tcm
...
I haven't gotten the blog started but if I do it'll be at Snap on the Mailasail list.
Henyway, I had that Mo' for a while, a 49 foot P495 catamaran that Stingo pretty much instructed me to buy if I was gonna live on a boat for any length of time, and quite good advice it was too. Bashed it along to and fro over Atlantic twice a year - to the carib in Nov and back to the med in June for about 6 years and then RTW in a year and week and a day, and i think i'd sorta had enough by the time i got back to st martin, so i found somewhere else to live, emptied the boat and never sailed it again even for an afternoon until the test sail for the eventual buyer about a year later. Quite funny that - I couldn't remember how to work lots of things and they're wondering if I really have sailed this boat as much as I've said, or if I've been making it up. But hurricane Gonzalo came thru and people asked if the boat is ok cos lots weren't - and i tellem yeah - i'd sold the boat three months earlier.
Less than a year later i'm on yacht world.com yet again, the site which scoops up all the dealer boats anywhere in the world, and I'm doing all the filtering thing. and this time it's gotta be a mono. Yeah, the catamarans are super-sensible cos they're great at anchor and stable in even quite big sea, but I was a bit sick of it being yerknow, not very pretty, and not a load of fun to sail. In a big catamaran you sail by the numbers - apparent wind, sog, all that. Most fast cars are pretty to look at and fun to drive - so it's time for a (fairly) fast cruising boat that is also fun to sail and pretty, please.
I'm also on the boat hunt again cos I shot round the world a bit quick first time to have a look - and found that easily the best thing was French Polynesia. The b**stard froggies have done us over on the real estate yet again, best place in Europe, best in the carib and why the heck did we let them have Tahiti and all that in the Pacific? Cos we were at work doing the Industrial Revolution while they pinched it, that's why. Most of us just assumed it must be a bit British with all the Captain Cook thing, but no, they speak English only for Americans, they drive french cars and have Lunch, all exactly like in France. And although you can rent a boat you need a few months really, and you need your own boat, otherwise it's meh, just not as good, suitcases, small planes, see maybe a few islands but not a few dozen.
Meaningful long-distance sailing boats are (until recently) pretty horrid in terms of comfort. The transfer bus or taxi is usually lots more comfy than your charter sailing boat, even though the motorboats have had splooshy cockpit seats and sunpads and pushbutton carpets for years. But it's gotten a lot better recently, with more designers realising that their boats are often sailed for fun in shorts or bikinis or less, and not so much with so-called "offshore" jackets - i don't think i ever wore "sailing gear" during the whole rtw trip - shorts, t-shirts, bare feet.
Yeah, there's Oysters and Ovni's but they seem either far too serious or just a huge heap of cash. They all bang on about "offshore passages" but really, it's just a very long time between putting away the fenders and getting them out again. In between the boat is fine - but ooh, there can be a lot of worry worry worry. Hence steel hulls for the extremely frightened types, for example, and double-expensive "ocean" sailing gear as though slightly-deeper pockets and a whistle really matters.
Here's a more useable and i suppose more dull truth for those living on - and actually sailing - a boat full-time.: unless your mainsail furl or is extremely small, then any trip of less than ten or even twenty miles it's oh bolx, just put out the jib and/or flash up the motor - otherwise it's 10-15 minutes to get the big sail out and same again or longer to put it all away, especially in tropical sun where it gets battered unless nicely zipped up in the bag, and the zip is iffy, again.
So, in-mast furling for us lazy gits i think. And a mono, and obv needs a dinghy, water maker, generator ... it's gotta be a big boat or very cluttered. Let's make it big.
