Thank you 🙏 we try our best to make the passages as easy as possible but it doesn’t always work out as the weather gods are the ultimate boss out here 😁
Three boats so far. The one south of Galapagos a tuna boat and this Excess we passed. Lots out here though just not within the range of sight. Checkout marine traffic for an overview you’d be shocked!
Yes she’s in for a major makeover when we get back to Oz. It’ll take a few years and we’ll do a fair bit of cruising in between but slowly and surely she’ll become like new or better than new we hope. Stay tuned! 😁 So far we’ve been blown away by the boat. She’s sails incredibly well in light airs and her shapes offer comfort at sea and at anchor unlike the more modern and flatter shapes we see today she pounds and slams less. Her construction materials also offer better sound proofing and are more gentle than the newer composite constructions like carbon. Spirit has exceeded our expectations and we feel lucky to have found her when we did. As she’s in poor condition and wasn’t heading to a good place. Trimarans aren’t for everyone but if you like them this design is one of the best large cruising trimarans out there and that’s from our experience with old sails that aren’t even measured or designed for her and with no downwind sails yet so her performance will on get better over time. Hope this helps answer your question 👍
Having to figure out what angle to sail at and when to turn and the apparent wind angle is just stuff you must learn over time I guess, I know you just don't jump on and go.
Exactly it’s all from past experience really and it depends a lot on the boat and what you’re trying to achieve. It also changes daily with the weather updates. If it’s looking like heavier winds we’ll stick south of the rhumb line if lighter we’ll go north for better angles. The wind gods are in charge out here 😁
Really enjoying your daily updates. I watch from my apartment in Barcelona and in between working for the Americas Cup. Just wondering what camera you use for filming? Because is nice and sharp with great colour.
That’s cool nice to have you onboard 👍 would love to be in Barcelona for the cup, it’s one of our favourite cities so beautiful there in the spring and summer. I’m just using an old iPhone 12 with a 4k video setting. Stoked to hear it looks sharp as we are pretty hopeless at this type of thing. We’re definitely more sailors than video makers 😁
Thank you for explaining your heading strategy in regards to anticipated wind strength nearing the Marquesas and ocean currents. Please explain your sail selection during your deep running. Would you consider running under headsail or spinaker without mainsail? Do you keep the mainsail up for better mast support or is it a short handed safety issue? Is it correct that you have sighted only one other sailboat in thirteen days?
Good questions! Yes we’d be more than happy to run with an asymmetrical spinnaker or large reacher however we don’t have the required fittings to fit them yet. We have an old spinnaker onboard and a reacher but not the furling unit we need to fit the reacher and the kites to old and in poor condition. So this really leaves us with no choice but to run with what we have, mainsail and Genoa. There’s been three boats sighted one catamaran just south of the Galapagos, one tuna boat and the Excess Catamaran we just passed. There’s a lot out here though just not on the exact track we’re on. Check out marine traffic for an overview.
Really enjoying these videos! Could I ask a question about your running rigging. It looks like you’ve got a sheet from a staysail run through a block along the port side but the block on the car is empty. I imagine you can go days on the same tack so do you take the unused sheets off to stop the chafing? Or have I completely misunderstood? Thanks
Not sure I’m right here in understanding what you mean? but the staysail sheets via a friction ring then goes through a foot block to the aft winches. The genoa/headsail though is sheeted wide onto the ama/float and that’s normally sheeted on the track to the side of the saloon for a tighter sheeting angle. However when we run deep for days on end we remove the sheet and re-run it out wide to give a flatter sail shape and better sheeting angle for those wind angles. Hope this helps 👍
