A change of plans…


Enroute to Mag bay, I had the 3am – 6am watch and for the first time struggled to keep my eyes open the last hour. So I stood in the doorway with the cooler breeze and listened to podcasts. Jack got up about 6:30am and after switching engines, I handed things over to him so I could grab another hour…

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On to Asunion for fuel


Up at 5:30am for a 6:00am departure to Bahia Asuncion. Smooth departure in the dark using our tracks from coming in, plus Jack and Vicki on the bow looking out for floats that we avoided yesterday. Reaching open water the wind allow the screecher to be unfurled and we moved along at a good clip while fighting a knot plus…

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We escaped!


Whew, it was a whirlwind final week in the yard with the departure date getting pushed back a couple times. We went from two guys working on the boat to three or four per day, with the vast majority of the work polishing the boat. It was a slow arduous process, with many requests by me to go over an…

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One hell of a first phase of boat work


I’m off the boat work for a few days and in Utah to watch my daughter compete for the US Biathlon trails. It is a much needed rest after a hard push on the boat work front. Backing up…before getting to work, it was a fun time cruising with Alison and Allan from Oxnard to Mission Bay, San Diego (with…

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Dissasembly and repair of the saloon table mechanism (lift and spin) on a Seawind 1160


Strikhedonia is a 2008 Seawind 1160, I cannot comment on later models but from outside appearances, it looks like Seawind has not changed the design since the early models. The troublesome table (the lifting and spinning mechanism) has been a major headache for many owners to deal with. SV Sky Pond would only spin the table clockwise for fear of…

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Setting up OpenCPN on an Android Tablet, Installing Charts, Selecting which Charts to Display


Talk about a cheap chartplotter; Samsung Galaxy 11 inch tablet for $160, OpenCPN for $9.95. charts from The Chart Locker for $25. All in for under two hundred bucks, resulting in charts of the area I cruise along with satellite images (left off ArcGIS since it matched Bing). What a bargain! OpenCPN for Android can be downloaded from the GooglePlay…

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Black Protective Film (Vinyl Wrap) for Paint Replacement on a Seawind 1160


All Seawind 1160 sailboats end up having issues with the black pain that surrounds the windows cracking and becoming dull over the years. My friends Carl and Roxy (SV Sky Pond) had 3M Deep Matte Black Wrap Film Series 2080 applied when they hauled their boat at Boat Works in Brisbane and were extremely impressed with the appearance. Allan and…

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