A Quite- Big Noise for long-distance sail boats (nice new ones, i mean, not the sort that you buy and then fix up for a few years) used to be the Beneteau 57. Oyster layout and shape but half the price. Same electrical gear, same nav gear etc and just slightly-less-granite-laden kitchen er galley. I went over to Guadeloupe to see one called "Nae Hassle" and forgot that the scottish owner was serious about the name - Nae Hassle meant Nae Maintenance, and so the anchor motor was knackered, the in-mast furling was iffy, no test sail possible and he still wanted over £200k for a 12-year old boat that only cost £350ish new. And Mo' was less than 10years old when i sold it. Hum. Most if not all of those built-to-a budget things like generator, engine, rig and er actually everything really including the loos... need TLC or (really) throwing in the bin and replacing at this sort of age if you actually want to get out into big sea and give it some stick and rely on things, at least a bit and sometimes quite a lot
Another budget re-think (upwards of course).
Newer sail boats from the big manufacturers seem rather nice these days, and I found Jeanneau making sensible noises about how much time we spend in the cockpit - loads. So their old 54 had quite-nice big cockpit, the new 57 even better and the quite-new 64 is probably the only mono sailing boat of its size or less in which you can have sex in the cockpit. Yeah, they def DON'T give this sort of information out in the boat magazines, and of course it's not a major consideration, not really, but it's a very valid measure of cockpit comfort. Sorry. The Jeanneau sales guy had a good laugh at my emails.
New 64's are very popular and you can't have yours for a year or maybe more which means that back in May/June this year it would have been arriving a bit late even for european summer 2016. Hm. Also - loads of money. Hm, again.
But not to worry, there's a 2013 J57 and not too expensive -loads of kit INCLUDING the in-mast furling and generator. It's in Gib, which is doable even though I'm in the carib. I must have had a lot of rum that night and i pressed the "Make Carp Offer" button. The broker knows he's gotta get me to go see the thing, but I've made an offer already. Anyway, the boat's called Snap Decision innit, so i tell to shuttit with the very welcome to have an inspection test sail blarney.
I ask a sensible captain friend who ives in Gib to go check that the boat exists and that it's not a scam, and he reports that yep, the boat is all there, feels brand new, altho a bit empty - needs some kit. Fair enough. The broker pokes his waterproof camera under the boat and sends me the link on youtube - it looks like the fin and rudder and prop are all in the right places, so what the heck, save two grand in airfares and several days in airports - i just wire the money and the broker can't believe it.
This should have been enough boat-buying action, but Oh No, not for me, it seems. I must have been on autopilot with it set to "boat buying" and bearing north-north-crazy. After a few more daft posts on ybw, lots of exceptionally experienced friends send me more information about the J64 and how it's a very wise idea to get in the queue and if you play your cards right you can get a 2017 boat at 2015 prices! Ooh! Not very much more rum, and in the same week as i commit to an unseen J57 which i've never seen, i also commit to buying a J64 which only exists on a youtube and emailed price lists, for delivery in eighteen months time, and somehow it all seemed almost sane.
Two weeks later in Gib, the still-sensible but sniggering captain tells me the story of how the broker took him to Queensway Marina ( from Marina Bay - 1 mile) and all the while grilled him in a salesy way like er look is this for real? And the captain is sitting in the car saying oh yes, he'll definitely buy it if it's pointy at one end and less-pointy at the other, that tcm , he'll just buy it.
I arrived on a Friday in June, whizzed round some chandleries and left for Ibiza on the Monday, first and last East-bound wind for a week or more. 35 knots downwind at Europa Point and we're doing 11-12 knots into the evening on a boat we just set foot on less than 3 days ago. But that's just like a charter boat i suppose.
Before we leave the broker has an after-party for some intrepid Gib-based sailing mates who went on a Rally to Smir 10-15 miles away a couple of weeks earlier, lots of pix on a big projector. I suppose you set your own horizons with this sailing thing. The broker tells me about how he once went to the Balearics -which is where I'm headed - but it sounds like a few years ago. He can 't believe I'm going right now, just like that. Really? Yes really.
But the fact is that if the sails go up/down (in and out on this one) and the engine starts and the bilges are dry, a two-year-old boat can go just about anywhere, right now. Especially if it's almost 60 feet long. Hardly need much food in the med cos the shops are almost always in view.
