Archive for February, 2011
Tits, togs, and Thailand. Still.
I think that you can tell a lot about regional tourism demographics by counting tits and togs. A third category, the ‘douche bag’ was recently dropped from this highly precise science. They are the bronzed class populated by the shiny, the bodily hairless who carry a distinct reek of someone trying to fit in at any cost. They walk with a swagger that would embarrass those they are unsuccessfully trying to emulate. There’s the surf douche, the jock douche, the biker douche et all. They couldn’t be ignored and so found a place in the formula for a while until we realized that like some viruses they are frighteningly prolific with no geographic boundaries. I’ve concluded that today’s douche bag is too ubiquitous to provide any statistical ‘origin of tourist’ insight, so he’s been dropped.
So we are anchored in Nai Harn now, it’s on the south western tip of Phuket and judging by the tits and togs quotient has a remarkably high concentration of southern Mediterranean tourists. Judging by the douche bag quotient it’s just like any other place in the world with a scene. It is a refreshingly beautiful change from Ao Chalang though. Here we take a guilty pleasure from the status that landing our dinghy on a tourist packed beach affords us. Of course this weeklong vacation crowd has no idea how categorically unglamorous our life actually is, but who are we to dissuade them?
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Thailand has this interesting union of the devout and the debauched. Monasteries are a stone throw from 25 naked Thai chicks with numbers on their wrists; they get paid to do the wild thing. Then you’ve got beaches like this one flooded with topless and tog wearing Europeans, contrasted against the never nude psyche of the traditionally living locals 2 kilometres away. It’s even reflected in the local cuisine; the blend of hot and sour, sweet and spicy, fried and fresh. Sport? No exception, the nearly religious respect and tradition inherent in their national sport (kick boxing) stands in total distinction from the protagonists ultimately kicking the ever loving shit out of each other. Even our own experience seems to have been infected. The endless hours of boat drudgery we would rather forget were contrasted against truly unforgettable friends and experiences. I love a good juxtaposition, and Thailand has served it up in spades.
 05-Feb-2011 02:15, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100 |
Speaking of which, our recent mostly by chance encounter with Mark, aka Fearless. Back in Fiji he captained the marauding crew of Kaohale Kai that stole our damned boat. The first of many reasons for our delay in leaving this Thailand was due to his impending arrival and the opportunity to meet his new squeeze Lisa. It was a delay well worth it. Our reunion took place back at the scene of an earlier crime (New Years Eve ) on Bangla Road in Patong. After catching up on what they’ve been up to since we parted ways in Tonga, we carried on like we had never left, and like we had known Lisa for years, she was just that kind of person. Very good times, maybe too good (as you can see) but definitely too short. After an overnight trip to see them that ended up lasting three days we finally got back to the boat and tried to get on with things. Central to keeping that from happening were a couple more characters from our recent past.
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Michael and Phil each have their own boats and have woven themselves into the Ao Chalang fabric. Confirming our suspicions that the mystery noise which had presented itself after our engine installation was in fact something worth worrying about, they helped us fill the time that it took to have the problem addressed. We found ourselves in a series of blurry Ao Chalang adventures which were invariably spawned from the Mini Mart launch pad. I can’t say too much about the location (to expose it to the douche bags would ruin it) but can with clean conscience describe it as a table always ready with some of the best company and undoubtedly the cheapest self serve beer the town has to offer. Jaime was befriended by the knitting hookers (nobody’s sure which of their trades came first… are they knitting to supplement the hooking or the other way around?). They were lovely and had hearts of gold. We miss them already and will remember the one two punch of the Ao Chalang Mini Mart and candy massage with great fondness.
