You may have noticed the new Facebook and Twitter buttons on attainableadventurecruising.com. We haven’t done this lightly!
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This may be a little off topic, but then again many voyaging sailors are, like me, also avid photographers, so here goes.
I just got back from an intensive one week travel photography workshop taught by Bob Krist, who is one of the best and most prolific travel photographers around.
But more than that, Bob has a pragmatic approach that works well in the real world of boat-borne travel photography where we need to be able to get good shots with gear that we can carry comfortably on our boats, not to speak of on our aging backs, and while still having a life. He is also great fun to learn from: smart, funny, and articulate.
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One of our new snubbing lines and hook, with a standard hook for comparison
During our time in the Rias of Galicia we’ve enjoyed many comfortable nights at anchor. But as is the case in any area surrounded by hills we’ve had plenty of wind at times, rolling down off those same hills, or funnelling down the valleys. We had one memorable night where despite the fact that we had some shelter, the gusts were blasting ferociously around a small promontory to windward, obviously due to a curious land effect. And although we were well sheltered from any sea, some of the gusts were fierce enough to send Pelerin swinging around her anchor. [Read More…]
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Back in March, when we were crossing the US/Canada border heading for Maine to start the re-power project on Morgan’s Cloud, a US Homeland Security officer asked the usual questions about what the purpose of our visit was. After I explained that we were replacing the engine in our boat, he asked how long we would be in the US? My answer was greeted with a look of incredulity and “THREE MONTHS?”. Clearly the officer had never owned an offshore sailboat.
The way we came up with the three month estimate was to list everything that had to be done, assign reasonable times to each task, total them up, and then double the result—pretty accurate as it turned out.
Here is a captioned photo essay on what we were doing all that time.
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I have, with a few short breaks, lived either on, or within a stone’s throw, of salt water all my life. My earliest childhood memories are of commuting by boat from a small island where we lived to a larger island called Bermuda.
I have spent the majority of the last twenty years voyaging on the ocean. Or in fact one ocean: the North Atlantic. An 0cean that I feel a special and deep connection to, even though it has contrived to scare me witless on several occasions and make me both uncomfortable and/or seasick on countless others.
I feel a deep and visceral horror about the oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, together with dread about the long term effects on the ocean I love and the animals that live in it.
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Question
Do you have a rope cutter?
I ask because we are thinking of fitting an Ambassador Stripper
(stainless) to a new build alloy [aluminum] yacht with an alloy sterntube, and we wonder if it is possible to get the two to live happily together.
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Sunny Spain in June
After nearly 20 years of going North, our decision for 2010 was to head South in search of new horizons and the sun. Last year in the Hebrides was wonderful, but when the weather broke in August we were glad to move on, and we know we’ll be back one day.
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[Last winter, while living on Polaris for a month, I wrote about the boat’s kerosene stove (cooker), which sparked a lively debate in the comments about the benefits and drawbacks of various cooking fuels on boats.
Continuing that theme, we just got a note from our good friend and Norwegian Correspondent for the Norwegian Cruising Guide, Hans Jacob Valderhaug, who cruises extensively with his wife Eli Husum on their Hallberg Rassy 32, Anna. In fact they are bound for Svalbard as I write.
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Question:
We’re about to build a shoreline system. We have two reels from Easyroll that can take about 150 m of 12 mm line each. I’ve seen the system used by “Polaris”, and it looks very solid, but my concern is, obviously, the cost of using Dyneema [Spectra].
As far as I can see the only alternative to Dyneema will be polyamide [Nylon] lines, less cost, but also by far less strength. 12 mm gives about 3,4 metric tones breaking load, versus 10 mm Dyneema with 9 tons.
- How strong (breaking load) should a shoreline be to be sufficient to suit our 20 ton boat?
- What kind of, and how much shore line do you guys carry?
- Are they often used (normal anchorage situations during cruising season)?
- If you were about to make a system, like we are, which system would you choose, money taken into consideration?
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Question:
I received a Cris Craft 32′ cruiser/racer as a gift. This is my first boat and I’d like to sail it to France from NYC. I’m preparing it for solo sailing and would like your opinion on it’s survivability. A Sparkman& Stephens design…it has a fin keel and a lovely interior. It has been upgraded with a roller furler jib. Vetus diesel (25hp) and a steering system to replace the tiller. But I’m not certain of an Atlantic crossing with a 32′ [boat] being wise !
Can you suggest what preparations I require and the best time and route to sail?
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We are finally out of the boat yard after the re-power and so I thought I would celebrate with a Photo Short.
Gear heads, please don’t worry, there will be more posts on the engine project in the coming weeks.
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The Boreal 44 is crisp to windward
After a good nights sleep aboard I was rested and looking forward to a short sail aboard the Boreal 44. But as Jean-Francois Eeman arrived with breakfast, things didn’t look promising as we looked out through the drizzle onto a flat calm river. Eventually though we agreed to go out and look for some wind out in the bay.And it was as well that we did, as we were rewarded with a light breeze outside that at least enabled us to put her through her paces a little.
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A really interesting thread of comments has developed about rudders and other movable appendages on the second part of Colin’s three part series on the French aluminum expedition yacht from Boreal.
Click on the photograph to see it larger.
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[We just got a great comment by Lawrence Trimingham from Bermuda, on our post on a late season crossing in a MacGregor 65, that we thought was so interesting that we are putting it up as a post. Lawrence has literally lived with the boat “man and boy” since his father bought Bermudian Escape 20 plus (?) years ago. He not only addresses the boat’s suitability for the crossing planned by the original questioner, he has also provided a really good overview of this very interesting cruising boat.] [Read More…]
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Juan Sa Bulan 3 at rest in Treguier
Having spent half a day going around the Boreal factory looking at the boats in build, I was looking forward to seeing the completed item. The boat that is used by the factory as their demonstrator ‘Juan Sa Bulan 3 was built for Jean-Francois Eeman and his family with two small children, and they kindly offered to let me stay on board, which allowed me time to have a good look around and get the feel of things. [Read More…]
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