Winter Racing
January 20, 2014
It’s been a gorgeous January in Texas, giving us some great sailing and racing on Galveston Bay. Right after the New Year, Galveston Bay Cruising Associations (GBCA) hosts an informal Icicle Series on Galveston Bay. The race is a reverse start by PHRF rating. 60-70 boats have turned out each Saturday for some fantastic, relatively
Update – Getting settled in Seabrook
September 3, 2013
Shearwater has been at the Seabrook Shipyard off Galveston Bay for almost 2 months now. Even though she is still 3 hours away, that is close enough that we are making regular trips to work on projects and actually do some daysailing. Other than the stifling heat and humidity (we bought a portable LG AC
Florida to Texas – 96 hours of wheel time
July 7, 2013
After bidding our friends who had come to spend a few days in the Florida Keys with us good-bye, we returned to Shearwater and quickly put her in passage-making mode: dinghy stowed, hatches sealed, safety gear accessible, jacklines and harnesses ready. We left Marathon at 4pm, at high tide since the access channel was on
Cruising in the “tropics” – ehhhh
July 7, 2013
Unwired
January 2, 2013
Spending a few days on the boat affords us time to start poking around in cubby holes…and tracing wires that are not labeled…and pulling those wires out to find….they are not attached to anything! Back in the spring, we installed new NKE instrumentation and autopilot on Shearwater – the installation went reasonably well, although there
There and back again
December 16, 2012
French tailgating at the Vendée Globe
November 17, 2012
This past weekend was a fun one filled with ample servings of sailing, travel and good food. We flew to France on Ryan Air (round-trip tickets were $77 each!), and then drove from Beauvais (north of Paris) to Les Sable d’Olonne to see the start of the Vendée Globe nonstop, round-the-world sailboat race. We had learned
Lead up to the start of the Vendée Globe
November 8, 2012
The once-every-four-years Vendée Globe will start this weekend, and 20 solo skippers will set off to race around the world, without stopping. It’s an incredible feat to be able to accomplish – both to manage the boats (think running with scissors) and to deal with the exhaustion…for almost 90 days. It is a delicate balance of
Porto and Oporto
October 21, 2012
Recently, we were able to show our good friends, Ari and Yani, our boat – they are originally from Argentina and had been our neighbors for a few months before moving to another apartment here in Madrid. We meet regularly to solve the world’s problems; our solutions are frequently offered in an eclectic mix of