Under way, eventually (a 1200+ Nm cruise around Italy)

[MapisM]

Yes, Sardinia indeed offered us a great welcome evening! :encouragement:
Though to be fair, the sunset pics were taken well before some N wind picked up, as I mentioned in my post #256.
Still, with wind blowing from anywhere between NW and NE, the anchorage gives an excellent shelter.
I'm just not yet 100% used to the slapping noise of even the smallest ripple, but hey-ho...!

 

[markc]

Great thread P, and congrats for being nearly home!

 

[Hurricane]

Well done - nearly there.

Those "whales" maybe could have been Rissos Dolphins.
We have seen them in our waters a few times.
They look as though they have been run over by mad motor boaters!!!
But, in fact, I believe that they fight amongst themselves a lot.

Here are some pics that we took during our encounter with Rissos

Did they look like those?

 

[AndieMac]

Also congrats on the voyage home P, it will be nice to get the mooring lines on her in CF. Thanks for the updates during the cruise, only wished I'd been aboard for some of it.

 

[MapisM]

Did they look like those?

Hard to tell, actually. Both myself and S have in mind a color somewhat closer to cream, rather the grey-ish in your pics.
But they could well have been those!
How big can they be? Pretty sure the ones we spotted were much larger than any dolphin we ever came across.
Definitely more than 3m, and very likely closer to 4.
Oh, and fwiw, they were moving much more slowly/gently than the "usual" dolphins, which contributed to remind us of whales attitude...

 

[MapisM]

Also congrats on the voyage home P, it will be nice to get the mooring lines on her in CF. Thanks for the updates during the cruise, only wished I'd been aboard for some of it.

Well, since you mention mooring lines in CF, here she is, safely moored in her new home!
Which is not exactly the same that you might remember, because we choose to stay along the floating dock in order to use the manual passerelle.
Btw, that's possibly the most appreciated innovation so far, from all the local friends who came to welcome us.
The difference between that and going up and down through the normal passerelle is indeed night and day! :encouragement:

 

[MapisM]

Looking forward to reading some statistic of the trip?

Yup, I was already thinking to make a summary post with some numbers.
Apologies for not posting it right away, but I need a bit of time to elaborate the log and summarize it in meaningful stats.
As well as it'll take me a while to filter all the pics taken along the road, particularly after crossing the Adriatic and coming back to IT.
Hopefully, that should make for an interesting final post, for those who don't mind waiting a bit...

 

[BartW]

many congrats P for this acheevement
I know the feeling when arriving after such a long trip,
actually you did it very quick, but I can unterstand the eagerness to get this job done.

you took your time to choose your new boat, and it appears that you have made good choice,
such a long trip should have revealed all major issues, and so far there didn't seem to be any major problems, well done !!

thanks for sharing this experience, I didn't post much, as too busy enjoying costa smeralda,
but followed your blog with much interest !!

tomorrow we will leave here from Bonifacio, sailing south along the east coast of sardegna,
looking forward to meet in a week or so, and give your DP a thorough inspection

 

[MapisM]

looking forward to meet in a week or so, and give your DP a thorough inspection

It will be our pleasure, B.
Actually, we are also looking fwd to seeing BA again!
There aren't many boats around which are better now, compared to more than a quarter of a century ago, when they were built... And still improving!

 

[AndieMac]

It will be our pleasure, B.
Actually, we are also looking fwd to seeing BA again!
There aren't many boats around which are better now, compared to more than a quarter of a century ago, when they were built... And still improving!

Is the other Canados 70 still moored at the marina, a couple along from where you were in the "old girl"?

 

[AndieMac]

Well, since you mention mooring lines in CF, here she is, safely moored in her new home!
Which is not exactly the same that you might remember, because we choose to stay along the floating dock in order to use the manual passerelle.
Btw, that's possibly the most appreciated innovation so far, from all the local friends who came to welcome us.
The difference between that and going up and down through the normal passerelle is indeed night and day! :encouragement:

Yes, definitely easier boarding from that level, also the new location is away from the Main Street, noise etc.
The cockpit shade covers will give you privacy as well as shade in the peak of summer. Looking good!

 

[Hurricane]

Well, since you mention mooring lines in CF, here she is, safely moored in her new home!
Which is not exactly the same that you might remember, because we choose to stay along the floating dock in order to use the manual passerelle.
Btw, that's possibly the most appreciated innovation so far, from all the local friends who came to welcome us.
The difference between that and going up and down through the normal passerelle is indeed night and day! :encouragement:

Has the floating pontoon changed since we were there?
IIRC, the pontoon was a bit wobbly when the swell in the harbour got up.
Maybe I'm thinking of a different pontoon though.

 

[Pinnacle]

Great job P. You must be really pleased to have had such an uneventful trip. Enjoy the summer in CF!

 

[MapisM]

Is the other Canados 70 still moored at the marina, a couple along from where you were in the "old girl"?

Yup, she is.
Different from BA in many ways though, because on top of not being as cared/upgraded as BA has been (but it would be hard to compete with BA for any boat, in fairness!), she's an older version.
Wooden built, hull included - hence with the traditional reverse slanted stern, and many other different details. I'm not sure of the exact vintage, though.

 

[MapisM]

Has the floating pontoon changed since we were there?
IIRC, the pontoon was a bit wobbly when the swell in the harbour got up.
Maybe I'm thinking of a different pontoon though.

