We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Beau & Brandy Burridge. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Beau & Brandy below.
Beau & Brandy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
The Backstory
We had been living in New York, watching countless YouTube channels about living and traveling on a sailboat fulltime, wondering what it would be like to have that kind of freedom. One night, we found a listing for a 35-foot sailboat online. It was cheap—almost too cheap—but it felt like an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. The catch? We knew nothing about sailing or sailboats.
Despite the unknowns, we drove to Florida, placed our offer of $2200 and they accepted. The moment we handed over the money, it was real. We were boat owners. But when we had Saoirse towed to a marina and hauled out of the water, reality hit hard—what we thought would be a six-month restoration turned into two years of sweat, stress, and sacrifice.
The Risk
We risked everything—our savings, our time, and honestly, our sanity. We had no clue how to fix a boat, but we learned. Every day was a challenge: patching up all the fiberglass issues, replacing the broken engine with a new electric motor and the overwhelming feeling that maybe we had made a huge mistake. Friends and family were skeptical. Some flat-out told us we were crazy.
How It Turned Out
That risk became the best decision we ever made. Saoirse has taken us through storms, across countries, and into a lifestyle that has shaped who we are. It wasn’t just about fixing up a boat, it was about proving to ourselves that we could build a life outside of the ordinary.
Now, nearly a decade later, we’ve sailed thousands of miles, lived full-time on the water, and documented it all through nearly 300 videos on YouTube. What started as a blind leap into the unknown turned into a story of resilience, adventure, and a deep love for the sea.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s this: the biggest risks often lead to the most rewarding journeys.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
We’re Brandy and Beau, the duo behind our YouTube channel, Beau and Brandy Sailing. Nearly a decade ago, we took a leap of faith, bought a $2,200 sailboat, and completely transformed our lives. Since then, we’ve been living full-time aboard Saoirse, our 35-foot all-electric sailboat, sailing across the Caribbean, the East Coast of the U.S., and now exploring Central America.
How We Got Into This Lifestyle & Industry
Before we ever set foot on a sailboat, we were wedding photographers, capturing love stories and creating visual memories for others. But deep down, we craved a life of freedom, adventure, and creativity for ourselves.
So, in 2016, we took the biggest risk of our lives—we bought a sailboat with no prior sailing experience and no idea how to fix it. What was supposed to be a six month restoration turned into two years of hard work, sweat, and learning everything we could about boats, systems, and the realities of life on the water. It was a trial by fire, but we came out the other side with not just a working sailboat but an entirely new way of life.
We started filming our journey, mostly as a way to document our memories and keep ourselves accountable. As we shared our struggles, victories, and raw, unfiltered moments of boat life, something incredible happened, people connected with our story. We think maybe they saw a little of themselves in our journey, in our mistakes, in our persistence, and in our desire to chase a dream that seemed just a little out of reach.
What We Do & The Problems We Solve
Today, we create documentary style sailing content that blends adventure, philosophy, and real-life challenges. We don’t just share the good parts, we show the hard work, the breakdowns, the lessons learned, and the personal growth that comes with this lifestyle.
We believe our videos serve multiple purposes:
Inspiration: We show that you don’t have to be born into this lifestyle to live it. You can learn, adapt, and build a life on the water, even if you start from zero.
Education: We provide real, hands on insight into the realities of boat life, from maintenance and repairs to sustainable living and self-sufficiency.
Entertainment: Our goal is to create visually stunning, emotionally compelling stories that bring viewers along for the ride. We want our audience to feel like they are on the boat with us.
What Sets Us Apart
Instead of mainly focusing on the “dream”, the turquoise waters, the freedom, the escape from the 9-to-5, we’ are not afraid to show the grit and grind that comes with this life. It’s hard.
What we strive for is that our storytelling sets us apart. We bring a unique cinematic and narrative-driven approach to our videos, blending voiceovers, old footage, creative editing, and deep reflection on what this life really means. We’re not just documenting what we do, we are crafting stories that we hope resonate, inspire, and challenge the traditional view of what’s possible.
