Sailing

What we learned in 2017

/ Doug / 13 Comments

Since arriving in Tunisia, we have been busy with work and travel, but now that winter has come I am getting some boat projects done (and enjoying the Volvo Ocean Race on YouTube!).

2017 was a good sailing season for us, and Wildling is much improved this year following the sailplan changes we made. I’m becoming more in tune with her, and am starting to feel more worthy to be her skipper, as I learn how to make her go, while keeping us all safe and comfortable aboard. I’m also pleased to report that I am abusing her less with my stupid mistakes!

On this blog I try and balance the good stuff with what went wrong and what I learned from it, as it’s the unpredictable and challenging aspects of sailing that I find most interesting, and hopefully I can help other sailors avoid some of my mistakes.

Since our sailplan refit this year, we have traveled more miles and learned something about high performance sails. We cruised a lot with family and friends on board. We crossed the Med from North to South and back again. We visited mainland Italy for the first time. We returned to the island of Corsica, and we finished up by making our second trip to North Africa. In this post, I will go over what I learned along the way and some of the projects I am working on this winter.

Our new sails are great, but we have to be careful of chafe!

Our North 3Di sails are incredible! I have gone on and on about how much difference it has made to have these sails on our boat, and I really mean it. If I had known this when I purchased Wildling, I would have never wasted my money on the Incidences Hydranet sails that we ordered from the factory. BUT! Although Hydranet is heavy and inefficient, it is virtually indestructible, and since moving to 3Di I have had to learn to pay way more attention to chafe. While North 3Di fabric is a tough material, it is not as abrasion resistant as conventional fabrics, so it has to be handled properly to avoid damage. I have experienced  three situations that required me to change how I handle our 3Di sails.

  1. Topping lift contact – The high roach mainsail shape means the topping lift (TL) has a lot of contact with the top section of the sail. It’s fine when the TL is on the leeward side, but after a tack or jibe the TL is pushed against the windward surface of the sail. It’s not possible to loosen it enough to flip it around the sail leech to the leeward side. Our topping lift has not caused any damage at all to the sail, but I’m concerned that over long distances it might. I was interested to see that the Volvo Ocean Race boats* solve this problem by disconnecting their topping lift after they hoist (see below) which I will start doing also. This will need a slight modification to how the topping lift is attached to the boom, which is on my project list.
  2. Lazyjacks tension – I made a mistake of having the lazy jack lines too tight once when I jibed the mainsail, and the sail was pressed hard against the leeward jacklines for a few minutes until I released the tension on them. The result was some damage to the outer cover of the sail about 1cm in diameter at one of the points of contact with the lazy jacks.  Nothing serious, and easily repaired with the kit that North gave me, but evidence that my bad Hydranet habits had to change. After this, I started running the lazyjacks forward to the mast when I’m not using them to support the sail bunt, and making sure they are quite loose before a jibe when they are in place .
  3. Keeping headsail sheets off the staysail – When the staysail is unfurled, there is the possibility of the furled genoa or gennaker sheets rubbing against the back surface of the staysail. Philippe at North sails was very clear about the need to constantly check for this when he was teaching me how to use our new sails before we left France. The solution is to keep the non working forward headsail sheets tied down at deck level or pulled far to the side to make sure they can’t touch  the back surface of the staysail. I’ve done this consistently and there is no damage at all on our headsails.

*All of the Volvo Ocean 65 boats have North 3Di sails, and they only get one set to last the entire 39,000 mile round the world race, so they have to treat them well. I’ve been watching the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) video coverage, and paying attention to how the crews manage chafe on their sails. (BTW, I’m really happy that Volvo has hired Conrad Colman to provide commentary this year. Conrad is an excellent sailor and a hugely inspirational guy!)

There is no boom vang on a Volvo Ocean 65, so they use a topping lift, (same as on (most) catamarans). You can see in the photo below, the MAPFRE crew has disconnected the topping lift and pulled it forward to the mast base. Without the topping lift, more attention has to be paid when reefing, since the boom will drop as the halyard is eased, but they deal with this by winching in the clew reef lines as the sail is lowered to keep the boom supported. The downside for a cruising boat, is that an emergency mainsail drop will put the boom on the bimini roof, so the topping lift would need to be reconnected first!

