Hi! We are Ava🇺🇸 and Mads🇩🇰. We spent five years refitting an old Warrior 38 fiberglass sailboat sold everything and left Denmark in 2021. We have been sailing full-time since then continuously improving our sailboat with DIY projects and exploring the world. New video every Sunday at 8:00 PM CET.
Every week I am looking forward to seeing your adventures on youtube. Sailing or DIY, I always love it. Always entertaining, whatever you do. No doubt it is time consuming and in the end more work than a full time job. Because you two are never afraid to try out something new, you trougly deserve to be the number one sailing RU-vid channel. If you cannot go on like this you can always fall back on Ava's performance skill😆 Some of the other things I love: Transat Jacques Vabre, the Route du Rhum. Volvo Ocean Race or 49er and , I will always have immense respect for all the sailors that take on such a challenge. Back to Sail Life and more specifically Mads and Ava's upcoming Dinghy Project.Please do not give up on vacuum infusion as this will give you the ideal ratio fibre/resin. The result is the lightest, stiffest, and strongest bond. Saving something on materials (resin) along the way. This at least should compensate for the extra cost of vacuum infusion. Have also a look at this project before starting with your dinghy project: "The Dark Ice Project Introduction - Composite Sledges for a Polar World Record Attempt" Of course the dinghy will not be used to break world records but it is a very fascinating project and a nice tutorial for composites in general. Even for the champion of "oh glorious sanding" there are some things you will learn from this tutorial. Even Mads CNC machine back in Denmark will come in handy. Also, you should prepare your sailing dinghy to be also an electric foiling dinghy for 2 people and a load of shopping goods. It will not be that hard, I promise you. Take into account that salt water has approximately 840 times the density of water, never push but always pull and an aeronautics specialist is more valuable than an maritime specialist. Sorry in advance for the insult to all maritime specialists but even a naval architect has to admit that every training starts with this density principality. Displacement and rigging is a whole other matter but only applicable to your dinghy for very heavy loads😰(in total over 200kg 440lbs) Why do you think that NASA was involved in the development of the new America's Cup ships after losing the cup (132 years). The USA did spend a lot of government resources and money, hense NASA resources, to win it back. General audience: Interested? Then also look at SailGP. Most America's Cup sailors do their training on the sailGP catamarans these days. Although to my liking the sound of those wings is almost unbearable but this is only because of the speed. You probably do not need to be able to go with a speed of over 30 knots. The rest of my dinghy advice and an introduction of myself can be in an email if you are interested: I am sorry to be so rude but I can not be found on ANY of the social media. I had to give up on that after being hacked and even blackmailed, And yes, with a VPN. We had no choice but to go "off internet". It is a bit like the blue water cruisers before the GPS times🌎 Although no social media is applicable I am capable to do private- or team- zoom, whatsapp, microsoft teams or any other -video sesion. My Email will follow within 2 day’s. Last comment: add beaching to "the list"⛵
Aw, Mads, the look on your face as Ava did her thing at the end was absolutely priceless I actually did laugh out loud! p.s. I'm back in Prickly Bay for hurricane season. The rest of the windward islands and central America next season 👍
Word pronunciation is not a hard and fast law, apparently, or there wouldn't be any dialects. having to conform with the pronunciation of all words that originate in a foreign country to the original would make linguists out of all of us (like Mads is! I'm learning my English from him!). If that would matter, then no one would ever mispronounce Pareé as Paris! And everyone would have to trill their 'r's! Or we could just continue the effort to push Esparanto on the world. Kinda like we have with English! Your stay at the atoll (pronunciation is your choice) reminds me of the other cruisers who have spent time at Minerva Reef in the mid-Pacific. If all you see at anchor is the ocean out to the horizon in all directions, it seems moot whether you are hundreds of miles from land at anchor or thousands! Though not a new atoll, it is new to you! Maybe you can add to your growing list of DIY projects, a pair of nesting 'Flopper-Stoppers'! Did you check to see if that wreck still had its anchor chain out? If you have any way to determine empirically, while you are cruising, if our sonar/depth sounders seem to bother any of the marine life. Marine mammals who echo-locate might have the higher frequencies of sonar in their receptive repertoire and have it bother them. I know dolphins have no problems approaching boats to escort them, but Orcas are large enough to "object". If your "next boat" might include one as big as a Macgregor 65, I can lead you to one (Zeus) in Florida that could be tempting. I would like to see one as a cruising boat.
