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Read more: The Best Of The Old WorldIt has been so good to be underway again, after a long, forced spell ashore. Not that it wasn’t without its positive side, but there are only so many weeks in a boatyard you can endure, even when it’s in a country as warm and friendly as Portugal. And it was even more enjoyable, knowing […]
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Read more: We Need Our SleepIt’s a funny thing, sleep, isn’t it—too much of it can make us sluggish, not enough and we can come close to collapse. Preparing for a passage, it’s vital to get enough rest in advance, but we find that’s one of the most difficult things to achieve. Resting well in the days before departure should […]
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Read more: The Straits Of Belle Isle—Enough With The Northeast WindAfter 20 years of sailing north toward Newfoundland and on to Labrador, John thought he knew how to get it done…until the weather patterns threw him a curve ball.
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Read more: Going Without Insurance For Offshore Cruising?Colin looks at the options of going without any insurance at all, or only liability.
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Read more: First Aid, Prevention Is Better Than CureBut better than all the courses and kits is prevention—in other words, maybe your boom preventer should be considered part of your medical kit!
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Read more: Great First Aid Course For Offshore VoyagersJohn and Phyllis praise the Red Cross Wilderness First Aid Course they took in Nova Scotia and highly recommend it for anyone planning to go to remote places or offshore.
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Read more: Experts Worth Their Weight In GoldBack afloat at last, and it’s so good to feel Pèlerin swing to the wind and tide at anchor once more, after what seemed an endless winter. The last few weeks in the boatyard have been exhausting, as we’ve slogged through the work getting her ready for the long haul after a series of false […]
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Read more: Things to Know About Anchor ChainThere are probably more misconceptions and just plain wrong information circulating about anchor chain than most any other piece of cruising gear. For this chapter I went to the experts at Peerless Chain to get the real facts.
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Read more: A Winter In CharlestonCharleston, South Carolina is a great place to spend the winter…so we went back for a second year.
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Read more: Q&A: Radar Reflectors and/or AIS Transponders?Question [Edited for brevity]: We have been upgrading the safety equipment on board our boat and are thinking of installing radar reflectors to amplify and enhance the radar signal we create to alerting oncoming vessels of our position during offshore sailing in bad weather and heavy seas. The Echomax Active-XS-Dual Band reflector seems very good, […]
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Read more: It’s Painting Time AgainAs the old saying goes, you pay for your pleasures, and that’s certainly true when it comes round to the annual re-fit. The many little jobs that were just too awkward afloat, added to the big ones like antifouling, can all back up and lead to a formidable worklist.
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Read more: Serve Your ApprenticeshipPhyllis tells an all too common sad story and then moves on to tips to prevent it happening to you.
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Read more: Why Go North? For The PeopleThough this is third in the series explaining why we keep going north, it’s not down the list in our hearts: the people we meet in the north are a big reason we keep going back.
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Read more: A Great ResourcePractical Sailor is only magazine we still subscribe to. We have been getting their great information on all things boating gear for over 25 years. In that time the magazine has saved us untold amounts of money, not to speak of frustration and wasted time, by helping us to source the best gear available and […]
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Read more: Feathering Propeller ReviewWhen we took delivery of our new OVNI 435 in 2008, we decided to stick with the standard 3 bladed propeller, partly for reasons of cost (we were running out of cash!). But on all of my previous boats I’d had either a folding or feathering prop, and fully intended to fit one to Pèlerin […]
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Read more: A Propane Tank GotchaThis is a small FYI post about a big pain in the butt! The gotcha started innocently enough with me blithely loading our propane tanks into the back of the car and driving to our local Canadian Tire to get them filled—as I had done with no problems in the past—prior to our heading south […]
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Read more: Priorities In PreparationYou will never get everything done on your boat. This we guarantee. So one of the most important skills you can have as a boat maintenance technician is prioritization. In this chapter John tells a story of when he got his priorities wrong, and what he learned from that.
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Read more: The Perfect SeaberthOne of the most important factors in making safe seamanlike passages is getting as much rest as possible. And one of the most important factors in getting enough rest is having a proper seaberth.
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Read more: A Big Adventurer In A Small BoatOn our way to Svalbard (Spitsbergen) in Morgan’s Cloud in 2002, we stopped at Teltvika, a cove on the west side of Bjørnøya (Bear Island), a virtually uninhabited island which lies at the halfway mark on the 550 nautical mile passage from Norway. During our second evening at Teltvika, the fog came in pea soup […]
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Read more: That’s One Way To Do It…For many impecunious youngsters around the world a ‘project’ is the only chance of getting out on the ocean road, and good luck and full respect to them.
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Read more: Air-Sea Safety and Survival Inc.We are really careful about getting our liferaft serviced each year. So back in the fall we contacted Raymond Harvey at Air-Sea Safety and Survival Inc, here in Charleston, South Carolina, where we are spending the winter.
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Read more: Why Go North? For The SceneryThis one is almost too much of a cliché to mention but, since we are talking about why we go north, the scenery is definitely one of the big draws.
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Read more: Making Life Easier—Roller Reefing/FurlingColin shares the details on the Harken roller reefing system they installed on their OVNI 435.
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Read more: Clear The Decks For ActionThere are few things more unseamanlike than a lot of clutter on deck. But, on the other hand, we all like our toys. Here are some thoughts (with photographs) on the things you really don’t want to festoon your boat with.
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Read more: Making Life Easier—Storm JibColin and Louise carry a dedicated hanked on storm jib ready to go when necessary. Colin tells us why and how.