MAPFRE under single reefed mainsail. No topping lift or lazy jacks touching the sails = No chafe!

Replacing the zippered mainsail bag with a removable cover was a good move – I wasn’t sure I would like the changes to our sail cover, but it’s worked out really well. I now remove the cover completely and stow it before I raise the mainsail. Once the sail is raised, I tie the lazyjacks out of the way so there is no flapping sailbag or lines to chafe when underway. BTW, It’s not necessary to have a removable cover like mine to do this, you just need to be able to roll the cover and tie it against the boom. Most of the new Outremers have this ability now, but my sailbag did not. I went with removable because I like that under passage there is no wear or damage to the cover.

More reefing plan changes – With more miles under the boat, and more experience with Wildling in different wind strengths and sea states (and also since we changed the sailplan), I have revised our reefing plan a bit this season. There are so many tradeoffs involved in reefing decisions (wind speed, sea state, boat comfort, risk of damage, stress, fatigue, time of day, safety…) that it really comes down to each skipper’s personal philosophy on how they like to sail their boat and take care of their crew.

I would summarize my reefing approach in the different types of sailing conditions we encounter during a passage, as follows:

  1. Light winds, flat sea: In winds from 4 to 8 knots, we’re trying to keep moving as fast as possible. All sails are up and we’re trimmed for max power.
  2. Moderate winds, fair sea: From 8 to about 13 or 14 knots, the waves are usually pretty small, so we can fully power up and sail fast. This is like driving a Ferrari on a smooth, open road. Plenty of room for speed, so we can push the gas peddle down, and there are no bumps or sharp turns to slow us down. Sailing in these conditions is pure pleasure!
  3. Strong winds, developed sea – Once the true wind builds to over 15 knots, the waves get bigger and going fast  becomes uncomfortable and tiring. This is when we reef not only to de-power the rig, but just as importantly, to keep boat speed under control. This is like driving a Ferrari on a winding, dirt road. We could definitely go faster, but it’s no fun! In these conditions I like to stay under 9 knots boat speed when close hauled and under 13 knots on a reach. Downwind is usually OK to surf faster without too much stress, unless the sea state is really developed.

Here are the numbers for the latest version of my reefing plan. The inshore numbers allow us to carry more sail and go faster when the seas are flat.

Upwind Reefing Plan

Mainsail Headsail Inshore AWS (knots) Offshore AWS (knots)(1)
Full main Genoa(2) <18 <15
Full main Staysail 18-20
1 reef Staysail 20-25 15-20
2 reefs Staysail 25-30 20-25
2 reefs ORC 30-35 25-30
3 reefs ORC 35-45 30-40
Downwind 0 >45 >40

Downwind Reefing Plan

Mainsail(3) Headsail True Wind Speed
Full Main Gennaker or Spi <15
1 reef Genoa 15-20
2 reef Staysail 20-30
3 reef ORC 30-50
  1. When upwind offshore, if AWS is >20 knots, reef the mainsail according to this table and use the traveler to keep boat speed under 9 knots.
  2. Genoa is setup for best performance when reaching. Use the staysail when close hauled for better upwind performance
  3. Reef Mainsail based on TWS to no more than can be safely rounded up if required

Volvo is having engine electrical problems and many of us are suffering – While I am loving the Volvo Ocean Race, I’m pretty annoyed with Volvo right now, due to the unresolved electrical fault on their D2 series engines. There is an electronic interface module called an MDI. This module is failing repeatedly with a variety of symptoms, the worst of which is the inability to start the engine. Do a Google search on “volvo mdi problems” and you will see what I mean. I know owners that have replaced their MDI 3 times last season (at $800 a pop). Volvo are supposedly working on a fix for this, but so far no word as to when it will be ready. It’s a good thing the Volvo Ocean Race boats don’t need to use their engines I guess!

