Sailing Grand Cayman to Chesapeake MD part 2 - Hallberg-Rassy 54 Cloudy Bay -May 2020. Season20 Ep20 

Our pleasure! Some more coming soon.

Hope you guys are ok 😐 Miss your nice sailing footage

Thanks Thomas. Yes, I was a good boy scout ... "always be prepared" :) Seriously though, when we go east from Panama and head westwards, we really needs to ensure we can be self sufficient for as much as possible. So far is all just good practice for the many empty miles between Panama and NZ and again NZ to South Africa.

Our pleasure, Richard. See you again soon.

Many thanks, David. Be back as soon as we can, Covid willing (we need the borders in Pacific to re-open).

Thanks so much, Tom. See you in the fall. Hopefully it will re-start sooner than later. But who knows with this Covid. All the boarders are mostly still closed to yachts

I hope so too!

We will be!

Yes, it was certainly quite a changeable situation. And not really helped by Oana just wanting to get there.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for watching!

Haha .... hope the list is not too long!

Back before you know it Brad

Our pleasure!

glad you guys enjoyed it. Hoping for more soon!

Many thanks!

Glad you like them

Thanks Guys

As always .... funny comment :)

Thanks Simon. Hopefully back in the fall

Hmmm yes, thats kind of how it is! Currently enjoying our evenings watching "The Crown" on Netflix and during the day riding our motorbike, editing videos and planning next season on Cloudy Bay. My hands and feet are going soft!

So sorry to hear of you lost Steven. But happy our videos in someway help lift you. Take Care

Karsten, thanks for the compliment. Hopefully it will re-start sooner than later. But who knows with this Covid. All the boarders are mostly still closed to yachts

Awww ... thats nice. Thanks Mario.

Thanks so much, guys. See you later in the year, Covid willing.

Thanks, you too!

Nature is our music

Thanks again Andre.

Thanks Michael. Yes, we are looking forward to getting back to her and even more looking forward to Covid being "done"!

Thank you! Will do!

Many thanks!

Wow, thank you!

Thanks David. Yes we are both safe and well. ....and now vaccinated also. Will be back out in the autumn. But, I do have several more videos coming form the 2019 season that we are only just editing. Coming soon.

Hope you enjoyed binging Roger!

Yes thanks. The eye and what was left of the storm passed directly over the boat in north Chesapeake. So much for getting her safely 100 miles inland! But no issues apparently. The cover even stayed on the dinghy. But this storm again reinforced my notion that there is no point simply storing the boat somewhere on the east coast, even if it is out of the insurance hurricane zone .... because those storms so often sweep up the coast. Inland up the Chesapeake is the ideal spot.

Thank you! Cheers!

Thanks for the great comment and compliment Roy. Glad you enjoy the videos. I'll be posting some more maintenance ones soon. Then we get back to sailing in the autumn.

Thank you very much! But we are in Romania. UAE was our last place of work before we retired to sail in 2016.

James, Yeah, we don't like all that reality TV type stuff. Its the sailing experience we like to show. Not so much our personal lives aboard.

Thanks guys. Where do you sail your Twister 28?

@@SailCloudyBay last year Falmouth to Valencia. This years plan was scrapped like so many others so just a couple of localish trips from Valencia. (Videos are available for the terminally bored only ) ;-)

I took a look. Keep going. if you look at our first videos they were very sketchy!

Dilligaf ... yes, and to use the common phrase in English: "Life isn't always plain sailing"

We got out and back home to Europe as soon as the boat was out the water Diane. Hopefully we will re-start sooner than later. But who knows with this Covid. All the boarders are mostly still closed to yachts

Yes Andrew, I heard and read about that terrible tragedy. The report makes for sobering reading. Autohelm failure caused the gybe and a preventer that was incorrectly rigged and swept back spreader rig made the shrouds vulnerable. Classic of several small failures adding up to Catastrophe. A lot of talk about the guy who went overboard with no PFD, but realistically, the crew was never able to come back to him. He was lost, PDF or no. In our case, as we were shy reaching at the time, we didnt have the preventer rigged. I had slowed the boat to get the prop folded, and when came off the wind to power up I got disorientated and sailed through the wind from behind, I realised my error just as the boom swung across. Luckily for us it was only 15kts of wind and we only had 1/2 the mainsail area out. But the seas were pretty big and the boom swung wildly as the boat rolled. Previously, we had had an accidental gybe in 30kts with full mainsail. On that occasion there was a massive windshift while the autohelm was set on a magnetic course and only Oana on watch. But we had the preventer rigged, and it worked. The only damage were 2 bent stanchions on the bow (preventer bent them as it took up the massive strain). Crash gybes are VERY frightening on a big rig. The forces being outrageously high.

