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Daniel Cormier is a full time liveaboard cruiser with 4+ years experience as a RU-vid creator and influencer with his channel Sailing Balachandra.
great video. But can you explain what the walkie-talkie is for? Why not use a cellphone? Unless u r cruising through many countries... (which u probably are)
I have had three of them, a 4hp for my tender and a 5hp sailpro on my 26 ft yacht. And use the 20hp efi at the sail club for our rescue boat, having had them for 7, 5 and 1 year i have never had any issues even leaving impellars in as i have year around usage on them...
had a friend and wife sailing - they were in bad weather - he went on deck and would always clip onto the mast - the boat rolled - when it came up the mast was not there - neither was he - wife was bruised down below - but alive - never clip onto your mast..
Challenging to stay attached to a boat that rolls over. In practice the safest places to clip on are the standing rigging. Tying yourself to a cleat might be safer but definitely isn't practical. A jack line might be the best bet, though I wonder if he'd survive that.
Hi, we use a pair of SENA SPH10 Marriage Savers although we were in the U.K. at the time, we brought them from Holland, ( much cheaper) being Bluetooth they allow hands free operation, a real boom on a sailboat, they also have a 900 mt range. We wouldn’t be without them.
Still using the same Danny Green nesting dinghy I built in Ecuador in 2007 with a 3.5 hp 2-stroke. It sails better than it rows. Rows better than it motors and motors at about 4-5 knots. I service the outboard once a year myself. Full time cruising. 😊
Hey brother thanks for the video I’m 22 years old saving my money right now to buy myself a sailboat and eventually stock up all the essentials that I need this was a great information video happy sailing
I watched you for five minutes and I had to stop what you need to do is get a real job and buy good equipment and stop pissing and moaning about the junk you buy doesn’t last well no shit Sherlock
We had that same problem with the dinghy in the Carribean, the glue melted, we had to replace the dinghy, we couldn’t even give the old one away,! We are back home in Newfoundland but we need a new dinghy motor when we get back to St Martin in the Carribean. We need a new 8- 9 hp outboard 2 stroke if we can get it. Should we get a tohatsu or a Yamaha? Tks Ed
G'gay. If you have an lightweight dinghy, all you need is an 100 amp lithium ion battery witch can be recharged by solar when you are away from the dinghy and an 60 pound thrust electric trolling motor. I set my old tender in this manner and it worked just fine. Advantage no feul no noise going past other boaters and no feul smell. And as no feul needed, you have more cargo space. Diavantage just do not ancour too far from the dinghy warf or beach. Gerard. NSW AUSTRALIA.
You are either very unlucky, or your routine outboard preventative maintenance is questionable. I have run outboards for years - decades on both Tohatsu and Yamaha, without any major failures. I guess it is hard to freshwater flush when extended cruising, but it is vital to longer reliability. Running on decent quality fuel and flushing fuel filter, applying fogging oil, and changing all sealed fluids/filters more often also helps. You may as well do bushings at same time also useful. Little and often is key. YMMV but just using tender engine and not flushing etc, is gonna impact 'reliabilty' perceptions.
Too many product categories in one episode. You should focus on one product category per episode, ex. one episode for dingy adhesive, another episode for dingy outboards. Otherwise, great presentation and great info.
I have a 31 year old Tohatsu 2 stroke with hundreds of hours on it. Have the 6 Sailpro that’ hasn’t skipped a beat ever that gets used hard annually. And took the plunge on the 20 EFI last year for a dingy. It’s so odd how all owners experience is so differing.
Great Video, please more of this raspberry on a sailboat stuff :) BTW did you know that you can very easealy feed AIS Data from your Pi directly to Navionics App on your tablet? You just have to connect to a tcp Server which sends the ais data.
Great question- flares, food, glowsticks, hand pump watermaker, fishing stuff, hot blanket, flashlight, and a small first aid kit. The EPIRB is mounted inside the cabin but if I had time to get the grab bag, I would also get the EPIRB and toss it in there.
From my experience, four stroke outboards don't last long, whilst two strokes go on and on. Yamaha seem to be the better of the four strokes and weirdly enough the two strokes too.
I'm a 35-year liveaboard and have had 4 dinghies/outboards. My current outboard is a 10 yr old 30 hp Tohatsu that has served me flawlessly and continues to run perfectly. My worst dinghy was a Zodiac PVC and I'd avoid PVC at all cost. Invest a little more for Hypalon. Also, Dan's preferred dinghy is a Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB). RIBs are great, especially with higher horsepower outboards, however, they are heavy. Ribs are too heavy to land on a beach and drag out of the surf. My best dinghy was my first, that was a 13 ft hypalon Avon with an inflatable keel. I could land on a SoCal beach through surf and "walk" it onto the beach out of the surf and "walk" it to relaunch. With a 15 hp 2-stroke Yamaha (got stolen so I can't comment on longevity but was great for 4 years), the Avon was a rocket ship. Unfortunately, Zodiac bought Avon and ruined the brand and 2-strokes are illegal in California.
