A few thoughts:

• The big trimarans aren’t supposed to come completely out of the water.
• 31.1 knots is equal to about 36 miles per hour
• Not every sailboat can pull a wake-boarder

It would only be truly extreme if the weather was bad.

Life has reared its ugly head and mad it difficult for me to work on the boat. The fact that it is hotter than hell and humid doesn’t help much at all. Hope to correct that soon and get back to the boat and the blog. Really need to get out of here this fall!

ARRLWeb: Ham Radio Instrumental in Pacific Maritime Rescue This is why I am spending too much time (and way to much money) on installing amateur radio equipment on my boat.

NEWINGTON, CT, May 11, 2007 — Amateur Radio played a critical role May 4 and 5 in rescuing two people from a foundering sailboat that had been en route to Colombia. Members of the Maritime Mobile Service Net (MMSN) and Intercontinental Net on 14.300 MHz were involved in getting the man and woman aboard the 35-foot s/v Sailabout to safety after they ran into trouble some 700 nautical miles southwest of the Galapagos Islands in the South Pacific.

The weather was bad when the sailing vessel Sailabout started taking on water. The weather was bad and getting worse.

Several amateur radio operators in several parts of the world were involved in getting help to Gunnar Hansen and Grethe Haraldsen. They lost their boat, but both are alive. They were picked up the next day by a Norwegian freighter, Belnor, headed for Panama.

People ask me why I have so much solar power. Well it is mostly about refrigeration (and also the auto-pilot).

I have 660 amp-hours of battery power (not counting the engine starting battery). This is in the form of six 6-volt batteries.

The use of 6-volts is to keep the weight in a manageable. The Trojan T-105’s that I have weigh in at about 67 pounds each. To get this much power I would need to use 8-D batteries if I went with 12-volts. These are so heavy, that I couldn’t move them. They are about 170 pounds each, or more depending on the type of battery.

A while back I installed two 125 watt solar panels, but I was never happy with the power controller I installed.

In part this was because I installed 18 volt panels for a 12 volt battery system, and at the time the options were limited. Today the situation and the electronics are better. At the time there was more choice if I had gone with 24 volt panels, but those panels are quite large.

Blue Sky Energy’s 3024i fills the bill nicely.

Solar Boost 3024i provides an advanced fully automatic 3-stage charge control system to ensure the battery is properly and fully charged, resulting in enhanced battery
performance with less maintenance. An automatic or manual equalize function is also provided to periodically condition flooded lead-acid batteries.

Will report on results as time goes by.

Did you know that the whole f#%@ing country closes down for “summer holiday?” Neither did I.

I am trying to order some electronics from a company down there. (Don’t ask) They won’t even take my order over their web-site’s Pay Pal system. They are closed until February 12th. I don’t know when this holiday started, but it was at least last week. Could it have been over Christmas?

For some reason - that mostly escapes me right now - I decided to refinish the sole. (Well, at some point I spilled some bleach, and that made it necessary to do something.)

After some research, I decided to go with Ultimate Sole. This is single part uretheane finish specially formulated to give both a gloss finish and be non-slippery under most boating conditions - from being in your sock feet, to being wet due to weather.

So far I’ve got one coat on most of the sole - one coat of a sanding-sealer style mix. Basically it is 50% mix of Ultimate Sole and thinner. You don’t have to sand between coats if you get to them fast enough, unfortunately I didn’t get it fast enough… so tomorrow I will be sanding and vacuuming.

Well I finally believe I need to get this boat ready to go, and go.

So this will document what I have left to do, and what I do, and hopefully it will cover some of the trip.