Glad you like them, Dick. Hopefully the borders with reopen later in the year. But may not .... :(

Thank you! 😊

Thanks and welcome. Lots of other good ones on our channel if you fancy a binge watch

Hmmm La Paz. Went there once to kite surf. Love the place. Maybe we will venture up to Baja before crossing the Pacific.

James Peto yes agree. Oana was a bit mute by the end. She really needed a break from the boat :(

@@SailCloudyBay Been there too. Once went for about 10 days of "no speaks" except for boat talk during a particularly difficult passage. Wishing you both well. James

Glad you enjoyed it

Thank you so much for your support and viewing Leo. Are you, like me, also a Leo? See you next season. In the meantime I'll see what other older material I can drag up.

Thank you, I’ll be here, God’s will, waiting for Sail cloudy bay alerts.

good idea

Thanks for the compliment. Industrial Bugger ... like it :)

@@SailCloudyBay lol i hoped, you would. Thanks for the adventure, by the way. Im looking forward to more. She is a beautiful vessel. Maybe the Mrs. can get herself a vile or two of Dimanhydranate IM. in the off chance she gets quite Sea sick. The pills never did anything for me. Couldnt keep the damned things down long enough for them to work. One shot of the miracle water and i was fine.

R Christie noted ... we’ll take a look at that.

Working on it!

Should be back in the water in October. Covid willing

@@SailCloudyBay I plan to be here in Annapolis in October; I'll help you in any way possible; you can count on me.

Bob ... thanks for the nice comment again. Unfortunately the camera never seems to capture the reality of the sea. But yes ... not quite 5m that time I'd have to admit! Good advise on checking other things after that gybe. Actually the gybe was not so dramatic. We only had 1/2 the mainsail out in 15kts wind. I dont think the boom even hit the lower shrouds, thank god. And had I had the traveler better secured, it might not even have gone off the track. I was cursing myself for hours afterwards. What is DPM by the way? some kind of absorbent matt?

@@SailCloudyBay No, damp proof membrane is used in building. It's available everywhere(?) and is cheap(ish). You'll find offcuts everywhere but complete rolls are 25*4m. Cut to size are good containment for the oil etc. Outboards are just awkward to work on. Also, it is tougher than many tarpaulins and is useful in a really big emergency when a large hole appears below the waterline. A large section of this placed over the hole worked best in Yachting World's test for improvisation in extreme conditions where it can be dragged from the bow backwards from either side of the boat. Am I tempting providence? Available in black and grey! You are like me and want your boat perfect. I enjoy a lot of sailing channels, but not many are about "proper" sailing, well done.

Bob, I'll have to take a look at that. I have several pieces of tarp for that "hole plugging" purpose, but maybe DPM would be better.

More to come!

Thanks

Yes ... the Covid gods ... Hopefully it will re-start sooner than later. But who knows with this Covid. All the boarders are mostly still closed to yachts

Rica ederim. Gelecekte daha fazlası gelecek.

Day early ... but thanks Roy!

Depends what side of the dateline you’re on!

Our pleasure!

Yes, and the camera never seems to quite capture waves or sea conditions as they appear in reality

Funny you should mention the HR44 ... I was onboard one today at the HR private show in Maryland, USA. Very nice boat.

Free state yachts not doubt? I asked my dad to go down and take a look at it before they put it under wraps. He was not able to make it. My email address is thomas.haldis@me.com, I’d love to tap you for advice as I move through the process. Tom

Just emailed you....

Yes, we will be back! Once this Covid is under control and when we are vaccinated and safe to travel again. Plan to restart this autumn

Thank you! Will do!

Some more videos coming out in the next few weeks. Maintenance and sailing. Then we should be back on the water in October.

Wish we were back there!

Thanks, Dietmar

Thanks for watching, Ali. Yes that swell was surreal. And the camera never seems to actually capture the real extent of waves or swell. So often when in big seas we film and are very disappointed the video does not reflect the reality.

Sail Cloudy Bay I really felt it, it was scary. I thought it was a huge submarine was passing by or whale or abnormal natural phenomenon.

Hi Glenn I discovered something new, HR is not ketch as Amel 😊

We're re-started!!! new videos on yesterday and more to come.

Roland, yes, hopefully we will provide you with winter viewing again.

Mike ... haha! No, I have nothing to do with Airbus. This is one of my old "working" teeshirts that was given to me in an Airbus sponsored sailing event in Dubai. Come to think of it, I never was Boeing sponsoring any sail boat racing. Shame on you! Get that changed will you. and as a primer, they are welcome to sponsor us!!

We are planning to set sail again in the autumn of 2021, heading south to the ABC islands then to Panama and start Pacific crossing early 2022

Nick, our plan is to go directly to Panama this autumn. But we wont set off again until we know all countries are back open for business. Right now, the Pacific islands are all but closed to cruising yachts.

