Tag: J/120

Golden Gate fly by!

Over Memorial Day Weekend we went for a leisurely sail out to El Pacifico.  The idea was to do some downwind practice with the autopilot in some swells.  We got in some good, fast rides, but not exactly what we expected.  We made a short video of the tour of the Bay and beyond. Video

Memorial Day is Inspection Day

Straight off a flight back from 12 days in Europe for work we spent the long weekend on Shearwater getting ready for Pac Cup.  One of the big activities was going up the mast to fix a wonky deck light, tape up the spreader tips better, tape over the steaming light a little to make

Winter Racing

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

First Race!

Last Saturday was a momentous occasion for Shearwater, Chris, and I.  We did our first race together.  Specifically we did a Rum Race on Galveston Bay hosted by GBCA.  Rum races are a somewhat informal Saturday evening pursuit race where boats start in reverse order of their PHRF rating.  That is, the slow boats start

Porto to Gibraltar – What 30-40 knots looks like

Video – What 30-40 knots looks like

Video – Landfall in the Azores

Here’s our third video.  Days 10-14 up to landfall in the Azores. Landfall in the Azores    

Video – Crossing the Atlantic – The Windy Days

This is the second video, days 6-10, where we had a lot of strong breeze. Crossing the Atlantic – The Windy Days  

Video – Crossing the Atlantic – First 5 Days

We shot about 8 hours of video during the crossing.  Trying to distill that down to a few watchable bits takes some time, but it is quite fun.  Since we are quite new to video editing we are taking a two-pronged approach.  First, we are making 3 or 4 short videos for the ADD types.

But why a J/120?

Good question.  Thanks for asking. It’s been almost 10 years since we were boat owners.  Our priorities have changed only slightly, with much of the change based on our experience with Earendil, our trusty 1977 Valiant 32 that we lived on for almost 5 years.  Prior to 2011, while living in Texas, we decided that