06-Feb-2011 01:29, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100 |
Eventually we cajoled our Boat Lagoon mechanics back onto the Slapdash to sort this alignment problem out. Basically you adjust the engine mounts (4 little rubber feet the engine sits on) until the engine, gearbox, and prop shaft all line up perfectly. The manual only allows for tolerances of 0.25 of a millimetre so it’s definitely something we needed perfect before setting off on a 4000 plus service starved nautical miles up to the Mediterranean. After all of the opinions solicited, the debating and the waiting, the mechanics quiet arrival and 1 hour spent on board wrench turning was kind of anti climactic. We tested it out and there are no funny sounds, no vibration, and nothing stopping us from leaving Thailand… well, almost nothing.
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Pirates! No really. Nearly the eve of our departure and word around the sea shore starts spreading fast that there has been a recent spike in activity along our intended route. “50 boats have been pirated, people are turning around and coming back to Thailand!” was the message reverberating furiously through the yachtie haunts yesterday. We heard it over and over. As usual the origins of this sudden proclamation were difficult to track down. Although highly doubtful we decided that it warranted a look.
Maybe it’s our own fault for being flip regarding the topic, but I assure you that despite some opinions we have certainly not ignored the risk, and vehemently disagree that ‘we are crazy to take this route now’ as we have been told. We have carefully evaluated the risk, discussed the risk, and totally accepted the risk (however infinitesimal it may be). Based on the most recent blip we decided to contact friends already in the Maldives and scoured the internet for factual reports. Maybe something had changed; it would only be prudent to give this some scrutiny right? After all our plan has nothing to do with armaments, military escort or convoy; it’s based on an assessment of the facts, and the facts overwhelmingly support our opinion that these very real pirates often attack merchant vessels between the Maldives and the Red Sea. In 2010 one attack on a yacht has been reported. One. More than ten times that many yachts have been lost right here in Thailand over the past month due to a far less sensational word; weather! Based on that fact I’m surprised anyone at all here leaves the safety of land in a boat. But apparently we had some new ones, so it was time to consider them.
The facts supporting this recent flare appear to be the same. There really has been a spike (whether this is a week to week, or year over year comparison I don’t know for sure) but they have all been on merchant vessels; so from that regard the number doesn’t matter (to us), its business as usual. The other notable change is that pirates now seem to be operating outside of their predictable zones. Speculation has it that this is due to the increasing multi-national military presence finally blowing the bastards up in the established hot spots, and the innovative pirate’s subsequent measure of launching attack boats from offshore mother ships. This is bad news for merchant vessels taking the long way around to avoid trouble areas; clearly the pirates now have greater range. This is good news for us, since we will be transiting the patrolled areas that they seem to be vacating. If you are going to lose sleep please do it for one of the hundred other things that could go wrong. Not to replace one fear with another, it’s just that we find this particular concern ironic and misplaced. Our highest risk activities take place on land (Odds on favourites? Scooters and questionable company). On the ocean experience tells us that we are most likely to lose our boat while at anchor. On passage weather is always a friend and foe worthy of our preparations (especially this season). Jaime’s closest brush? Falling between the fenders while rafted up to another boat. Mine? An Indonesian scooter crash resulting in a couple of scrapes. Let’s get off the pirate thing. It’s beginning to demand unwarranted attention in a pop star’s nipple kind of way.
Moving on to weather. What the hell is going on? Something strange is afoot. Nothing seems to be linking up quite the way it should this season. Sure, a term like ‘prevailing conditions’ allows room for the unexpected, but synonyms for prevailing like; general, widespread, and popular indicate that over a given period of time you will encounter them more often than most. We value local opinion more than most when it comes to this topic (who knows the neighbourhood variances season over season any better?) and nearly all we’ve met between here and Bali have complained of the same missing consistency that we’ve noticed. Late as usual, we are well into February now and still seem to be waiting for the clockwork appearance of the Northeast monsoon that is supposed to be comfortably pushing us to Sri Lanka. We are anchored in a spot right now that should be completely sheltered this time of year. Instead I’m constantly looking over my shoulder frowning at strong westerly gusts that threaten to turn our chosen spot into a lee shore situation. The reason I’m writing this right now instead of looking over my shoulder at a shrinking Thailand is because of this strange un-forecast weather. We would be under power and beating directly into 20 knots of wind instead of enjoying what is meant to be a thousand mile downhill pleasure cruise.