Thanks Akathe. Yes, thats the plan .... But we wont set off again until we know all countries are back open for business. Right now, the Pacific islands are all but closed to cruising yachts.

Hi Serban. Glad we headed north now, because Cloudy Bay will be staying ashore for another year. Due to Covid restrictions we have decided to defer a year. On the sail flutter, Yes I can trim the sail to stop that, but then the bottom of the sail would be over sheeted. The material up there has just stretched too much. New set of sails arriving from Denmark in the coming weeks :)

@@SailCloudyBay "Hold on tight, Cloudy Bay. Hold on tight, Oana! We'll be there soon." Gosh! Tight hugs for both of you.

When we first bought the boat in 2016, we also had seized sheaves on the track ends and traveler. I replaced them with new and lubricated with dry teflon. I saved all the old parts which thankfully included the old stainless steel bolts. So for those bolts that I had to drill out, I replaced with (cleaned-up) old ones. Sometimes it pays to be a hoarder! Getting the balls back into the car: we put half the balls into the traveler then really struggled to squeeze the remaining ones in. We'd get one ball in one side and one or two others would fall back out the other side! Very tedious! Apparently, I've since learned, the trick is to install the traveler on a small piece of (spare) track, upside-down, then once all the balls are installed, slide the traveler from this small piece of track onto the main track.

Next season we hope to get across the Pacific. And yes, NZ will be the destination.

John, yes it was a bit of an awakening!

The sails are original from 2012 and while we admittedly don't sail all the time, the boat has now done 25000 miles (by June 2020). We had them refurbished in Spain in 2017 when the boat was at 5000mile done. All the UV protection material was renewed at that time. Then more repairs in Antigua in 2019. Yes, the sails can be cleaned, but its not easy. The real issue is that we now are having more and more repairs to do on them. One of our biggest fears, with only 2 of us as crew, is a major sail failure mid Ocean. For instance a mainsail ripped in half or a genoa failure ending with up under the bow in the water. Any of these would create an extremely dangerous situation for us. The other issue is that they are now starting to lose their optimum aerodynamic shape, meaning they are losing efficiency. No, I don't think faster boats get through sails quicker than slower boats. Its all about how you expose them to the sun and how you abuse them when sailing (not trimming correctly, not reducing sail in too much wind etc).

R Christie haha! While the Captain maybe keen for such a northbound sortie, his admiral would NEVER give the OK. We got as far as Maine ( in August) before icicles on her nose turned us back! That said, I have actually cruised north coast of NL when I lived for 4 years in St. John’s and owned a Contessa 32. Very exciting cruising area up there. And certainly not crowded ( we never laid eyes on another boat for 2 weeks ... and that was in August).

@@SailCloudyBay lol, was worth a try. You could always tell you are going to Bora Bora via the North West Passage!!!

We have some old material that I didnt edit yet form 2019. should be posting son. THen we start again in October.

Yes, we plan to sail to Japan. Will be there in about 3 years

I`II be waiting for you! Please come to Okinawa when you come to Japan.

Leslie, we use Adobe Premier Pro.

Bernie, here is the link to the site I use. There are likely others. www.passageweather.com/ I cannot (have not tried) to download during a passage with Iridium. For this passage, when in West Palm on phone signal, I screen-shot the daily forecast plots of the streams and used those on the passage. Yes, its quite tricky sometimes to know if/when you are in the middle of the stream. I use the SOG vs through-water speed comparison and also the water temperature. The center of the flow always has the highest temperature.

@@SailCloudyBay Glen - Thank you. Very efficient use of this data for navigating the Gulf Stream.

Hi Ross, glad you enjoy the videos. When we first arrive into the USA we have to check-in with the CBP, like any foreigner arriving in the country. We both need (and have) full USA visas, B1/2. If we don't have a valid "USA cruising permit" they issue that too, for 1 year validity. Each time we move "port" we have to call into (telephone) the local CBP and they apparently log our movements on our cruising permit. Oddly, when we depart USA, there are zero formalities, we don't even need to call in. Seems a bit odd because this means the CBP records will still show that we are in our last port .... like forever!

@@SailCloudyBay Interesting.

@@SailCloudyBay that is weird, but on the upside if you have never left the USA you might be eligible for a pension -)

Yes, I think that would be a good idea

Marco, We use Borecol once per year to keep the deck bleached and free from any growth.

@@SailCloudyBay Thanks Glen...Borecol (Boracol, Borecol, etc)…seems to be a Great Britain product (saw it in Sailing Britcan...Cannot find it in West Marine, Amazon, Defender….When search it came back as some kind of health supplement! … Maybe is not brand maybe some kind of chemical or substance..?

Marco, yes, I am also struggling to find it in north America. I can only find in Europe.

