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Sailing with Six

One Family, Four Kids, and No Fixed Address

Introduction

Most families planning a world circumnavigation would start with sailing lessons. Kris and Shona Fothergill started with 27 pieces of luggage, including eight surfboards, four kiteboards, eight kites, three ukuleles and a skateboard. That says something about what the Sailing with Six YouTube channel is aboiut: less a sailing tutorial, more a portrait of a family that happens to live on the water and treats every anchorage as an invitation to get in the sea.

The channel follows the Fothergills from their home on Australia’s Gold Coast, through the South Pacific, across the Pacific to Mexico, down through Central America, and onward through Southeast Asia, with an Indian Ocean crossing to Africsa. It is a long-running, family-made vlog with a clear message: adventure is available to anyone willing to rethink how they live.

Background

Kris and Shona were high school sweethearts who married young, at 20 and 21, and started their family in 2009. Kris, a Kiwi raised in Australia, had been around boats since childhood, earning enough at 13 from a weekend supermarket job to buy his first boat. Shona grew up closer to land, preferring to read, cook, or snorkel in the shallows. Between them they built a life on the Gold Coast, owning a home and holding down jobs, before deciding to do something different.

The decision to go cruising was planned around the children while they were still young, a desire to slow down and travel as a family before the kids grew too old. They sold the house, downsized to a two-bedroom apartment as a transitional step, and eventually moved aboard full-time in early 2019. Kris continued working remotely from the boat for a period; the kids were already home-schooled, so the logistics of schooling at sea were not a dramatic leap.

What the Channel Is About

Sailing with Six covers the ins and outs of family life afloat: offshore passages, anchorage life, local cultures, extreme water sports, home education, and the practical realities of keeping a cruising catamaran running across ocean crossings. The tone is warm and energetic.

The Fothergills are on the water to show that a different version of ordinary is possible for families who want to live differently.

Water sports feature heavily throughout the channel. The whole family surfs, and kite surfing has become a big part of their lives. Episodes regularly include footage of kiting, wing foiling, freediving, and fishing alongside the sailing content.

The Boat

The family’s current boat is a 2012 Leopard 46 catamaran named Happy Days. The switch from their original monohull came while they were in Fiji in 2021, where they had spent about eight months. Growing kids was the catalyst: as the children got bigger, the need for more space and a larger tender became obvious.

They found the Leopard 46 in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, via the Leopard Owners Group on Facebook. The family flew to Mexico and began sailing the Sea of Cortez.

Before the Leopard 46, the Fothergills lived aboard a 51-foot Dufour Gib’Sea monohull from early 2019. Their first ocean passage on that boat, from Australia’s east coast to New Caledonia, took seven days. It was on the Dufour that they sailed to Vanuatu and later rode out the pandemic in New Zealand before spending most of 2020-2021 in Fiji.

The Crew

Kris learned to sail step by step rather than formally, building skills across years of boat ownership, and his approach to the channel reflects that: he is enthusiastic and accessible rather than instructional.

Shona has taken up surfing and is progressing through kite surfing, which she documents with brutal honesty about the learning curve.

Bella, the eldest, is First Mate aboard. She handles boat manoeuvres, surfs, and kiteboards at a high level, is an decent ukulele player, makes her own sustainable health products, and won an international photography competition while living aboard. Finn is the family’s fisherman and an aspiring watch-keeper. Archie surfs and kiteboards. Pippi, the youngest, is working her way through kitesurfing and diving.

10 Notable Episodes

  1. First Ocean Passage: Australia to New Caledonia (Season 1, 2019): The Fothergills’ first seven-day offshore passage marks the real beginning of the cruising life and sets the channel’s tone for what follows.
  2. New Zealand Cyclone Season: The family sails south from Vanuatu to New Zealand, arriving just ahead of the COVID lockdowns and documenting the unplanned extended stay in a country that turned out to be a good place to be stranded.
  3. Eight Months in Fiji: An extended chapter covering the family’s life in Fiji, where Shona learned to surf and the kids progressed rapidly through water sports; also the point at which the monohull-to-catamaran decision was made.
  4. Buying the Leopard 46 Sight Unseen: The logistics and risk of purchasing a boat on the other side of the world, sight unseen, via a Facebook group. A compelling and instructive episode for anyone considering a similar leap.
  5. BOAT TOUR: Leopard 46 (S2 E2, November 2021): A full tour of Happy Days, explaining how a family of six makes a 46-foot catamaran work, where everyone sleeps, and what had to change from the monohull.
  6. Sea of Cortez Sailing: Multiple episodes covering what the Fothergills found when they arrived in Mexico with their surfboards and kites, including the remote anchorages and wildlife of the Sea of Cortez.
  7. Heading South to Costa Rica: The family tracks down the Pacific coast of Central America toward Costa Rica’s surf breaks, a passage that combined offshore sailing with the specific goal of finding good waves.
  8. Life Aboard in Costa Rica (Episode 477, January 2026): The family explores Tortuga Island and celebrates Christmas on board, offering a snapshot of what long-term cruising family life looks like years into the journey.
  9. Indonesia Arrival: The Fothergills reach Southeast Asia, opening a new chapter of the journey with different cultures, anchorages, and conditions to those of the Pacific and the Americas.
  10. Bella’s Photography: Not a single episode but a thread running through the channel’s more recent content: eldest daughter Bella’s photography has become notable enough that she won an external competition, and episodes featuring her work give the channel a visual quality above the average sailing vlog.

Destinations and Topics Covered

Destinations: Gold Coast (Australia), New Caledonia, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Fiji, Mexico (Sea of Cortez, Puerto Penasco, Baja), Pacific coast of Central America (Costa Rica), Indonesia, with Thailand and Malaysia planned ahead, Indian Ocean crossing, Africa.

Topics include: homeschooling at sea, family dynamics aboard a catamaran, kitesurfing and wing foiling, surfing, freediving, fishing, boat buying and the monohull-to-catamaran transition, provisioning for a large family, DIY maintenance, passage planning for offshore crossings, and life in remote anchorages across the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Summary

Sailing with Six is a family adventure channel first, and a sailing channel second. The Fothergills are not sailing instructors or boat reviewers, and the channel makes no claim to be either. What it offers is a long teme portrait of a family that has built a life on the water across multiple oceans, and multiple boats, with four children who have grown up through it all.

For sailors and families considering the liveaboard lifestyle, the practical content around boat choice, space management, remote schooling, and long passages is very useful. For others, the water sports footage and the family’s energy carry the channel well

Watch at: youtube.com/@sailingwithsix

Website: sailingwithsix.com