Yeah, hear lots of negative thibgs about Zodiac despitr the reputation. See a lot of zodiacs covered in patches and glue. There are tonnes of options. Ribs are crazy heavy but a small 9 or 10' isn't bad if you don't mind the splashing. I loved our 5 hp 2 stroke tohatsu but if i got a new one it would be all made of cheap materials from Asia. Tohatsu has gone down hill. You'll see what I mean when your choke or starter button just falls off for no reason :(
I always wonder why cruisers don't use forward looking sonar, wouldnt that be a better option knowing what you are getting into. Will be great if you can do an episode on forward looking sonars.
can you tell me why it would be useful? - due to the rolling and stomping in the waves, the direction always changes a bit - in rough sea, the sonar wouldn’t be under water all the time - you don’t need to know what is directly in front of you unless you are afraid you are unable to see land before you hit it. other boats can come from any direction and be on course of collision. - you can have AIS and radar which give you much better information
It's interesting that you say a Garmin Inreach is "just as useful" as an Iridium Go when in fact the Inreach only provides tracking, basic text messaging, and completely useless weather at $1 a request I believe. But then you mention that it's just as useful when you pair your Inreach with your pre-existing SSB radio and a subscription to Chris Parker (unless you are just listening for free with no contribution). I think a more feasible comparison would be starting from a blank slate: Purchase a Garmin Inreach and SSB Radio plus the cost of installing the SSB without your boat looking like a hodge podge of hanging wires, OR, purchase an Iridium Go. You can see why most cruisers are opting for the Iridium Go when presented from a blank slate perspective. With that said, I like the Garmin Inreach a lot, especially for it's price point. I wouldn't compare it to an Iridium Go however. Thanks for the list. The Motorola Walkie Talkies are a great recommendation that I've been meaning to add onboard. I will go with your pick for model.
The best and most prevalent outboard motor in the Caribbean was, is, and likely will remain for some time, the ubiquitous Yamaha 2 stroke with the 15HP being the most common on dinghies. There are parts available everywhere because all the locals use them as well. Pick one up anywhere along the way. We picked up our 2020 model in the Bahamas as we made our way south. $2200 is an excellent price for a brand new 15HP outboard. Additionally, the best modification I have made to our RIB was to install a fuel/water separator designed specifically for smaller outboard motors. Ours happens to be a Racor unit but there are others available. Keeping water out of the carb is a great start to keeping the motor running optimally!
Strange - there is no information about the amount of Amp's the small inverter gives and what is the idle amp. drawn from it, is it sinus or square wave? this is not very serious - get into the deep of stuff, is there alternatives to Motorola walkies? Everybody know what they want on the boat, but did i choose the right thing? I sounds like u have started a commercial channel sponsored by the thing u are given. Liked the sailing channel u had before! Will look at some episodes before i judge. Happy summer
Thanks, great points. The first few videos here on SG are cut and paste from the past 2 years of Sailing Balachandra simply to populate the new channel with content. The upcomming videos will be more focused on testing and demoing- definitely not commercial or sponsored. If companies start sending me gear i will definitley put them against competing products, but that won't happen until i have 20k and up subscribers. (That wilk take a while)
I don't know about the smaller tohatsu engines, but the 25 and up are tough. I have many friends that use them daily to commercial fish and they last many years. Probably a decade. These engines run most days all day. I don't think anyone can beat Yamaha outboards.
Love the RPI, but what I lack is the important step of loading useful charts. There are various chart sources, with different coverage. What charts are actually available e.g. for the Mediterranean vs. the Caribbean, some are free, some are not, and some does not run on the RPI, many different chart formats, maybe a topic for your next episode to really understand if this is the smart choice.
🇨🇦 OK, OK,,,, Your Smart!! Love this episode!! We have been contemplating how to upgrade an old B+G analog system. Thank you from the Calgary Crew. 🇨🇦 Did you buy it online, and if so, are you willing to share links?
Another good episode. The only problem with those bolt cutters is cutting stranded cable they leave a messy edge (who cares in an emergency, right?) But they might leave a few strands still attached. Because the cutters don't bi-pass, they might just sort of gnaw on the last few strands. Fussy and time consuming. I've got some Knipex Tools 95 61 190 SBA Wire Rope Cutters which make a quick clean cut. I use them for up to 1/4" wire-rope (Not sure how big they go ) there's probably a pair that could cut your shrouds quickly and efficiently.They'd also be much smaller than the big bolt cutters; probably work single handed. Another plus for the Knipex cutters is they do a quick clean cut on rope - so they'd be handy to have on board. (I use them for lots of things). Of course I'd attach a tether for my wrist, around my head, or carabiner'd to my PFD. And of course what do the experienced sailors advise? I'm still a noob. "We might forget some of these procedures" I've got ADHD. When it all starts turning messy and everyone feels dread - I often kind of perk up, and focus. (So long as I don't screw up I might be considered 'emergency gear'). And yet - I've panicked, I've forgotten things. Six months after 9-1-1 was instituted in the U.S. I could see the flames shooting out all the windows of a house as I tried to call...??? I finally called the operator who scolded me as she connected me to the emergency operator. Training has to be drilled and automatic or it might not work as it should in an emergency.
Cruisers *SHOULD have a battery powered angle grinder and make sure it's charged before going on passage. I have an A/C wall plug one that I would choose over the cutters but my batteries and inverter would still have to be functional. After broaching and potentially rolling there's a good chance the batteries will be inundated but maybe not?