Turning the tide on plastic and stopping the water lugging madness!

All of us sailors are painfully aware of how much plastic junk is floating in our seas and oceans, and I hate to be contributing to the problem when we are out cruising. The fact is, every time we reach a port we have a bunch of plastic water bottles to recycle, and we spend a a lot of time and energy lugging full bottles back to the boat. I decided that enough is enough, there has to be a better way!

We have a watermaker, that produces plenty of pure drinkable water, but the problem is that once it has been sitting in the tanks for a while, bacteria starts to grow, and it might no longer be safe; also, there are times when we have had to top up our tanks at a marina, so we can’t guarantee the safety of the water that goes into the tanks; and water that’s been sitting in plastic tanks doesn’t taste too good.

The solution is to purify the water coming out of the tanks before drinking it, and I have been searching for the best way to do this for a while. After a bunch of research into various filtering and UV light sterilization systems, I purchased a filtration system that I am going to install this winter. I’ll post more on this soon.

We’re not safe when working at the boom in rough conditions

At times, we need to go up on the roof to work on the mainsail or reefing lines, which is unsafe in large seas, as there is a lot of motion and not much to hold onto. I am installing jacklines along each side of the boom frame so we can clip in while we are on the roof.

I’ll post again soon with photos and details of the projects I am working on this winter.

Riding the Mistral to Tunisia

/ Doug / 26 Comments

With our sails all finished and adjusted we were ready to leave France and head south for the winter. We visited Tunisia last year and really liked it, so we thought it would be a good place to make our home base this winter. It’s too hot in Tunisia to do a lot in the summer time, but winter there is very nice, and gives us a base to do some overland trips into the Sahara desert!

We left Marseille at 2pm during the tail end of a north west Mistral wind blowing a steady 25-28 knots with a double reefed main and staysail. The winds continued to build during the afternoon to 38 knots with brief periods of up to 43 knots. When we started seeing 40 knots we went to the third reef in the mainsail and switched down to the storm jib. Wildling was flying along at 13 to 15 knots with a max speed during the night of 23 knots. The waves were around 5 meters and very close together and steep, which produced a lot of motion and some impressive surfing! Here’s some video that gives a bit of an idea of what it was like.

Fortunately, I have not done too much sailing in winds over 40 knots, but it’s quite an impressive situation. There was whitewater everywhere and waves breaking all around us. At times we were tipped sideways at such an angle that everything on our galley counter was thrown into the air and onto the floor. We had waves breaking over the transom steps, turning the cockpit into a swimming pool. When standing in the cockpit some of the waves bearing down on us were higher than the level of the boom, which puts them over 5 meters. It felt like we were sailing inside a surf break. Having a balanced sailplan that gaves us penty of drive and speed made this all feel very stable and easy. The boat just tracked really well and even when we got hit by some really big waves, Wildling just shook them off and kept charging ahead without a problem. This is a boat that continues to give us more and more confidence in what she (and we) can handle!

We kept the wind angle at 150-155 degrees true, which also gave us a direct course to our first waypoint at the south west tip of Sardinia. 155 is about as deep as we can sail while keeping good speed and also preventing the mainsail from blocking the headsail. Although we had strong wind and big seas, we felt very steady, and the autopilot had no problem steering us the entire night. By morning, the wind had calmed down to 30 knots (it’s amazing how calm 30 knots feels after a night of sailing in 40 knot winds) but we kept our triple reef + storm jib sail configuration until we were sure the wind was not going to increase again. We traveled 235 nautical miles in the first 24 hours!

By mid morning of day 2 the wind was holding steady at 25-30 knots, still from the NW, so we switched back to double reefed mainsail and staysail. Once we had rounded the bottom of Sardinia, the winds dropped to 15 knots and we furled the staysail and switched over to the Genoa. We kept our two reefs in the main, because there were still a lot of waves, and the reefs helped to keep the boom and mainsail from flogging back and forth as we rolled sideways.

Over the past couple of years I’ve been experimenting with a boom preventer arrangement that reduces the slamming and shock loads on the preventer line and the boom in conditions where the winds are light but there is a lot of wave action. Here’s a video of the shock absorber setup that I have been using, which works really well!