What We’re Most Proud Of
Our Journey: From two people with no sailing experience to full-time liveaboards navigating the world, it’s been a wild ride.
Our Community: We’ve built a supportive, engaged audience who aren’t just spectators, they are a huge part of this journey with us.
Our Resilience: Whether it’s surviving a crack in our hull offshore in a mayday situation, losing a centerboard at sea, rebuilding an entire electrical system, or hauling out for major repairs, we’ve faced every challenge head-on and kept going.
What We Want Potential Followers & Fans to Know
If you dream of an unconventional life, if you crave adventure but don’t know where to start, if you want to see the raw, unfiltered reality of chasing a big dream, this is the place for you. We’re here to share, to inspire, and to prove that you don’t have to have it all figured out to take the first step.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
One of the most harrowing moments of our sailing journey happened in August 2019 while sailing from Puerto Rico to Grenada. We were five days into the longest offshore passage we had ever taken when I, Brandy, discovered something that made my stomach drop, water was rushing into our bilge.
At first, we thought it was just rain and waves washing over the bow, but then Beau found the real problem: a two-foot crack in the starboard bow, just beneath our water tank. The panic was immediate, but we had no time to waste. We called a Pan-Pan on the radio, but there was only silence in return.
We tried everything! Fast Cure 5200 sealant, stuffing towels into the crack, even butyl tape but the relentless motion of the waves kept flexing the hull, letting more and more water in. We took shifts steering, pumping, and bailing out water while racing toward Grenada, 60 miles away. The exhaustion was setting in, but we had no choice but to keep going.
When the manual bilge pump cracked after eight hours of nonstop use, and our backup pump failed, things took a dire turn. With water rising above my ankles inside the boat, we finally called a Mayday. This time, we got a response. A fishing boat was just five miles away, but they needed time to retrieve their lines before reaching us. That hour felt like an eternity.
Beau tied a safety line and jumped into the sea, trying to patch the crack from the outside. He fought the waves, stuffing more butyl tape into the damaged hull while I continued bailing water from inside. Just as exhaustion was about to take over, we saw a red and white fishing boat approaching. Two smiling Grenadian fishermen had come to our rescue, carrying a rusty sheet of metal and a swirl of black, green, and yellow goop, underwater epoxy. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
That passage tested every bit of resilience we had. We were sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, and facing the very real possibility of losing our boat, but we refused to give up. Our quick thinking, teamwork and sheer determination kept us afloat until help arrived. And when we finally made it to Grenada, exhausted but safe, we knew, we could handle anything the sea threw our way.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When we started our sailing journey, building a social media audience wasn’t our goal. We were wedding photographers before buying our boat and we just wanted to document our adventure as a visual memory book. But we also knew that if we committed to sharing regularly, it would hold us accountable to keep filming and improving our storytelling. So, we started uploading our journey to YouTube without any real expectations.
In the beginning, our videos were rough, shaky footage, bad music, not a lot of editing. It was just us figuring things out as we went. But over time, we learned what worked: consistency, authenticity, engagement, and constant improvement. We committed to uploading regularly, even when life onboard was challenging. Instead of trying to copy bigger creators, we leaned into our unique perspective, sharing the real ups and downs of sailing. We took the time to respond to comments, answer questions, and build a genuine community. And with every video, we focused on getting better at filming, storytelling, and editing.
At first, growth was slow. But after about a year, one of our videos took off, bringing in a wave of new subscribers. From there, things snowballed. People connected with our honesty, our struggles, and our determination to keep going, even when the boat threw every challenge imaginable at us.
For anyone just starting out, the biggest advice is to start before you feel ready, you’ll learn as you go. Be consistent and show up regularly, even when growth is slow. Focus on storytelling because people connect with journeys, not just pretty clips. Engage with your audience and treat them like friends, not numbers. And most importantly, be patient. Social media isn’t about overnight success, it’s about showing up, sharing your story and letting the right people find you over time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.beauandbrandy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beauandbrandy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beauandbrandy
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@beauandbrandy
Image Credits
beau and brandy sailing