So here we are. The rumours dispelled, the boat sorted and staged sitting around counting tits and togs. The water, diesel, propane trifecta already replenished after being eroded during our long wait since the last time we were ‘ready to go’. Waiting for the wind. We had accepted that there would be very little. We were surprised by finding a lot coming from exactly the wrong direction that it’s meant to this time of year. We’ve spent up all of our local currency, we’ve downloaded our (increasingly irrelevant) forecasts. In other words we are physically and mentally prepared to get on with our longest passage since leaving Australia. Since we are ready to get underway as soon as conditions permit, it’s unlikely that you will see another post from us before we get to Sri Lanka but can now keep the site updated with ‘location and condition’ type messages via the sat phone. Track our progress there, and see you in Sri Lanka!
04-Feb-2011 23:49, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 4.5, 10.34mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 80 |
05-Feb-2011 08:03, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100 |
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Techie geek sailors
Jaime is at the pool, I am at the Coconut bar. Actually I am in charge of the Coconut bar. Scary but true. The trusting Thai owner lady just asked me to take care of things while she takes her friend to the airport to pick up her sister. Beer prices range from 35 baht to 80 here. I meant to write them down, but didn’t and of course already forget which price matches which beer. My improvised plan is to just charge 60 for everything and keep everyone’s empties to reconcile the tab when she gets back. Hope we don’t get too many customers… hope she doesn’t read this.
This post is in response to all the requests we keep getting to elaborate on boat things. This always makes us laugh, why in the world would anyone ask us about this stuff? We generally keep things non-technical because the countries we visit, the people we meet, and the crazy shit that happens along the way is more interesting to us than techie stuff. Let’s face it, there are hundreds of better informed more passionate purveyors of boat information out there than us.
On the other hand, against all odds we have managed to learn a couple of things about boats along the way. Telling our version of the truth is easy because we feel no competitive need to have the best solar output, fuel economy, range, reception, weather router or any other random topic that often monopolize some people’s conversation time. Some stuff we picked up ourselves by way of reading and hard knocks. Some really good stuff has been passed on to us by people out here actually doing it, the ones that show up in a dinghy with a toolbox ready to help. Their collective real life, field tested, not for sale knowledge (unless you count cold beers as currency, and out here they very much are) has easily been worth tens times that of any book, seminar or forum. We’ve accomplished more with a six pack than we ever have with our credit card.
We talked about all of the emails asking about the nuts and bolts of boat life and remembered how hard it was to know what was important, and then find good information about those things. This post is an attempt to address some of the more common questions we get all the time. You will either think it’s about time we did, or the most boring thing I’ve ever written. Feel free to comment accordingly.
The engine. Ours has been awesome, and our recent decision to pull it has led to some questions regarding our sanity. First off I’m a total geek about preventative maintenance. I carry out all of the manufacturers recommendations regarding oil changes, filter changes (oil and fuel), zinc replacements etc. We perform the recommended checks each time before starting it, unless of course it’s being started to save us from a lee shore as it did recently. Admittedly, I did not check oil levels and belt tension before firing it up the night we nearly found ourselves anchored on Pulau Rimau instead of beside it. We record everything in a maintenance log which I’m sure will please the future owner of Slapdash, as it pleased us when we bought ‘Wingin It’. We are sensitive about fuel and usually filter it before depositing it into our tanks. It’s then filtered three more times before it reaches a cylinder. We had a funky fuel dilemma on our Tonga to New Zealand passage which hammered home the importance of this practice. As uncomfortable as that night was we were lucky it happened in the middle of the ocean, there are plenty of times when the same thing could have resulted in much bigger problems than a little discomfort. After that we added a redundant primary fuel filter that we could simply switch over to should the need arise.
