Messing About In Sailboats

Sailing Round Britain on A Beach Cat - New Attempt

A year or so ago, two young Brits, Chris Brooks and Glen Foster, were preparing to set off to sail round Britain on a beach cat. Sadly during their preparation Glen was lost at sea during a storm off Portugal. One year later, Chris is trying again, this time alone. I received the following from Suzy, who is supporting the effort. The photo is Chris practicing. "I wanted to let you know that Chris is starting his journey around Britain on Thursday 31 May from the Solent and will do it solo and hope to complete in under 28 days. He has a modified (for single handed sailing) F18 beach catamaran and a gracious sponsor that provided the funds for boat and sail. We also have had a lot of kit donated. So far we have raised more than £9,700 for the NSPCC Childline and I am sure will exceed... Read more →

That's Us

That little white speck is us on Cadence under sail in New York Harbor. We had a wonderful sail yesterday with our friends, Rob and Colleen. We left Perth Amboy at 1120 in light winds, motoring and sailing under the Verazzano by 1415 and into New York Harbor. We ran wing-on-wing across the harbor, up the Hudson to Chelsea Piers (23rd Street). NY Harbor is very choppy at the entrance to the Hudson and there is a lot of traffic so it was challenging as well as spectacular. We then beat South, tack on tack all the way through the harbor, close-hauled in a nice breeze down the Hudson tacking from the Hoboken side to downtown Manhattan. The Tall Ships were in town for Opsail 2012. We saw Eagle and few others in the distance but sadly not up close. We came down the west side of the harbor, past... Read more →

Happy Memorial Day

Sailing Photo Of The Day - Wow!

Electrical Issue - Epilogue

Earlier in the week, I blogged about my electrical issues. I eventually gave up trying to fix it myself (not a long trip) and took the boat to the marina where the Great Joel, the excellent contractor who can fix anything, resides. It took Joel a good few hours of poking around to get to the bottom of it. It turns out it was a ground issue, specifically the ground cable back to the panel was the root cause. As a result there was a 3 volt drop between the batteries and the panel. Apparently, the cable was old and knackered (like its owner) and now that it's replaced, I am hopeful that the issue is fixed. Over the last few weeks there were many opinions offered, fairly evenly split between a short or a ground issue. The "grounds" had it. Onward! Read more →