamaran too. We suspended our from the spinnaker halyard.

From hanging out with a book, through doing wild spins, to playing “truth or drop” over the water – the swing can be an all-time favorite aboard.

Walk the Plank – Best for “punishment”

Boatkids are never in trouble, because they are perfect.

Kind of true, but we do have certain rules aboard, and we enforce them. Kids have been grounded via various land-means.

Yet, to make it really unique – “walking the plank”, or simply jumping in the water to “chill” has been incorporated aboard.

Somehow that fails to bring the point across, most of the time. But it is fun, so we have done it.

Pin these awesome activities for sailing kids for later

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