September 11, 2025
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…
August 13, 2025
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…
August 9, 2025
1. Wash boat with Adam’s Polishes Strip Car Wash Soap – Use Foam Sprayer (120 ml of strip wash to 13 liters of water (16 ounce bottle = about four buckets of wash)) to coat a section of the boat. Use the two bucket method (see below) to clean the section. Repeat for the entire boat. Instructions: Link 2. Remove…
August 3, 2025
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…
October 20, 2024
I picked up McMurdo Smartfind S20 units before leaving for Mexico in 2016. The batteries in these units have a seven year life span which meant they expired in 2023, but I decided to disassembled one and checked the voltage. The battery pack had s lithium manganese dioxide (li-mno2) battery which is good for applications with long-life requirements. Reviewing datasheets…
October 4, 2024
Well let’s call it day 1.5 since I arrived late afternoon Thursday, but this was my first full day… Walking around, visiting the National Maritime museum, and a musical at the Sydney Opera House
September 29, 2024
Calculations were made, questions were asked, and the result was we needed water and the best place was from a drinking fountain just outside the ferry terminal. So early in the morning, with jerry cans in hand Carl and I headed to shore to start the process. It actually went smoothly and we received our arm work out carrying the…
September 27, 2024
No resting for us, with a strong southern blow coming that brought rain overnight, we wanted to leave the dock as early as possible. I had scouted a breakfast takeout place nearby and snagged a breakfast wrap and latte as soon as they opened. Back to Sky Pond it was time to go! Off the dock at 5:45am we made…
September 26, 2024
Overnight, at times it was a bit loud and the boat rolled uncomfortably, but nothing like we had seen previously, maybe a 3 out of 5. On my 3:00am watch the wind was up to 18 knots, so off went the engine. Our speed was bouncing between 5.5 and 6.0 knots, which would be fine. Continuing my podcast listening I…
September 21, 2024
Amazing sailing conditions continued until around 4am when the wind dropped and Roxy had to start up an engine on her watch. Ugh, it was shaping up to be a motoring day (which was forecast). On the plus side it was incredibly mellow conditions. The fishing line was out early with a new lure in hopes of tuna poke bowls…
September 19, 2024
The day had arrived! The wind seemed a bit calmer overnight, which was nice since we knew the first hour would be bashing into the wind/waves. After coffee, we fired up the engine and were on our way. It took half an hour to get out of the bay. Once looping over the top it was a bit rough but…
September 18, 2024
Change of plans again, the forecast had stabilized and while we would have low winds for a good chunk of the passage to Australia it was good enough to head out. So today we would check out and provision for the passage. After a longer wait than typical, we flagged down a car. A nice couple drove us about half…