It was over 10 years ago that I sat down and wrote the first post on the Out Chasing Stars blog. I can still vividly remember hesitating and re-writing the words over and over again. Committing to starting a blog and publishing that post for others to see felt like it would take our dream…
There aren’t many times where one of my loves of my past life (spreadsheets) combines with sailing. But coming up with a solution for how to track our performance under passage was the perfect opportunity! I created this spreadsheet as a way to help plan our passages, track our performance underway and help us make…
April 30, 2017 – Seattle, Washington This is the presentation we gave at my Grandma’s retirement community in Bellevue, WA on April 30, 2017, covering the first half of our sailing circumnavigation. We cover a lot of topics from how we got started and the basics of Starry Horizons all the way to some of…
We absolutely love cruising remote destinations. There’s a beautiful feeling about being all alone in nature. But, just because boats have sailed the oceans since the dawn of man doesn’t mean that our charts are accurate. And here’s where SAS Planet comes in. Why You Need to Use SAS Planet Last year we noticed that…
A good anchoring system is crucial for a cruising sailboat. We rely on our anchor system to keep our boat, our possessions, and our lives safe. It also has to be convenient. While a chain counter is not essential, it makes our lives a little bit easier by ensuring that we have the proper scope…
Starry Horizons, a Fountaine Pajot Helia 44, was launched in October of 2014. Since then, we’ve tackled over 40,000 nautical miles and completed our world circumnavigation. Over the years, we’ve had a lot of thoughts on the performance of our boat and the things we liked and didn’t like. 20,000nm Helia Review Upon our arrival…
After about a year of sailing our boat, we noticed that the top two battens on our square-top mainsail were not popping to the right curvature of the sail. What are Battens? Battens are long thin strips of a hard material – in our case, fiberglass – that are designed to help the mainsail keep…
We have the anchor down in the Galapagos (and have 45 minutes of free internet!) so another successful passage is in the logbook! Now waiting for our agent to come by to help us clear into the country. Despite ripping our spinnaker, we had a great time sailing over from Panama. The winds were better…