25-Jan-2011 18:42, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 4.1, 6.53mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 80 |
Our little 3 cylinder Westerbeke 30B has just over 3000 hours on it, we’ve put 1700 of those on since we bought the boat in September 2007. It has been running fine so our decision to pull it was indeed preventative maintenance to the extreme. We had just completed a Bali to Phuket mission. This passage put heavy demands on our engine, and we are now looking ahead to the Red Sea and Med which are two more areas we expect to be doing some motoring. Carrying out the tests and repairs in a controlled and easy access shop environment seemed to outweigh the known risk of pulling and reinstalling an engine. It also gave us the ability to strip and repaint it all in an affordable place. The same work in the Med would have easily cost us 4 or 5 times what we paid. In the end we replaced every hose, the fuel pump, the water pump, the jets, and completed every bit of maintenance and test recommended by the manufacturer. This may have been the smartest move ever, or the dumbest. It’s a traumatic procedure so my guess is that we will land somewhere in between. Time will tell if we should have left well enough alone.
Drive leg. What good is the engine if it doesn’t have a means of converting that power into thrust? We keep our drive leg in mint shape. We’ve stripped and repainted it twice now to keep any corrosion at bay. We check oil level and grease before every passage. We’ve replaced the seals, rebuilt the bottom end in New Zealand, changed that pesky prop anode and steering lines. Depending on how you like to sail you may not need your engine much, but no matter how die hard we choose to be about abandoning our primary means of propulsion (wind) in favour of your secondary (internal combustion) we want it to start immediately, run and stay running every time. Since I’m not a competent mechanic we err on the side of caution when it comes to this stuff. I can do all of the routine maintenance stuff myself now, and our mantra has always been 26 ounces of prevention.
25-Jan-2011 18:54, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 80 |
Dinghy. We are on our third. Our first one fell apart, our second was an expensive Cadillac but too heavy, and I would like to say like Goldilocks did that the third one is just right, but it’s not. This is one of those things that you will use almost every single day. Your dinghy and engine will either bring you joy or make you wet and frustrated every time you use it. Most likely it will land somewhere in between. You will see every dinghy make model material and size in use. All of them will get their owners around the world with their pros and cons so this can be a highly contested issue. Our opinion is that you should get the best set-up that you can afford in terms of weight and dollars. As non-sexy as this item is it will be one of the most frequently used pieces of equipment on your boat. Hypalon (can’t be beat in the tropics), aluminum bottom (unless you need a roll up due to space issues) and a 2 stroke engine that can plane with both of you in the dinghy (ours doesn’t) are at the top of our wish list. We miss on two out of those three items and are doing just fine, so don’t worry about it too much. We had a cover made for ours in Indonesia because it was cheap, and because our PVC (not Hypalon) dinghy will completely fall apart in the tropics, the glue just doesn’t hold up. The two stroke recommendation is because they have a better weight to power ratio, and because they have bigger jets than a 4 stroke (since they require their lubricating oil to be mixed into the fuel supply), seem to be less finicky when it comes to processing funky fuel without letting you down. Hypalon is way more expensive than PVC and aluminum is light, rigid and strong. It maintains control while planning and prevents you from having to stress when dragging it over a rocky beach like you would with a high pressure inflatable bottom. Fibreglass does all the same things but its way heavier, which is exactly why we sold our brand new AB in New Zealand. A double floor is unnecessary in an RIB (you won’t sink anyway) and only serves to add more weight to the equation. It’s easier to repair than aluminum though, so there you go everything’s a compromise.