Normally, we religiously have one on anytime we are greater than 120 deg off the wind. But on this occasion we didn't have a preventer, and we shouldnt have needed one but for a stupid mistake by me. This is what happened: A thunder squall had just passed and I'd just turned the motor off to commence sailing again (we always run the motor when there's lightning around us). The wind was just before the beam (~70deg) when I turned off the motor. But we were moving too fast for the prop to fold properly. So I came into the wind little and eased the main to slow us down, and then prop then folded OK. But as I only had the main out, and now not much forward headway, I PERCIEVED the boat was having difficulty to bear away again, so I put the wheel harder over. In actual fact we had born away just fine but I had just got myself all disorientated in the pitch black of night. Cloudy was actually already way off the wind and still turning even further. The very moment I realised what was going on, the boat gybed before I could correct it. The damage could have been so much worse. We only had 1/2 the main out and the wind had dropped to just 15kts. But taming and arresting that wildly swinging boom in the swell was VERY dangerous. So, if this happens ever again, what is the solution? I have decided to buy a boom brake that will be permanently installed, no matter what direction the wind. While this wont stop the gybe itself, it will definitely make a similar mistake more forgiving.

@@SailCloudyBay I own a HR43 sailing in the Med. I dont have a preventer or a boom brake but I want to use one of them. So I’m courious about the boom brake you will chose and the fittings of it. I have looked at you preventer installation but I was not able from the videos to understand exactly how it is fitted.

Gilberto, If you haven't got a gybe preventer, its an absolute must, must, must. Accidentally gybe a HR43 under full mainsail and for sure you are going to be in a very bad situation both in terms of damage and extreme danger trying to recover a wildly swinging boom (because for certain the mainsheet will no longer be attached to the boat). The boom brake now plan to buy is a "Captain Don Boom brake". You can find it on google. We have 2 types of gybe preventers on Cloudy Bay. 1) the one that came with the boat, which is the one I mostly use. It runs through the inside of the boom. So you take one end to a mast winch and other end (which exits the boom near the mainsheet) you take forward to the bow cleat to secure it, and then tensioned the it on a mast winch. 2) an eye loop either side of the boom on its outer end. Using a soft shackle I attach a very long line to one loop and then take it forward, around the bow cleat, then all the way aft to a cockpit winch. This way I can adjust the gybe preventer without leaving the cockpit. I use this on long downwind passages, like crossing the Atlantic. The setup actually has 2 long lines. One for each side of the boom - one active, one lazy - depending on which gybe you are on. You can find us using the second setup when we cross the Atlantic in our video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7tBPNAOdEKE.html Hope this helps you.

Zero issues or challenges whatsoever when we entered the USA. And we had called 3 times from Cayman to make sure prior to departure. None of the CBP agents seemed to even understand why we were concerned about not being allowed in! They only told us the entry ban in place was for non-USA residents arriving from Europe, China, Canada and Mexico. Its a bit odd, because that the time you could not cross into USA from either the Mexican or Canadian land borders .... and I believe those borders are still closed today. But ... when we did arrive, for everyone in those southern states it seemed like life as normal, as if the pandemic didnt exist. They paid the price a month later .....

Yes, it likely would have and I'm considering getting one now.

Yes, it would definitely have helped Anthony. I usually always have a preventer rigged whenever the wind is aft of the beam, but this was an odd situation. The wind was on the beam and I was having trouble to get the prop folded: To cut a long story short, I got disorientated and steered well off the wind accidentally. The moment I realized what was happening, the gybe occured. Luckily it was only 15kts of wind and we only had 1/2 the mainsail out.

The ones on the bimini? Look up “Kadar rail” on SailRite.com

@@SailCloudyBay Thanks, much appreciated.

Unfortunately no to the hardness, that night. Yes, Oana takes medication, but in the worst conditions, it does not work for her.

@@SailCloudyBay We have only done near coastal cruising but some 8 ft. seas. We took half a Dramamine at least 1/2 hour before departure and that is usually enough. Falling overboard at night is 50%+ fatal. Consider locator beacons. Your boat is the envy of 99% of the vloggers so bring the single handed safety standards up to it.

@@leeoldershaw956 yes, I do have an AIS personal location transponder on me when I'm on deck. Trouble is, even with that, I very much doubt Oana could get back to me.

@@SailCloudyBay I think you were a racer so you know the importance of training and practice. I saw a documentary of a US Aegis cruiser where the captain was giving man-overboard training to a junior officer and explaining the advantages of a "K" turn in this 567 ft. ship. It's doubly difficult on big ships because you have to say the correct words to the helmsman. You are aware of the problems so see what you can do.

Yes .... that will be the next purchase!

@@SailCloudyBay Loved this whole season, hope you both safe in Bucharest........ looking forward to the next

Sorry, but don't really understand your comment.

Sail Cloudy Bay my birthday is May 20. This is your stated S20,, ep 20, year 2020!!