By the afternoon of the 2nd day the wind died off completely so we had to turn on the engines, and we ended up motoring the rest of the way to Port Yasmine in Hammamet. All up we covered the 550 nm distance in just less than 3 days, which wasn’t too bad given that we had to motor for 26 hours.

Enjoying the calm, final leg to Port Yasmine

Two dolphins came to escort us the final 2 miles into the marina

Organizing the mooring lines and enjoying solid ground again after some sporty days at sea!

Happy to be in Tunisia!

Mainsail all finished and friends

/ Doug / 9 Comments

The North sails team finished off the final adjustments to the new mainsail on Friday, in the middle of the 40 degree heatwave in Marseille, thanks guys!  We took Wildling out today to try everything. The mainsail is perfect!

Main and genoa downwind in light conditions

We did the weight comparison. The 3Di mainsail (with no battens) weighs 80 kg (175 lbs) and the old sail with no battens weighed in at 117 kg (257 lbs). I’m guessing the difference in weight of the battens is around 15 kg (35 lbs) which means we reduced the weight of the mainsail by 40% and removed 52 kg (115 lbs) from the boat, and most of it up high.

Here are a few more photos…

Fully raised mainsail. We checked the battens in 6 knots of wind, and they tacked over no problem.

We were very fortunate to be able to take our dear friends from Austin Texas – Scott and Deanna and their two boys – out on the boat with us today. They are visiting Marseille on their vacation, and stopped off to say hi.

Another hot day in the Med, but perfect for sailing and swimming at Iles du Frioul.

Sailing to Tunisia video

/ Doug / 4 Comments

Here’s some video I took during our trip along the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia on the way to Tunisia. The first part of the video is with winds behind around 20 knots, and in the 2nd part we are sailing at 45 degrees upwind in winds around 7-8 knots with the Code-0. You can see from the instruments how well we do upwind in light conditions on Wildling. We can usually manage to sail about 0.5 knots under the true wind speed.

What we learned crossing the Med

/ Doug / 20 Comments

On this last trip, we crossed the Mediterranean sea from the south coast of France to the north coast of Africa and back again. We sailed for 30 days, and encountered a variety of conditions from dead calms to 35 knots of breeze and everything in between. We were at anchor for 29 nights and in a marina for 2 nights, and since it’s just over 1 year since we took delivery of Wildling, we are still learning how she behaves in different situations. Here are a few things we learned on this trip:

We need storm sails

The current sailplan is great up to about 30 knots, but over that things get out of balance. Since I posted about the sailplan balance, I have been in contact with the Outremer factory and with Philippe Escalle at North Sails in Marseille. I’m closer to a decision about changes to our sailplan, and I’ll cover that soon in another post.

Our anchor seems a bit undersized

We have a 35 kg Spade anchor, which if you follow the sizing guidelines published by Spade is the correct size for our boat. Our Spade set and held well in most conditions, but during this trip I had two issues with the Spade.

  1. In shallow water (5-8 meters) if the scope is less than 4:1 it will not set. This is part of the design of the Spade, and it makes it very easy to retrieve, but in crowded anchorages, 4:1 is sometimes a bit difficult to achieve as there’s not enough room to swing.
  2. We had an experience where at 5:1 scope in shallow water on a sand bottom the anchor would creep backwards in gusts over 25 knots.

There’s a lot of windage on the 5X, and it is lighter than most boats of the same size, so maybe sizing the anchor based on boat length and weight alone is not sufficient. If I go through the sizing process with a Rocna anchor it tells me I need a 55 kg anchor for our boat. The Rocna and the Spade are very similar designs, so I’m not sure why there is so much difference in their sizing recommendations. Rocna says their sizing is conservative and is based on 50 knot winds and moderate holding bottoms, so perhaps that’s the difference. In any case, I feel like we need to go up to at least a 45 kg Spade for our primary anchor and I’m inclined to go to 55 kg to be safe. I need to do more research on this and also see if I can fit a larger anchor on our bow roller.