25-Jan-2011 18:43, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 5.0, 5.0mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 80 |
Sail bag. We finally got around to having a stack pack built, a welcome addition to our boat. Not only does it look clean and tidy, but it reduces our mainsail deployment time considerably. It was inexpensive to have made here, and we used our old sail cover for material. Now instead of undoing the line from the mast, all of those clips, and then the 4 lines around the sail before rolling everything up and stowing it, I just zip back this big zipper the length of the boom and heave away. Once we’re finished just drop the main and zip it back up. Cheap, tidy, simple, sold! We aren’t always in the trade winds. Places like this, the Bahamas, or anywhere fluky winds and killer tropical heat prevail always leave me wondering if the 10 minutes of potential usefulness will outweigh the effort of deploying and repacking the main. It can be mighty tempting just to keep on motoring, using your headsail , or both. This addition removes a lot of the hassle and will likely have us using the main at times or in conditions that wouldn’t have formerly made the effort worth it.
25-Jan-2011 18:43, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 5.0, 5.0mm, 0.002 sec, ISO 80 |
Electrics. We keep our power demand low so don’t need a high output alternator, a wind generator or thousands of dollars worth of solar panels. We have one 125 watt panel which, on its best day, will put 7 amps an hour into our bank, the average is closer to 3 or 4. We have four 75 amp hour AGM batteries. I don’t isolate a starting battery. We used to but with such a small house bank decided that it would best serve us in the mix and not just there on standby just in case. We lived for 6 months on the boat in New Zealand without plugging in so the set up seems to work. The old AGM’s served us 4 years before being replaced in Singapore. We had West Marine batteries originally and now have Trojans. We have a propane powered refrigerator, lot’s of LED bulbs and low draw Hella fans so the highest energy demand tends to be our laptop, something easily managed. The only time we run into a power imbalance is when we are holed up on the boat during bad weather (solar panel not contributing and nothing to do but watch movies on the laptop) or during long mixed weather passages when the solar panel isn’t able to grab enough energy, the autopilot is on 24/7, and tri color is on all night. In these cases we start up the engine every few days to let the alternator do its thing for an hour or two. No biggie.
The two W’s. We don’t have a windlass or water maker. These are two items that float on a fine line between want and need for us. There’s no doubt that they would both make our lives more comfortable. I may even accept the argument that the windlass would make things safer; maybe we wouldn’t think as hard about pulling up and re-anchoring when things aren’t perfect if I didn’t have to get up on deck and heave it in hand over hand. On the other hand maybe we’re better at getting it right the first time since we know that re-anchoring could be a major pain in the ass so who knows? We don’t accept the safety card in regards to the water maker. Since fresh water is a finite resource for us we put more thought into our fresh water availability and consumption for any given passage than most. We never get too far from the source without more than double our requirement distributed between two main tanks and several jerry cans, this dissemination protecting us against contamination. Having spent my fair share of time sweating it out with countless water runs in the dinghy and one (maybe two?) isolated cases of changing our plans based on fresh water availability I will bow to the convenience argument every time. Space (hauling around 5 jerry’s), convenience, comfort (fresh water showers for boat and crew), wear and tear on my back and dinghy are what I would consider the top pro water maker arguments. We have nothing against this equipment and would have both of these items on our boat tomorrow if cost wasn’t such a big factor.
We haven’t used radar so can’t comment. We haven’t used an SSB so can’t comment. But in the spirit of this post, will. Unlike the previous two items which would literally see daily use we haven’t come across anyone that has been able to convince us that these things are absolutely necessary. The idea of cutting up and complicating our boat to install some piece of expensive ancient technology (SSB) so that I can have spotty unreliable communication with another boat a thousand miles away who’s wanking on about the weather (no offence to the wankers or the weather) does not hold any appeal. We’ll catch shit on this one for sure, but until there’s something more reliable, modern and cheap than a single side band radio we won’t be cutting any holes in our boat to install one. We also think nets are stupid but that’s just us. Tons of people love them and have all of this gear so suit yourself.
