Liferafts – the most expensive duffel bag I will ever have

May 29, 2012
By Sean O'Flaherty (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Allow me to bemoan a little – it stinks to pay so much money for something that you hope to never use, that will use up precious space, and that has an ongoing maintenance cost because it needs to be checked and repacked every once in a while.  Damn. Why bother, then?  We did not

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Welcome to the 21st Century

May 22, 2012

Times, they are a changing, and perhaps nowhere is this more evident then onboard a sailboat far, far from land.  Access to “data” has changed so much in the last 15 years, that basically nothing I knew when we cruised on Earendil is relevant today.  So, I’ve had to get up to speed on all

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Contemplating an Atlantic crossing

May 21, 2012

I met Justin sailing, and one of the first conversations we ever had had to do with sailing to remote places, over the big ocean.  Adventure appealed to both of us then, and it has kept us wandering in the 17 years since we met. For the past few months, we’ve been focused on bluewater

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Atlantic High

May 20, 2012

Credit for the title to William F. Buckley who wrote an enjoyable little book about his sailing called “Atlantic High”. We bought Shearwater 7 months ago.  She is in Annapolis, MD.  We live in Madrid, Spain.  We really like living in Europe.  It would be great if Shearwater was over here in Europe with us. 

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Why is it?

May 16, 2012

Why is it that with every boat project getting to 90% complete is fairly easy and straightforward and the last 10% ALWAYS involves something stuck, something new broken, or you are missing a critical part and have to run to the marine store or hardware store?  That was certainly our theme for the nearly 3

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The real test – 30 hours of sailing!

May 15, 2012

Projects are great, but in the end, the goal is to let loose the lines on a boat – and let it take you places. Originally, we wanted to take the boat from Annapolis to Newport, RI on this trip, and our preparations were focused on this.  On Saturday evening, April 21st, we had managed

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Do as I say, not as I do…

May 14, 2012

I must eat my words.  I jinxed it.  I should have known better.  A few posts ago I mentioned that Chris & John checked over the Max-Prop and transmission to confirm that the transmission reduction was what I thought it was and that the prop should, in fact, be set up for right hand rotation. 

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Who says instrument and autopilot installation is hard?

May 13, 2012

I suppose that depends on what you mean by “hard”.  For us, it was challenging to think through all the pieces and how to best install the system on our boat.  It was also challenging to squeeze into small spaces with awkward-sized, somewhat-heavy items.  Perhaps the most challenging aspect was figuring out how many fasteners

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Two people, 3000 miles apart…technology miracles and headaches

May 12, 2012

Our goals for this trip were to get lots of things done on our “list” as well as learn as much as possible about our boat.  What to do when we’ve staggered our arrivals, and need to be communicating nearly real-time on decisions that were important for both of us to be involved in? Enter

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Big, Big Day!

April 25, 2012

Hunger Games?  Anyone? Yesterday was a fine, momentous occasion.  Shearwater is now in the water and acting like a boat!  Ah, the smell of the sea, the sound of wind in the ringing, the gentle rock of the boat to the waves.  At least that is how I imagine it from my desk in Madrid.

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