On our sail from Saint Helena to Brazil, we noticed something quite troubling. The set screws that hold our forestay together were backing out, and some were already completely missing. This was causing misalignment between the luff extensions and was damaging our sail. A properly aligned luff extension: Our misaligned one. You can see the…
Just what you don’t want: a very big hole in your boat. That’s what’s happened to a lot of catamaran owners over that past several years. And shockingly, this hole was designed to be in our boats for safety reasons. Here’s what happened. What are Escape Hatches? Escape hatches are a hatch installed towards the…
“Actually, maybe let’s go to that mooring ball instead.” David points off to the starboard side of the boat, towards Ko Rok Yai. “Ok,” I say into my marriage saver headset. I shift the throttles and turn the helm to head over to the other mooring. It’s closer to shore and more protected from the…
Back in Indonesia, we discovered a leaking thru-hull. The water exhaust for the generator was leaking into our main cabin, and we needed to haul out to fix it. Shipyard options for a cruising boat are rather limited. We were working with a schedule; we wanted to haul out after our friends left us in…
While at The Boat Works in Coomera, we tackled a lot of projects. Some of them we do yearly, while a few are things we’d never done before. Starry Horizons is now over 3 years old, and although she’s still young for a boat, as she gets more broken in, there’s more work to be…
After three and a half years of cruising, our AGM batteries weren’t holding a charge like they used to. We did our research and decided to upgrade our house bank to Lithium-ion (LiFePO4) batteries. Our AGM Battery Set-Up Battery Setup from the Factory Here’s what our Helia 44 came with from the Fountaine Pajot factory:…
The anti-disclaimer: we didn’t get compensation in any way from The Boat Works. BUT, we did meet and talk to the owners and a lot of the key staff. We walked through the entire facility. We used a ton of amenities. Basically, we just think The Boat Works provides a great service to yachties and…
While at The Boat Works, David and I had a long list of projects to tackle. One of my big ones was replacing our lifelines with fancy new Dyneema lifelines. What is a lifeline? Lifelines are wires or lines that run around the edges of your deck. These are designed to prevent you from falling…