I get to Cartagena before the winds turns against me for two days, then have a week in Ibiza, and see friends near Barca and set off back to Gib and the Canaries to park up and wait for a transat in Nov. Haulout in Lanzarote was straightforward enough and i've bought a water maker for the guys to fit while I'm away.
I've put up a "crew call" post here and on CF and get many dozen replies cos it's a nice boat, a popular route (unlike say Panama west-bound into the Pacific where the crew get to choose their ride...) and perhaps a funny post .
But i sorta think that it's time to see if I can do it on my own for once, so that's the plan. I am re-thinking the idea of Fr Poly with this boat - I might just sail to the carib and sell it to some nice Americans in the spring and daysail in the meantime.
In September I took a couple of days out to fly to the uk for the boat show in so'ton, saw a J64 for the first time but with a ghastly spec - £600k of often-daft extras on a £600k base boat is too much I think . Mine will have nice aft cabin and fuchsia pink leather sofa in the saloon, only £200k (gulp) of extras with an anchor (not included).
So, next flight is to Lanza to pick up the boat and hack it over to the carib which makes me think of other similar trips. I think one of my favourite transats was also from Lanza, 2008, with Stingo, where he managed to get us all agree to NOT taking any pix of sunsets thereby saving about half an hour a day, and NOT getting any sat phone weather forecasts. We rode in on the 5-6m seas after hurricane Omar, sheesh, and a wave that looked like a ski-slope overtook us and landed on the foredeck. That was also when (inshore, off Fuerteventura) i first did one of those now-notorious MOB drills that involves actually jumping in. Yeehah! Not advisable except in warm waters - but a completely different crew reaction when it isn't a fender, and that -JEEZ!!!!- shock factor is a dominant element of a real MOB, not pratting about adjusting sails. These days I take more novice crew through fender-based MOB drills and THEN jump in. Altho this next time solo - no MOB drills, i gotta remember ...
Henyway, I had that Mo' for a while, a 49 foot P495 catamaran that Stingo pretty much instructed me to buy if I was gonna live on a boat for any length of time, and quite good advice it was too. Bashed it along to and fro over Atlantic twice a year - to the carib in Nov and back to the med in June for about 6 years and then RTW in a year and week and a day, and i think i'd sorta had enough by the time i got back to st martin, so i found somewhere else to live, emptied the boat and never sailed it again even for an afternoon until the test sail for the eventual buyer about a year later. Quite funny that - I couldn't remember how to work lots of things and they're wondering if I really have sailed this boat as much as I've said, or if I've been making it up. But hurricane Gonzalo came thru and people asked if the boat is ok cos lots weren't - and i tellem yeah - i'd sold the boat three months earlier.
Less than a year later i'm on yacht world.com yet again, the site which scoops up all the dealer boats anywhere in the world, and I'm doing all the filtering thing. and this time it's gotta be a mono. Yeah, the catamarans are super-sensible cos they're great at anchor and stable in even quite big sea, but I was a bit sick of it being yerknow, not very pretty, and not a load of fun to sail. In a big catamaran you sail by the numbers - apparent wind, sog, all that. Most fast cars are pretty to look at and fun to drive - so it's time for a (fairly) fast cruising boat that is also fun to sail and pretty, please.
I'm also on the boat hunt again cos I shot round the world a bit quick first time to have a look - and found that easily the best thing was French Polynesia. The b**stard froggies have done us over on the real estate yet again, best place in Europe, best in the carib and why the heck did we let them have Tahiti and all that in the Pacific? Cos we were at work doing the Industrial Revolution while they pinched it, that's why. Most of us just assumed it must be a bit British with all the Captain Cook thing, but no, they speak English only for Americans, they drive french cars and have Lunch, all exactly like in France. And although you can rent a boat you need a few months really, and you need your own boat, otherwise it's meh, just not as good, suitcases, small planes, see maybe a few islands but not a few dozen.