Radar seems to have more practical applications than gossiping with your girlfriends so we won’t fault you for having one. We don’t, but maintain a 24 hour watch and are not a tugboat in the Pacific Northwest. AIS is the way to go in our opinion, which will seem ironic to anyone who has read the last post. Ours only lasted for 3 months before it crapped out, but in terms of marine based electrical equipment nobody can take the reliability position and stand on stable ground. In other words, yes our AIS crapped out but radars do to, luck of the draw so not a solid argument for or against. It gave us great information on vessels transmitting but nothing on approaching storms or vessels that were not transmitting. Single hander’s love their radars and rightly so, they can set a proximity alarm and get some much needed sleep. They are probably indispensable in trafficked areas prone to fog. At times we would have liked one to track a squall or storm on the horizon but through necessity have adopted a ‘take what we get’ approach. Sometimes trying to manoeuvre around such weather isn’t possible or efficient anyway and there’s a good chance we will finish this circumnavigation having encountered approximately the same number of storms and squalls as most on this route, regardless of whether or not they have radar. A functioning AIS and radar with enough power for both would be the best of both worlds but I really have no solid argument for or against these items in our application (tropical circumnavigation via the canals), so would place them behind windlass, watermaker, and AIS but way ahead of a stupid SSB.
Charts. We don’t use paper charts. We’ve had them, and once we even made an effort to plot our position on one because we were green and afraid of lightening but for all intents and purposes we are a paperless boat. We have the world’s charts on C-Map, we read these charts on our laptops of which we have three. We have a full sized laptop (great for movies) a net book (great for long life batteries) and a gifted old spare (thanks Pam!) which serves as a backup and won’t be used unless the first two fail. We plug a cheap GPS mouse (or puck) into a USB port which gives us real time positioning on these detailed charts when we need it. It’s dead simple and with the exception of the hardware virtually free (grey area). Don’t underestimate the time and frustration factor in setting all of this up though. I am pretty good at it now and would still give you an estimate of one day and 8 beers to do it, unless you are using Vista then the price goes way up. For passage planning we use the aforementioned system to plot out our course and then take the waypoints (GPS positions) and overlay them onto our plotter. We have a crappy little discontinued Garmin 492 that just won’t quit. It sits out in out cockpit in all weather and has been an awesomely reliable companion. We wouldn’t need to transfer these waypoints all the time (admittedly a pain in the ass) if we just coughed up for the proprietary Garmin chips that plug into it turning the terribly ambiguous world map that comes pre-programmed with it into a super detailed chart, but they are stupid expensive. By stupid I mean several hundred dollars per region. I find this unacceptable and just plain rude and would rather install Max Sea onto Vista (euphemism for poke yourself in the eye with a fork) than feed any more into the extortion racket that is marine electronics. If that sounds bitter it’s because our big capital outlay for a brand new Garmin AIS didn’t even warrant a returned email or phone call from either manufacturer or retailer when the POS (Piece of Shit) crapped on us. So you know what? Piss on Garmin and their 300 hundred dollar sim cards. My friend Roger has demonstrated that one of the most simple and versatile plotters would be a GPS enabled ipad with the super cheap ap that allows for real time wireless positioning on very detailed marine charts. A fraction of the cost plus it can manage your emails, browser, music, videos, and a bunch of other stuff. If more people realized this the marine electronic dinosaurs would be in serious trouble.
We anchor using a 30 pound delta attached to 150 feet of 5/16 chain and an additional 150 feet of braided rode after that. We are always generous with our scope when at anchor, and anchor shallow (15 feet probably average) whenever possible. Half way around the world and that Pulau Rimau incident was our first drag using this set-up (we hadn’t set this configuration up yet in Key Largo). Since all three boats in the anchorage had trouble that night we chalk it up to poor holding, big wind exposed to big sea. The incident has not caused us to revisit our anchor plan. Having said that I would recommend the biggest anchor and most chain you can afford in dollars, space and weight. You hang your whole lifestyle off that anchor every night, and when it gets nasty nothing beats the security of a good anchor set-up.
