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Fountaine Pajot Sailing Channels

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Last Updated on September 9, 2019 by Amy

Before Starry Horizons was launched, we spent years dreaming about cruising. Back in the day, there weren’t nearly the number of sailing channels that there are now. In fact – La Vagabonde, undoubtably the most famous YouTube channel, started the same week we did!

Sailing channels are a great way to learn about sailing and cruising. While our videos are more about the destinations we visit, there are many videos out there of boat reviews or even just glamour shots of boats sailing. I hope these inspire you to consider cruising!

Fountaine Pajot

This is the official Fountaine Pajot channel for their sailing catamarans. It’s the best place to see the marketing tour of each model and the features.

Helia 44 Channels

Of course, you watch our sailing channel, right? But here are some other ones if you just can’t get enough of the Helia!

Barefoot & Salty Adventures

Clive & Jennifer got their boat new in 2019 and are cruising the Mediterranean. Jennifer’s new to sailing, while Clive has quite a few miles under his belt.

Maple Cookie

We had the pleasure of meeting this couple when we were up in Canada. Their videos show Maple Cookie sailing around the BVIs. There are a lot of great angles of a Helia doing what its supposed to do: sail. Maple Cookie is currently available for charter in the BVIs with Horizon Yacht Charters.

SV Eucalyptus

Jill and Shelley are an Aussie couple who’ve just picked up their Helia in early 2019. Their videos are short and cute home videos of their time so far picking up the boat and cruising to the Mediterranean. While we haven’t met Jill & Shelley, they met Starry Horizons at The Boat Works while they were boat shopping.

360 Deg

A Helia that’s been cruising Florida and the Bahamas for a bit. Just a bunch of short, unedited videos showing some of the Bahamian Wildlife!

Chase the Story

We had the pleasure of meeting Ryan and Tasha at the Miami Boat Show in 2015 – a few months after Starry Horizons was launched. They were boat shopping at the time, looking to upgrade to a cruising catamaran. They sailed from La Rochelle to Tahiti, but sadly they sold the boat and stopped making videos.

Julia Sails

You might remember Susan and Tom from when we crossed the Pacific Ocean over 35 days onboard S/V Julia. They only have a few, minimally edited videos up and I believe they are cruising their last season on Julia.

Lucia 40

Let’s Dance

Another Aussie couple, Marita and Michael picked up their Lucia and are starting their third season in the Mediterranean. The full-length episodes document their adventures while slowly sailing back to Australia.

Lipari 41

Sailing Double Trouble

The most active Fountaine Pajot channel behind us, Jo and Rob are Kiwis who bought their boat in New Zealand and have been exploring the Pacific Islands ever since.

SV Freedom

John’s been sailing his Lipari for a while now, and there are a lot of videos to watch documenting cruising the Bahamas. The boat’s been sold, so we’ll see what’s next for John.

Orana 44

Sail Ventus

This American family has a few videos out of cruising the Mediterranean. They haven’t published a video in about 8 months. They have sailed down to Grenada, so hopefully, we’ll get to see their stories about crossing the Atlantic soon!

Belize 43

The Cruising Kiwis

Another set of family cruisers, these Kiwis are cruising the South Pacific.

Saona 47

Sailing Hangtime

Karen, Brad, and their two boys are a Canadian family off on a sailing adventure. Being from Nova Scotia, they sailed their boat up to the Maritimes, some of our favorite cruising grounds. It’s a pretty new channel, and the videos are short but enjoyable.

Sailing AWEN

Holly & Stephane are just getting started, but their channel already has a few well-edited videos, including an interview and a test sail.

Saba 50

Lady Rosyln

Nic and Cath have been dazzling us with their IG photos for years, and they have recently put out their “first properly edited video” on YouTube (their words). If their YouTube channel ends up anything like their IG, this is one to watch! We hope to meet these South Africans when we pass through this year.

Rubber to Rudder

This American family documented commissioning their new boat, but unfortunately, they are no longer cruising or publishing videos of their adventures.

Did we miss any? Who do you watch?

6 Comments

  1. Hello I’m a fan of your video.
    These are so instructive.
    We have got the delivery of our Hélia last March in La Rochelle.
    Opus ( the name of our boat) is based in the Adriatic and I’m going there as much as I can.( I am from Belgium)
    Someone on the FP owner group told me that you have had the same problem than me.
    The mainsail is REALLY hard to lower it.
    I have to climb on the mainsail boom to help the sail to go down.
    Could you someday film the mainsail when you drop it?
    Have a nice and safe trip and continue to make us dream.

    1. Hi Philippe,

      Unfortunately, we’re in the boat yard at the moment, so I can’t really film the mainsail. But we did 2 things to fix the problem and now the mainsail drops like a rock.

      1) We swapped out the main halyard to an 11mm line. I think this would be an excellent place to start. If you still have the factory main halyard, you should definitely replace it. The line Starry Horizons came with was so big I think it caused a lot of friction through the stopper and all the blocks. Other people have told me once they swapped the halyard, their main worked much better.

      2) We added 4 additional track cars to the mainsail. This prevented the main from billowing out when trying to drop it. It requires modification of the sail bag so I’d suggest trying a different halyard before trying this.

      Hope that helps and enjoy Opus!

      Cheers,

      David

  2. Pete,

    I just bought some 3M Crystalline 90 for a science project. It blocks over 95% of the infrared light, but passes 90% of visible light. So it really reduces the heat build up. There’s a stronger tint version, with stronger heat blocking abilities also.

    Hope that you can try it out, so you can see through the windows, and keep cool!

    1. Thanks for the post Joe! I had thought about something like that, but am not sure how it would hold up in a marine environment. Any idea?

      David

  3. Thanks for your kind comments on our video. We took delivery of MapleCookie in summer and had 2 fantastic weeks on board videoing everything so we can dream of the tropics during the cold Canadian winter. I think your comments on the tramp are interesting & wish we had thought about that. The standard one digs into you after you lie on it for a while, but we found that the upper deck is actually where everyone hangs out (not sure which is the chicken & which is the egg). One option we took that I was against were the window screens. I gave in eventually, but am so glad we took them. You can see out perfectly, but it really keeps the boat cool. We took them off one day for a photo shoot and you could literally feel the boat warming up.

    Helia #1 upper deck backrest was very low and we asked FP to raise ours. They did this, but I am not sure if it became a standard. I would recommend checking this out with them – it makes a huge difference.

    Congrats on the boat & good luck!

    1. Hi Pete!

      I think your video is by far the best Helia sailing video on the net right now. Its where I automatically go when I want to imagine how awesome sailing Starry Horizons will be. However, just a warning, I plan on trying to put together some video myself someday, so hopefully I can challenge your throne!

      Many thanks for your suggestion about the window screen and upper deck backrest. We’ll add those to our seemingly endless list of things to chat with our dealer about. Hope we get to run into you out on the water someday, preferably in a warmer climate than those Canadian winters!

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