One engine is usually enough

I experimented more with engine speeds and combinations during this trip, as we had a few days of dead calms and some days of very light headwinds where we had to motor. There is not much difference between running one and two engines. Here’s what I recorded in calm conditions:

  • single engine at 1,900 rpm = 5 knots
  • single engine at 2,500 rpm = 5.8 knots
  • both engines at 1,900 rpm = 6 knots
  • both engines at 2,500 rpm = 7 knots

If we add the sails and use the apparent wind created when motoring, we pick up an extra 0.5 to 1 knot, so even with one engine at 1,900 we were doing 6+ knots most of the time. I found 1,900 rpm to be the best setting for our engines as they are running smoothly with no vibrations and are quiet, and they use much less fuel. We used less than 1 tank of diesel per engine for our entire trip.

Don’t arrive in “unknown” destinations at night

We crossed into Tunisian waters late at night, and spent a lot of energy and stress avoiding fishing boats before reaching land at sunrise. It would have been better to time our arrival for the afternoon, when there are few other craft around, and visibility is much better. Sometimes this can’t be avoided, but I could have planned better on this trip.

Furl the gennakers by hand

Our Code-0 and Code-D gennakers are removable sails that attach to a continuous line furler on the bowsprit. The furling line is run back to the cockpit and can be driven by a winch, but I have found using the winch to furl and unfurl is not a good system. It’s too easy to put too much stress on the furler, the sail and the halyard when furling, and its more difficult to unfurl at the correct speed when unfurling. When the join in our continuous furling line was damaged by too much winch force, I started doing it by hand, and found it was very easy to operate and worked much better than using the winch. The sails also furled much more cleanly and evenly when furling by hand.

I also rigged a pulley block in the cockpit to keep constant tension on the end of the continuous furling line. This made it much easier to operate the furler by a single person. I’ll post some photos of how this works soon.

Carry more spares

I’m still organizing my spare parts inventory, and didn’t have the things I needed to fix a few of the problems we had onboard. Both of our pump issues (seawater and shower drain) could have been easily fixed if I had some spare parts. There are very few places to buy parts once you leave the mainland, so we had to go the entire voyage without some of our systems working.

We love our boat

I know I write a lot about problems we have, but the fact is, we really love our boat and we trust her more and more as we get to know her better. A 59 foot catamaran is big, and it’s pretty cool that a regular family can sail her without the need of a large or professional crew. We got a lot more practice at sail-handling maneuvers of all types on this voyage: reefing, gybing, tacking, raising, lowering, furling, helming, etc. and it was great to see how well we were working together as a team by the end of the trip as we all learned our roles for each maneuver. This was also the first trip where both Lindsay and Gavin were doing night watches (2 hours for Lindsay and 3 hours for Gavin), which gave Robin and I a lot more sleep during passages.

Although Wildling is not a difficult boat to sail, it is really important to think through each maneuver, anticipate conditions and be conservative when cruising as a family. The forces onboard this boat are massive, and you can do a lot of damage very quickly if you’re not careful!

How our unbalanced sailplan messed up our rudder

/ Doug / 11 Comments

In a previous post I described what happened to us when we were sailing in northern Sardinia, and how the extreme helm pressure required to head up into the wind caused the rudder linkages to slip on the rudder shaft. The rudder slipping was a symptom of a sailplan balance issue. In this post I will explain what happened and what we can do to fix it.

Our current sailplan is unbalanced in strong conditions

A balanced sailplan is important. In basic terms, we need to have the force that’s trying to turn the boat into the wind, balanced by the force that’s trying to turn the boat away from the wind. The mainsail is behind the center of the boat, so when the wind blows from the side, it will push on the mainsail and rotate the bow upwind (this effect is called weather helm). The headsail (jib) is forward of the center, so the wind blowing on the headsail will push the bow downwind (lee helm). If these forces are not balanced, the rudder must be used to counter the unbalanced force and keep the boat moving in a straight line. Rudder pressure acts as a brake and slows the boat down, so unbalanced sailplans are not efficient, and create more work for the helm and autopilot.