Recently Captain H. from Palapa gifted us a spinnaker but sadly it will probably remain in the bag it came with until we catch up to him because we have no idea how to use it. We have done a lot more down wind sailing than we expected though, so if you have something like this in your sail plan and are on a trip like ours then it will probably help. We have had some success with the wing and wing strategy, but you kind of have to be on top of that, but I suppose you could say the same thing for flying a spinnaker. One of those fancy roll up cruiser spinnaker things would be pretty sweet though, basically an oversized light air headsail from what I understand. It’s about a six thousand and something dollar option on our boat though so we don’t have one. Necessary? We think not. Nice to have? Sure, why not.
I’ve saved the best for last, boat choice. It was the biggest question that we grappled with once we had decided to sail around the world. Our hearts were set on a catamaran but our wallets seemed to have us destined for a half boat, aka mono hull. We found Wingin’ It (now Slapdash) in Myrtle Beach South Carolina and haven’t looked back. It’s small, quick, sexy and tough. Sure, we would have a Gunboat if we could afford it but we got the best boat possible for us, and for the money. Sure I wish the manufacturers would return my emails, but they were very supportive during the first half of our trip and have previously demonstrated pride in their product. We haven’t heard back from them during phase two of our trip but think that they probably have weightier concerns on their minds, or perhaps our novelty has worn off. Either way, they built us a pretty good boat and have probably done more than most manufacturers would have by way of support. They’ve dropped from awesome to a solid good, but our allegiance is still intact and we have high hopes.
Sometimes bigger is better, sometimes it’s not. Neither Jaime or I can get caught up in this argument other than to rush to the defense of any boat owner (one hull or two, power or sail, glass or wood, metal , composite or other) that has actually used it enough to qualify them to be in the conversation in the first place. We’ve met friends for life in the sub 30 foot sail category, the mega yacht category, and pretty much every category in between (including the small but very appealing trans-Atlantic rowboat category) and to tell any of them that their boat ‘wasn’t good enough’ are generally considered fighting words. Maybe the forums have provided the overly opinionated and under qualified with an arena too insulated from the real world… weather, experience, track record and left hooks inclusive. Anybody can google up a bunch of long winded rhetoric, we’ll listen to the people who are out here with us. Once again, time, ocean miles, luck, or circumstance may cause us to eat those words, but at least we’re out here creating the opportunity to prove somebody right.
For miles of real world answers to questions like these including to our own unedited opinion about boat choice check out the Interview with a cruiser project (interviewwithacruiser.blogspot.com). We have no affiliation other than having been participants and wish it had been around when we were planning our trip. It’s filling a gap with solid information from the people who are actually doing the big sailing. Notwithstanding some exceptionally boring responses from people far more concerned with bilge pumps and recipes than we are, its setting itself up to be a warehouse of both practical and lifestyle based knowledge from long range cruisers. Nice work Livia!
We mostly consider ourselves travelers before sailors, so bear that in mind. If you fall into the latter category you are likely the only ones still reading this, and may disagree with most of what we’ve said. We don’t blame you and would expect nothing less. There’s as many ways to set up for a trip like this as there are places to visit, so take our opinions in the spirit that they’re offered. Learning about this stuff has been exasperating, expensive, satisfying and sometimes fun. It’s all a part of our journey and we reserve the right to change our minds as often as we change our underwear. Oh yeah, don’t own any, another post entirely.
So I’ve sold 16 beers on behalf of my unexpected boss before her return and somehow collected 1120 baht. The friend of unexpected (and inexplicably trustworthy) boss has offered to crew with us in exchange for passage across the Atlantic. Micah, if you were still here you would be arguing her case strongly. I turned down the potential crew member, but kept the various shapes and sizes of the bottles as planned so that unexpected boss could tally things up. I paid her out. Turns out my simplified approach left me ahead by about 200 baht. Big Leo’s are 60 baht here, so that pays for the entire post. Just another one of the measures that the Slapdash have taken in order to keep this website affordable and attainable for its readers.
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