Meaningful long-distance sailing boats are (until recently) pretty horrid in terms of comfort. The transfer bus or taxi is usually lots more comfy than your charter sailing boat, even though the motorboats have had splooshy cockpit seats and sunpads and pushbutton carpets for years. But it's gotten a lot better recently, with more designers realising that their boats are often sailed for fun in shorts or bikinis or less, and not so much with so-called "offshore" jackets - i don't think i ever wore "sailing gear" during the whole rtw trip - shorts, t-shirts, bare feet.
Yeah, there's Oysters and Ovni's but they seem either far too serious or just a huge heap of cash. They all bang on about "offshore passages" but really, it's just a very long time between putting away the fenders and getting them out again. In between the boat is fine - but ooh, there can be a lot of worry worry worry. Hence steel hulls for the extremely frightened types, for example, and double-expensive "ocean" sailing gear as though slightly-deeper pockets and a whistle really matters.
Here's a more useable and i suppose more dull truth for those living on - and actually sailing - a boat full-time.: unless your mainsail furl or is extremely small, then any trip of less than ten or even twenty miles it's oh bolx, just put out the jib and/or flash up the motor - otherwise it's 10-15 minutes to get the big sail out and same again or longer to put it all away, especially in tropical sun where it gets battered unless nicely zipped up in the bag, and the zip is iffy, again.
So, in-mast furling for us lazy gits i think. And a mono, and obv needs a dinghy, water maker, generator ... it's gotta be a big boat or very cluttered. Let's make it big.
A Quite- Big Noise for long-distance sail boats (nice new ones, i mean, not the sort that you buy and then fix up for a few years) used to be the Beneteau 57. Oyster layout and shape but half the price. Same electrical gear, same nav gear etc and just slightly-less-granite-laden kitchen er galley. I went over to Guadeloupe to see one called "Nae Hassle" and forgot that the scottish owner was serious about the name - Nae Hassle meant Nae Maintenance, and so the anchor motor was knackered, the in-mast furling was iffy, no test sail possible and he still wanted over £200k for a 12-year old boat that only cost £350ish new. And Mo' was less than 10years old when i sold it. Hum. Most if not all of those built-to-a budget things like generator, engine, rig and er actually everything really including the loos... need TLC or (really) throwing in the bin and replacing at this sort of age if you actually want to get out into big sea and give it some stick and rely on things, at least a bit and sometimes quite a lot
Another budget re-think (upwards of course).
Newer sail boats from the big manufacturers seem rather nice these days, and I found Jeanneau making sensible noises about how much time we spend in the cockpit - loads. So their old 54 had quite-nice big cockpit, the new 57 even better and the quite-new 64 is probably the only mono sailing boat of its size or less in which you can have sex in the cockpit. Yeah, they def DON'T give this sort of information out in the boat magazines, and of course it's not a major consideration, not really, but it's a very valid measure of cockpit comfort. Sorry. The Jeanneau sales guy had a good laugh at my emails.
New 64's are very popular and you can't have yours for a year or maybe more which means that back in May/June this year it would have been arriving a bit late even for european summer 2016. Hm. Also - loads of money. Hm, again.
But not to worry, there's a 2013 J57 and not too expensive -loads of kit INCLUDING the in-mast furling and generator. It's in Gib, which is doable even though I'm in the carib. I must have had a lot of rum that night and i pressed the "Make Carp Offer" button. The broker knows he's gotta get me to go see the thing, but I've made an offer already. Anyway, the boat's called Snap Decision innit, so i tell to shuttit with the very welcome to have an inspection test sail blarney.
I ask a sensible captain friend who ives in Gib to go check that the boat exists and that it's not a scam, and he reports that yep, the boat is all there, feels brand new, altho a bit empty - needs some kit. Fair enough. The broker pokes his waterproof camera under the boat and sends me the link on youtube - it looks like the fin and rudder and prop are all in the right places, so what the heck, save two grand in airfares and several days in airports - i just wire the money and the broker can't believe it.