I've spent a lot of time SCUBA diving aboard a chartered live-aboard in the Exumas. One of those cuts is named "the washing machine" and is a popular dive site. During the tide, you get pulled through and spun around, it's quite an experience. When you make it back to the Bahamas, be sure to check out Staniel Cay and the swimming pigs nearby. Also, Thunderball Grotto near there is also super cool.
Thanks for sharing some of your docking issues. I'd like to know more what it's like docking a boat that size. If you wanted to run through some docking footage in real time, I'd be interested.
Mads, I see Athena rolling in quite a few of your videos and you've mentioned how much both of you hate it. Have you considered putting your DIY skills to work building a set of flopper stoppers? You have both the spinnaker pole and the whisker pole. It would be easy to rig and they actually work well. Also, you should consider a riding sail. If you rig it on the boom instead of the backstay you can angle the boom to keep you bow to swell when the wind and the swell are not from exactly the same direction.
Lots of konch at Hogsty Reef. Need a fishing license from the Bahamas but it was worth it. These "atoll" was one of our favorite stops between Greece and California. And I hope you checked out the light house. The Bahamas are such an awesome place.
No one-right answer... Oxford dictionary: (at·oll) ˈaˌtôl, or ˈaˌtäl; then Miriam-Webster: ˈa-ˌtȯl - täl, - tōl, or even ˈā- xxx. So you pretty much have six combos to choose from!
When you get to the Chesapeake, come on up to the James River. You can anchor around Hog Island, which helps create a giant lake in the James. Come a-shore and visit Jamestown and Williamsburg.
Since you are so prone to sea sickness from folly seas, even ar anchor, you should seriously consider a catamaran as your next boat. My husband sailed sloops for YEARS, then ONCE we joined some friends at the BVIs. They rented a cat from the Morings for a week, and we really liked it. While it’s a bit more expensive at marinas, it was so much easier to stay in a small cove. The added room was so nice. As a live aboard, it would have been perfect.
I've been a happy follower of your channel for a few years now. My wife and I have sailed our steel hulled Swedish Ohlson 41 for about 50 years, including to Europe, Africa, N.& S. America. Your anchoring comment about "a few inches of sand over hard coral" struck a chord, as we anchored just west of a small island in the Exumas one night in 1979 with an easterly land breeze, and set our bower (CQR) toward land and our Danforth astern to keep us in place. The danforth was set in exactly the type of bottom you describe (which is common on the Bahamas). The wind clocked around and increased in the night, and by the morning we were experiencing 40 knots from the stern, and large swells. The little danforth never dragged - which is nice as we were less than 100 feet from what became a lee shore. The lesson I learned that night - and never forgotten - was that the much maligned danforth anchor. is incredibly effective in pretty much that one condition (good holding bottom just a few inches over hard material). I now have a larger updated version (Viking) as my primary stern anchor, and although rarely used, it's a wonderful anchor. I'm often reminded of that night in the Bahamas, and how a single night of anchoring can teach a lesson which stays with you for a lifetime.
A danforth never fails but be prepared to “cut” it when it is stuck under a rock or pay for a diver with a crowbar😥 It for sure is worth the extra weight and time to have both a Rocna and a smaller Danforth
I remember watching the first episode of Big Bang Theory and the wife and I said, it won't make it past the first season. About 2 weeks later and we were out with friends and we were all...yea, it is bad...THEN 2 weeks go by and somebody said "We were SO SO SO WRONG". We got hooked.
As an American how you would like to say an idea is as sovereign as how you pronounce it. Controlling speech is best left to the mentally ill and old fat women no one can stand being around. Keep giving your best. Know your/you're love
Hey guys! I just started boat shopping this month. Remember those Sail Life stickers you were mailing out so many years ago? I think I remember mentioning it in a comment I was saving it to be placed on my boat when I finally go it. Well, when I left the US in 2021 I brought the sticker with me. 😁 So far it's been with me to Mexico, Thailand, and a few other places. Right now it's on shore at the sea of Cortez, we'll see where it goes next.
Rolling at anchor- you might try getting a pair of "Rocker Stoppers" or making via DIY. Essentially, they look like a witch's hat attached to a rope with weight below. When lowered into water from both sides of boat, they provide resistance when pulled upward thru water from a swell, thus reducing the rolling. Some have no moving parts while others have a valve to allow stopper to sink faster awaiting the next upward swell movement. Some sailors hang one off the end of the boom pulled to one side of boat.