A sailplan is balanced when the center of effort (CE) is in line with the center of lateral resistance (CLR)

A sailplan is balanced when the center of effort (CE) is in line with the center of lateral resistance (CLR). If the CE main is too great the boat rounds up to weather. If the CE jib is too great the boat bears off to leeward.

Here’s a good article that explains weather helm and lee helm and the importance of a balanced sailplan.

Most boats are well designed, and their sails are balanced in most conditions. Wildling is like this, she is a very balanced boat, requiring virtually no rudder pressure to keep her sailing straight. Our last boat was not well balanced and had too much pressure from the mainsail, so she kept trying to steer up into the wind.

The problem becomes how to keep these forces balanced as the sailplan changes. On Wildling this is a problem when we reef the mainsail without changing the headsail. As the mainsail is reefed, it gets smaller, so the force pushing the bow to the wind gets less. Since the headsail hasn’t changed, it’s force starts to overcome the mainsail and we have the bow constantly turning away from the wind. If the wind gets strong enough, the amount of rudder pressure required to point up into the wind becomes considerable. If we reef the jib, the problem gets even worse, because we move the force on the bow forward, so it has a greater lever effect. This is what happened to us in Sardinia.

The solution is simple, and is what Outremer recommends: When the mainsail is reefed, you switch to a smaller headsail positioned further back towards the mast. In this configuration it’s possible to keep a balanced sailplan upwind in winds up to 45 knots.

Double reefed main with staysail for conditions up to 35 knots

Double reefed mainsail with staysail for conditions up to 35 knots. Because we have the self tacking jib, which is a bit smaller than the genoa, we are very balanced with full main and with the first reef, so we don’t need to change to the staysail until we get to the 2nd reef on the main.

Tripple reefed mainsail with storm jib for conditions up to 45 knots

Triple reefed mainsail with storm jib for conditions up to 45 knots

Wildling was built to have the staysail and storm jib added, but I haven’t ordered them yet, because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to incorporate them into the sailplan along with our self tacking jib (which I LOVE by the way).

Attachment points on the longitudinal beam for the staysail and storm jib

Attachment points on the longitudinal beam for the staysail and storm jib

Attachment points for the extra headsails on the mast

Attachment points for the extra headsails on the mast

On the other 5X boats I have seen that have staysails, they have the inner sail setup on the auto-tacker, and a genoa that tacks manually around the staysail. Like this:

yssabeau staysails

But on Wildling, we don’t want the staysails to interfere with the self-tacking jib, so we need a way to rig them when necessary that isn’t too onerous in strong conditions, and I would really like to be able to disconnect the sheets from the jib and connect them to the staysails, so we can autotack on all of the headsails. I’m not exactly sure how we will do all of this, so I’m going to work with the Outremer factory to see if we can find a good solution.

So although the rudder slipping problem was a hassle at the time, it was very easy to fix, and it helped me see clearly how important it is that we add a staysail and storm jib to our sailplan!

Perfect sailing in Corsica

/ Doug / Leave a comment

We left Sardinia yesterday, and had two perfect days of sailing up the west coast of Corsica. Winds were 8-12 knots and we were close reaching a little under the true wind speed. 

Aside from the rolly sea between Sardinia and Corsica, the water was very calm. Ideal sailing conditions!

The southern coast of Corsica, the city of Bonifacio on the headland


Close reaching in 12 knots of breeze


We decided to spend our last few days in Corsica at Sargone beach, about halfway up the west coast of the island. The wind is forecast to start blowing 30+ knots in the northern part of the island this afternoon, so we will wait here until it calms down a bit before sailing back to the French mainland. 

Our anchorage in Sargone Corsica


As usual, while I was writing this post in our peaceful anchorage, some dude shows up and decides he has to anchor RIGHT NEXT to us, while there’s plenty of space all around.  This happens so often that Robin and have started placing bets on how close someone is going to get to us. 

The sand on the bottom must be much better right next to us!