This should have been enough boat-buying action, but Oh No, not for me, it seems. I must have been on autopilot with it set to "boat buying" and bearing north-north-crazy. After a few more daft posts on ybw, lots of exceptionally experienced friends send me more information about the J64 and how it's a very wise idea to get in the queue and if you play your cards right you can get a 2017 boat at 2015 prices! Ooh! Not very much more rum, and in the same week as i commit to an unseen J57 which i've never seen, i also commit to buying a J64 which only exists on a youtube and emailed price lists, for delivery in eighteen months time, and somehow it all seemed almost sane.
Two weeks later in Gib, the still-sensible but sniggering captain tells me the story of how the broker took him to Queensway Marina ( from Marina Bay - 1 mile) and all the while grilled him in a salesy way like er look is this for real? And the captain is sitting in the car saying oh yes, he'll definitely buy it if it's pointy at one end and less-pointy at the other, that tcm , he'll just buy it.
I arrived on a Friday in June, whizzed round some chandleries and left for Ibiza on the Monday, first and last East-bound wind for a week or more. 35 knots downwind at Europa Point and we're doing 11-12 knots into the evening on a boat we just set foot on less than 3 days ago. But that's just like a charter boat i suppose.
Before we leave the broker has an after-party for some intrepid Gib-based sailing mates who went on a Rally to Smir 10-15 miles away a couple of weeks earlier, lots of pix on a big projector. I suppose you set your own horizons with this sailing thing. The broker tells me about how he once went to the Balearics -which is where I'm headed - but it sounds like a few years ago. He can 't believe I'm going right now, just like that. Really? Yes really.
But the fact is that if the sails go up/down (in and out on this one) and the engine starts and the bilges are dry, a two-year-old boat can go just about anywhere, right now. Especially if it's almost 60 feet long. Hardly need much food in the med cos the shops are almost always in view.
I get to Cartagena before the winds turns against me for two days, then have a week in Ibiza, and see friends near Barca and set off back to Gib and the Canaries to park up and wait for a transat in Nov. Haulout in Lanzarote was straightforward enough and i've bought a water maker for the guys to fit while I'm away.
I've put up a "crew call" post here and on CF and get many dozen replies cos it's a nice boat, a popular route (unlike say Panama west-bound into the Pacific where the crew get to choose their ride...) and perhaps a funny post .
But i sorta think that it's time to see if I can do it on my own for once, so that's the plan. I am re-thinking the idea of Fr Poly with this boat - I might just sail to the carib and sell it to some nice Americans in the spring and daysail in the meantime.
In September I took a couple of days out to fly to the uk for the boat show in so'ton, saw a J64 for the first time but with a ghastly spec - £600k of often-daft extras on a £600k base boat is too much I think . Mine will have nice aft cabin and fuchsia pink leather sofa in the saloon, only £200k (gulp) of extras with an anchor (not included).
So, next flight is to Lanza to pick up the boat and hack it over to the carib which makes me think of other similar trips. I think one of my favourite transats was also from Lanza, 2008, with Stingo, where he managed to get us all agree to NOT taking any pix of sunsets thereby saving about half an hour a day, and NOT getting any sat phone weather forecasts. We rode in on the 5-6m seas after hurricane Omar, sheesh, and a wave that looked like a ski-slope overtook us and landed on the foredeck. That was also when (inshore, off Fuerteventura) i first did one of those now-notorious MOB drills that involves actually jumping in. Yeehah! Not advisable except in warm waters - but a completely different crew reaction when it isn't a fender, and that -JEEZ!!!!- shock factor is a dominant element of a real MOB, not pratting about adjusting sails. These days I take more novice crew through fender-based MOB drills and THEN jump in. Altho this next time solo - no MOB drills, i gotta remember ...
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