The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site
John Harries Question: We are considering applying Coppercoat to our aluminum boat and would be interested in your thoughts. I have attached some correspondence that I had with the makers of Coppercoat that may help:
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Question: I’m thinking of leaving the bottom of my aluminum boat unpainted since I’m afraid of electrolysis caused, or at least made worse, by antifouling paint, particularly if the bottom is scratched. The boat is in fresh water, so she will not foul much.
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Question: We have reached a stage now where we want to be cruising very soon (world in 4 to 5 years, local waters well before that), and so we are looking at boats to do this. In two weeks or so we will travel interstate to see this boat: She is a Colin Archer design, 43′ in steel built by a Dutch yard, about 25 years old, appears in very good nick, also very strong (16mm keel, 6mm below WL, 5mm above, 4mm topsides). Safe, too: watertight doors, good helm and fitout etc. (The name and colour are a bit of an issue…) We would have her surveyed of course. But it is her design which I would ask your impressions of, because we would want to take our boat to South Chile and the Horn, and bring her home again.
As a heavy displacement boat she will be slow, maybe 7 knots at best, and I accept this, because her seaworthiness is the most important. But I thought you might have had your ear to the ground about cruising design for a bit longer than I, and am wondering if you could offer your thoughts about her as a boat to go most places.
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Question: I just read your anchoring article in Offshore magazine—a subject really close to our hearts, and went to your website hoping to see how you constructed/designed your bow roller. We have a pretty similar collection of large/heavy anchors, though we do still have a CQR as a secondary (soon to be replaced by a Rocna or SPADE). Our bow roller currently only accommodates one anchor, and we would prefer to have both our Fortress, which is our primary for NE US coastal cruising, and a plow type permanently ready to deploy. If you have any pictures or specs for what you did to accommodate your two anchors, I would very much appreciate seeing them. I have been wandering around boat yards for the past three years since we moved up to our current boat looking for inspiration.
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Our last news letter described our circumnavigation of Newfoundland in the summer of 2005 and our return to Maine for the winter of 2005/06, with a plan to complete the refit of Morgan’s Cloud over the winter and move back aboard in the spring of 2006 to resume our cruising life. It was not to be.
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Reefing is one of those areas where the devil really is in the details. Over the years we have answered dozens of questions about reefing. In this chapter we highlight a few of those and provide our answers.
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So just how much sail area should a voyaging boat have and how should it be distributed? We examine those two issues in this question and answer chapter.
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Okay, this is a big one and to fully understand it will take you a lot of reading. But, if you are contemplating a major custom project, such as a new mast or even a new boat, the time expended here may save you a lot of money and aggravation.
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Morgan’s Cloud was fitted with an hydraulic vang and with hydraulic backstays when we bought her. Initially we were skeptical, feeling that such complexity had no place on a cruising boat, especially one that sails to remote places.
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Question: I have an opportunity to sail from France to the Canaries to Tortola, leaving the end of September through October. What can I expect from a weather perspective based on your experience?
My assumption is we will be in the area of hurricane formation (eastern Atlantic) for the first week then right in the middle of the area where storms build to hurricane force for the last 10 to 14 days. Would that be your assessment? Are there any other things I should know about a trans-Atlantic?
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Question: I wondered if I could seek your advice on a trip that has been suggested to me but that I have serious reservations about: Sailing from the UK to Boston, leaving around the end of May, taking the North Atlantic route. The skipper seems to be under the impression that we will have easterly winds en route but my pilot books don’t back this theory up. They say we’ll have it cold and on the nose most of the way. What about the ice? Satellite images show there’s more of it about every year.
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Oil pan bolts that were stripped during manufacturing at Cummins take three attempts to fix.
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Question: Is slab-reefing (jiffy reefing) and lazy-jacks genuinely viable for a 667sqft sail, given we will be only two sailing our boat most of the time?
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