Archive | May, 2011

Colgate Sailing School – BVI

May 25, 2011 by

 

We have signed up for a grand adventure but have no clue about life on a boat.  Actually, neither of us have ever sailed on a large catamaran.  I have gone offshore for a few one week adventures, but this will be an entirely different experience.

The natural next step for us was to go to shool.   I was hoping spelling would not play a large factor in my grade. Gail was hoping she wouldn’t fall off the boat.   Colgate offered a great program, Fast Track to Catamaran Cruising, in the British Virgin Islands so off we went.  The first two days are motel living and steering a small keelboat. This was mostly so that Gail could get some practice steering and improve her confidence.   The next 4 days are life aboard a 44 foot Leopard catamaran with an instructor and the promise of a written exam.   As a graduation present, we would get to sail on our own for a couple of days.

My eyes must have shown a bit of fear when I first saw the boat.  “Wow, that looks tough to dock” was my first thought.  But after a bit of instruction it really is no more complex than your run of the mill shopping cart.    Gail’s fear of seasickness evaporated in the calm summer weather and smooth seas.

Our catamaran instructor was great. He is the son of a Royal Naval officer and  I felt like I had been pressed into the Queen’s Navy, but the intensity paid off.   His firm and clear way of teaching was great for two newbies.  We learned how to dock, anchor, heave-to, tack and jibe a large catamaran, a few seamanship skills and much much more.  We passed our exams with some comedy as I got a really easy question wrong.   That gave Gail a chance to chuckle and tease me.   Not so much fun to be on the other end for a change?

It wasn’t all work as we stayed in some beautiful anchorages, ate some great meals and puttered around on the dinghy looking for good snorkeling spots.

The class was well worth it and we are getting closer to our goal.   I really can not believe it!  This dream might actually happen.


Boat Work Order

May 24, 2011 by

Work Order

Imagine you are sitting down at a classic pizzeria and you are very hungry.   This particular pizzeria has 55 choices of toppings spanning all of your favorites and many you have never tried.   That is how we felt when putting together our work order.   Everything sounded great but if we didn’t watch out the ‘toppings’ would cost more than the boat, probably wouldn’t work well together, and, even worse, we would never make up our minds. We needed to control our enthusiasm and make some choices.   We do not have experience as our guide so we surfed the internet for advice.   Most free advice is priced correctly.   After plenty of research our stomachs began to rumble and we scheduled a call with Rob the builder.   Rob was patient with us as we flip-flopped on our choices.   Unlike a pizza order, the boat order has required many 1 hour phone calls.   I am sure the calls would be shorter if I could stay on topic, but who wants to when it’s a chance to dream about being on the boat.

 

The standard Antares build includes many options so one might assume that we just sign the contract and then wait for splash date.   That assumption would be dead wrong. Because this will eventually be our full-time home, we have spent many hours researching and discussing all of the items. Okay, maybe we are also gadget-heads and detail freaks. Current and past owners were very helpful in giving their thoughts on what they loved about the boat and what they wish they had installed.

Standard Equipment list: (full pdf click)

Some of the standard comforts for landlubbers are: water maker, air conditioning, heating, VHF Radio,  TV, hot water heater, outdoor shower, solar panels, generator, washer/dryer, outdoor grill, microwave, traditional oven, and all LED lighting.

One of the big decisions was whether to have a traditional mainsail (raised up the mast for sailing), or a furling main (winds inside the mast when not sailing). We went with the traditional mainsail because we like the extra sail area for a bit more speed. We also chose to include an asymmetric spinnaker for Gail’s favorite point of sail.

Other building decisions were to have a bias for storage over bunks, more solar capacity, higher capacity water maker and an integrated scuba compressor. Watch out fish, Jason will be taking lots of photos.

On the electronics front, we will have two chart plotters, a KVH tracphone, SSB (Single SIde band) and AIS (Automatic Identification System). We were still far from our splash date and the contract wasn’t even signed but we tried to get as much specificity into the work order as possible.