Sailing Bandol to Corsica

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We’re about to arrive in Corsica after four days of sailing.

We left Bandol on Saturday and motored for an hour until the wind lifted and settled in at to 10 to 12 knots. We sailed with Code-D and mainsail to the island of Porquerolles where we spent the night. Porquerolles is nice but VERY crowded. We managed to find a place to anchor on the edge of the anchorage. The bottom was weed, so not the best holding, but the wind was light so we didn’t have any issues.

On Sunday morning we sailed to St Tropez. We had wind at 8 knots on the beam so we were sailing with the main and Code-0. I really like the Code-0. It’s a very easy sail to handle and allows us to sail upwind in anything above 6 knots TWS.

We stayed overnight in St Tropez at the anchorage just north of the port, which is an easy dinghy ride into the town. The water level gauge on the port fresh water tank broke again. It is constantly reading 100% but the tank is half full. The same thing happened last year, so something is not right!

Our sea water pump also stopped working last night. I pulled it apart and found the pressure switch is not working. Hopefully I can find a new pressure switch when we get to Corsica. We use the seawater pump to save fresh water when we do the dishes, so I’ll just have to run the water maker a bit more until I can fix it.

We left St Tropez at 5am on Tuesday (today) for the 105 nautical mile passage to Calvi on the west coast of the island of Corsica. The winds were 3-5 knots the whole day, aside from a few hours when we had 8-10 knots and were sailing nicely, so we spent most of the day motorsailing. Not much fun, but the warm weather and calm seas made up for it!

The chart plotter says we will arrive in Calvi in less than 1 hour at 21h00 which should give us enough light to find a place to anchor.

Ultralight fenders, watermaker problems and dinghy security

/ Doug / 6 Comments

Next Generation Fenders

When we were at the multihull boatshow this April in La Grande Motte, we were introduced to a company called Fendertex that is making boat fenders using an entirely new material and process. The new fenders are very light, have a cover built-in and are much stronger and more abrasion resistant than standard fenders. I ordered 4 of them to try them out and they are fantastic!

Old generation Polyform fender on the left and the new superlight Fendertex fender on the right

Old generation Polyform fender on the left and the new superlight Fendertex fender on the right. It doesn’t look like it in the picture but they are almost the same size, the polyform fender was too heavy so I couldn’t get it to stay in place for the photo!

The big advantage of these new fenders is the weight. They weigh 1.5kg (about 3lbs) each. Compared to 5.1kg (11lbs) for the old fenders. On a boat our size this really adds up, so switching to Fendertex fenders provides a weight savings of almost 50kg! But even better is how easy they are to use. They are so light, it’s no trouble at all to pull them out of the lockers and put them out, a job that we all hated with the old fenders because of how big and heavy they are. Now that we’ve been using them for the past month, Robin has told me we have to replace all of our old fenders with Fendertex!

Spinnaker Fittings

Since we moved Wildling over to Marseille, we have been trying to get some projects done before our trip to Corsica, Sardinia and Tunisia in August. Our spinnaker isn’t ready yet, so we will be sailing with just our Code-D downwind gennaker this trip. We did get the padeyes installed on the bows, so now we can fly either a symmetric spinnaker or an asymmetric spinnaker tacked to the windward bow when we have one. It’s a bit disappointing because I really wanted to try the spinnaker on this trip.

Bow padeye installed so we can attach a spinnaker

Bow padeye installed so we can attach a spinnaker

Carbon Boarding Bridge

When we got to Marseille we had a fitting manufactured and installed on the forward crossbeam so we can attach our boarding gangway (called a passerelle in France which sounds much nicer). We need this because we have to dock bows first at our new marina. I also replaced the folding passerelle that came with the boat with a lighter, non-folding carbon passerelle, because the old one was heavy and difficult to use. A carbon fiber passerelle is ridiculously expensive (of course, because it’s carbon fiber!) but it’s half the weight of our old one and MUCH easier to rig and stow.

Our new carbon fiber pasaerelle and attachment point on the crossbeam. We use the spinnaker halyard to hold it up.