Nope, the pontoon where we are has always been there.
The berth where you were docked with JW is right in front of us, where you can see a couple of distant boats on our stbd side in the above pic.
As I said, our choice was strictly driven by the possibility to use the manual passerelle, which is only feasible with a floating pontoon.

But you are right in remembering that both the main dock (where I used to be, and also Deleted User/myag/jrudge were docked) and along the harbor wall (where you were docked) are more stable - particularly with a SE blow.
We'll see, probably we'll go back there sometime around the end of the summer, when the risk of strong blows becomes higher...

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

Yup, she is.
Different from BA in many ways though, because on top of not being as cared/upgraded as BA has been (but it would be hard to compete with BA for any boat, in fairness!), she's an older version.
Wooden built, hull included - hence with the traditional reverse slanted stern, and many other different details. I'm not sure of the exact vintage, though.

If you post a picture I might tell you. BA is a Canados 70S which is what the fiberglass 70 model was called. They build over twenty of them (70 S), but I can't remember the exact number.

 

[MapisM]

If you post a picture I might tell you.

I can do more, just have a look at this webpage.
Btw, even if clearly older than BA, she's also labeled as 70S - and I don't think that the owner changed the plate, though I can't be positive about that...

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

Thanks P. But she is not a 70 S. Not only because she is not fiberglass build but also the design, that is an old 70 build in early mid 80s.
Canados was one of the few who offered wood builds (as long as you could fork out the cash) to a fiberglass build, so if someone wanted one they would do it.
Saying all this I have never seen a wooden 70 S.
Now who stick the S after the 70 I do not know, but she did undergo a refit see new engines fitted in 2006.

Lovely vessel none the less.
Cantieri di Pisa Akhir series first, Posillipo Martinica and Tobago series second, and Canados third created a fan base back in those years (70s till eighties) with the black dark colored super structure thing. Interestingly then in the nineties came Sanlorenzo who was among the last to hit the bug of the black super structure.

Anyways I had a soft spot for it, hence when I was young a local Posillipo 42 Martinica TS became my favorite boat.

BTW this was an original boat back in the days when presented in Genoa 1993 http://www.mondialbroker.com/Barca.aspx?pk=5b3ce59a-e05a-49e7-8ffc-f534571632b4
This should be only the second or third hull only build of the 55 Al'Nair series which as your boat all came from the 52 Asterion hull.

 

[MapisM]

Looking forward to reading some statistic of the trip?

I just reviewed the detailed log which I kept during the trip.
Practically, we made the whole trip at cruise speeds anywhere from 20 to 24kts.
It's a bit tricky to check exactly the fuel burn difference within this speed range, because between refills we made some legs a bit slower and some others a bit faster. But surely the difference is neither here nor there, in terms of Nm per liter.
Obviously, single digit speed is what would have made a big difference, but we never made more than very short hops at D speed, for all the reasons previously explained. So, I still have no clue about how large the exact difference could be, in a long passage.
That's a bit academic anyway, 'cause I would have made a completely wrong boat choice, if I had long distance cruising in mind - this delivery trip being pretty much an exception.

So, in a nutshell, we made 1170Nm overall, burning 8300 liters of fuel, which means an average of 7.1 Nm per liter.
That's inclusive of about 50 hours of genset usage, and actually also the engines clocked more hours than those spent at cruising speed - almost 80, overall.
Obviously, the average speed calculated on engine hours basis is much lower (14.6 kts), with a hourly fuel burn of "just" 104 liters.
But that includes lead times upon maneuvering and very short hops at D speed, which are meaningless.
Actual mile crunching was never done at less than 20kts solid, with most of the longer legs in the 22kts ballpark - which btw is also a technical sweet spot for the engines, a hair under 1800rpm, right at the peak of torque curve, according to MAN specs.
Therefore, assuming an average cruising speed of 22kts (hence 53 of the 80 hours spent at or around that speed), the actual fuel burn has been 156 lph (calculated in excess, as if the rest of the hours and the genset would have burned nothing).
And by sheer coincidence, that's exactly the value reported in the builder's specs, at 1800rpm/23 kts.
In other words, my first estimate of post #182 proved to be spot on, eventually (actual fuel burn=builder's specs minus 1 knot).

In the future, after some time of our more typical cruising around CF, with short day trips which make D speed much more acceptable also in a boat not designed for that, I will possibly be able to update the above numbers including slower cruising, but don't hold your breath: I expect/hope that it will take me years to burn another 8k liters, from now on!

For the records, I'm also attaching an overview of the actual route, which was eventually a bit different and shorter from what we originally planned, for several contingent reasons.
I made each cruising day/leg in alternated colors, for my planning convenience.
We never made any night passages, because I don't fancy the idea of being unable to see and avoid floating stuff at 20+ kts…

 

[MapisM]

BTW this was an original boat back in the days when presented in Genoa 1993
http://www.mondialbroker.com/Barca.aspx?pk=5b3ce59a-e05a-49e7-8ffc-f534571632b4
This should be only the second or third hull only build of the 55 Al'Nair series which as your boat all came from the 52 Asterion hull.

Yup, VERY original indeed.
In a sense, the Al Na'ir design was too much ahead of her times, considering how fashionable fully enclosed HT boats with saloon door became later on.
Anyhow, you're very good at boat models history, W.
Indeed those models (plus the 55 Asterion) are all derived from the 52 which GDP raced in the Venice-Montecarlo in the early 90s.
The change from the 52 to the 55/56 was much more than a hull extension though, because the technical layout was completely redesigned - from direct shafts to V-drives...