Sailing Couples: You NEED a 3rd Pole
Moving onto a boat with your partner and leaving behind a land-based life is an emotional journey.
Anyone who tells you its not literally doesn't exist because it's that true.
It's messy, magical, sometimes bordering on crazy making.
And when you live in close quarters on a floating house that needs constant attention in the uncertain and unpredictable nature of the ocean...
...The sailing lifestyle inherently comes with unique challenges and opportunities that can amplify both the strengths and tensions in a partnership.
This goes for romantic partners, yes. But it's just as true for platonic short-hand sailing.
And without a unifying vision that you can both turn to during challenging or transitional periods, you will start to feel tension, drift apart, focusing solely on individual goals.
It's completely natural. But it's not necessary.
The shared relationship vision we'll explore today is called your 3rd pole, as named by Jennifer Russel and Bryan Franklin.
They're a couple of beautiful people who ran an excellent couples' retreat in 2016 in San Diego, Calif.
My husband and I have had a 3rd pole ever since we began our relationship together thanks to them. It's especially important for couples who are real opposites like he and I are.
What is a 3rd Pole?
A 3rd Pole is the shared vision or purpose that exists between two people in relationship. It is the ideal you create and strive for together.
This is the "why" that adds stability to your relationship during the difficult times and moments when you need to make big decisions.
Imagine a stool. If you are one leg, your partner is the other, your 3rd Pole is, obviously, the third which makes it stable.
While each partner may have their own dreams, the 3rd Pole is where those dreams intersect.
It’s the space where individuality and partnership coexist, forming something unique that strengthens your bond.
In practical terms, the third pole answers these questions:
- What are we building together?
- What do we stand for as a team?
- What’s the life we want to create?
An example of the 3rd Pole Jeff and I chose when we first started dating was simply the word "Range." We wanted to explore as many possibilities together as we discovered who we were as a unit.
Your 3rd pole has a shelf life
As you and your partner evolve, so will your 3rd Pole.
Our 3rd Pole of "Range" expired after a year when it felt it had reached its natural conclusion. Then it became "Foundation Building" where we committed that next year to building our businesses and creating the foundation for our future.
Your 3rd Pole should evolve as you do and you'll know it's time when it doesn't light you up anymore.
Right now, our 3rd Pole is called "Freedom '25." A shoutout to the Trailer Park Boys, the national treasures of Jeff's home country of Canada. Despite the irreverence of the phrase, it's so multifaceted and special to us.
It represents the ideal of holding on to our own power, feeling free from constriction regardless of circumstance, free to love ourselves, each other, and others boundlessly and respectfully... there's a lot that goes with it.
And one day, it will change again.
Why Sailing duos NEED a 3rd Pole
The lifestyle demands constant collaboration.
Sailing and liveaboard life require ongoing teamwork. On land you might be able to wing it. But out here, there's not a lot of room for aimlessness.
Weather, mechanical issues, financial complexities are constant factors. A 3rd Pole offers stability in the face of uncertainty, giving you something to hold on to when decisions aren't so simple.
For example, when it came to the impossibly complex question of which boat to buy, we looked to "Freedom '25":
- Which offers us the experience of freedom the most?
- Which offers us enough financial room to feel free?
- Which will offer us the greatest range in how we want to experience freedom?
- Does it have enough room to feel free in our bodies? To invite people over? To sail with ease of mind?
The 3rd Pole helps to become the collaborative tie breaker for big questions like this.
The lifestyle is deeply transformational
Living on the water often leads to profound personal growth and shifts in perspective. A shared vision helps ensure that these transformations deepen the connection between you two rather than pulling you apart in different directions.
As one partner discovers a passion for regenerative living and the other for community potlucks, the 3rd Pole might evolve to include ways to incorporate these new purposes into their adventures.
If one partner is feeling homesick or misses the old routines, the 3rd Pole can help re-center them on the reasons they chose the lifestyle.
How do you create your 3rd Pole?
There are so many ways you can do this. Jeff and I usually ask ourselves, what is the thing we'd like to be considered absurd in 50 years.
The answers in we came up with in Jan 2025 were:
- Over consumption
- The hostility of political division
We clearly didn't want to make our shared vision directly about these things but the values were in there somewhere.
Then we reverse engineered it. What do we value if those are the things we saw as anti-values?
- Sustainability
- Unity through diversity
Next, how could we construct a life that role-models these values?
- Through the ideal of freedom.
- Freedom from material possessions that just weight us down.
- Freedom from emotional hijacking because we're committed to training mindfulness and equanimity.
- Freedom from social division as we strive to cultivate diverse friendships where ever we go.
And Freedom '25 was born! Because even though we're serious about our evolution and alignment, we're also still dummies that like Trailer Park Boys.
If that process doesn't work for you, you can also simply ask yourselves:
- What kind of adventure are we hoping to create together?
- How do we want to grow individually and as a couple while living on the water?
- What legacy do we want to leave behind?
Write it down. Carve it into your galley table if you have to.
I think it's that much of a game changer.
Thank you Jennifer and Bryan!
Read more articles on Love:
- How to Get Your Partner Onboard, Literally
- The Psychology of Couples' Docking
- Find Your Liveaboard Team's Strengths and Weaknesses