Our new carbon fiber pasaerelle and attachment fitting on the crossbeam. We use the spinnaker halyard to hold it up.

Fighting Rampant Dinghy Theft

I’ve been a bit concerned about the rise in reports of dinghy theft coming from the cruising community, particularly in the Caribbean. There’s a very useful reporting service for all areas of the Caribbean that keeps track of burglary, assault and theft incidents reported by cruisers. It seems there’s a dinghy or outboard stolen every few days, and most of these are chained and locked in some fashion.

I did some research into the security of different locking devices and it’s pretty scary to see how easily most of the common locks and chains in use can be cut or broken. And while it’s  impossible to stop a determined thief with the right equipment, you can make it damn hard for them to steal your dinghy. I went to a motorcycle store in Marseille and purchased a bolt cutter proof, boron steel chain, and a massive lock that fits around the base of the outboard motor.

ABUS outboard motor lock

ABUS outboard motor chain and lock. Should stop all but the most determined thief. The only problem is if I lose the key I don’t have any tools onboard that can cut off this chain or lock!

I still need to get the ABUS lock for securing the outboard to the dinghy, but most thieves are only interested in the outboard motor, so I decided to secure that first.

Sailing from Marseille to Bandol!

Last weekend, we had some friends visiting us from Austin, Texas. Kevin, Ruthie and their  children Bennett and Audrey who have been friends with our kids since they were babies. It was great to see them, and we spent the day on Sunday sailing Wildling from Marseille to Bandol. A very nice trip, and although Kevin had never sailed before he has a lot of powerboat experience, and most importantly, he knows how to tie a bowline knot! Bennett was really interested in helping us sail the boat as well, so they were both a big help and gave Robin a break to “socialize”, while we sailed the 35 nautical miles over to Bandol.

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This is the look of satisfaction that comes from successfully gybing the gennaker. Thanks for the help Kev!

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Keeping a lookout for traffic is a tough job. Luckily the crew has some seats to make it a bit easier!

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At the anchorage in Bandol

Wildling in the anchorage in Bandol

I was a bit worried how much sailing we would be able to do in the light weather conditions, because we had less than 10 knots of wind most of the way coming from dead astern of our destination. We gybed back and forth with the Code-D to build some apparent wind and sailed between 7 and 8 knots the whole way. It wasn’t until the wind dropped below 7 knots that we had to drop the sails and motor, but by then we were only a mile from the anchorage, so no big deal.

What the heck is that strange critter?

It seems that each time we sail in the Mediterranean I see a Sunfish. They rest at the surface and then flap off slowly when we disturb them as we sail by. I’ve never been quick enough to photograph them, but they are really strange looking creatures! Bennett and I were lucky enough to spot one on our trip to Bandol.

An Ocean Sunfish or Mora Mora. Apparently they can weigh over 2000kg! The ones we see in the Med aren't this big though.

An Ocean Sunfish or Mora Mora. Apparently they can weigh over 2000kg! The ones we see in the Med aren’t this big though.

Watermaker Problems

Before we left Marseille, I removed the sterilizing cartridge from our watermaker and flushed it, then when I went to run it, nothing happened. I checked we had power everywhere, then opened the panel to see what was happening. The fuse on the circuit board was blown, and the spare fuse blew immediately when I inserted it. I called Stéphane at Outremer and within 15 minutes he had figured out the issue and ordered a new board to be sent to the Dessalator dealer in Bandol so it would be there when we arrived.

The control panel for our Dessalator Watermaker. The circuit board shorted out from moisture damage.

The control panel for our Dessalator Watermaker. The circuit board on the left of the picture was shorted out from moisture damage.

We took Wildling into the port of Bandol on Monday, and tied up at the welcome dock so the Quick Service folks (the Dessalator dealer in Bandol), could replace the circuit board, control switch and LED card. It took them less than 1 hour, then they tested everything was working just fine. Stéphane had also told them to install a rubber gasket around the access panel lid, which they did, so we would be sure to not let any moisture into the panel in the future.

A big thanks to Outremer and Dessalator for the super fast service on this!