I can’t wait to get our ship together, quit this internet sailing, vicarious existance, and be JF Gone~~~~~~

I’m so glad to hear Namaste is sailing well in the southern hemisphere. Truthfully I dont remember the pluming :(

I so miss the simplicity of sailing a small boat. Once I get Splendid to the maintenance phase I will be much happier. She is a big fat home though and filled with laughter. If you give Namaste a wind vane she will love you for ever, she needs one and asked me for one many times.

It’s good to hear from you old friend. Send me a picture of my old girl and I’ll post it in a log.

Cheers mate.

Take care of her.

Just to give you a bit of update on our girl… the exhaust riser pipe finally rusted out at the top so I’ve removed it and am getting a new one made, it came off surprisingly easy as I was expecting some hardship with the bolts at manifold end… with the pipe removed there is tonnes of space in the engine room so I’ll use this opportunity to have a good look at the electrics behind the panel. Nothing wrong with it, it’ll be more of an exploratory work trying to map it out and do some labeling.

I’ve had an excellent cruise last week to the other end of our gulf, a 30 nm shot West. I’ve had a 20+ kt southerly all the way and getting excellent speeds of 5.5-6+ kts. Half the way over Quint refused to steer so I’ve put the smaller ST2000+ and reefed the main.. the small Quintie was doing excellent job with no loss of speed. On the way back the next day the wind was the same or more and I wanted to go for the record and kept full sail… Quintie only lasted the half way when the plastic tip at the end of the shaft broke off leaving me to hand steering. I reefed up the main at that point and hand steered to the end reaching speeds of over 7 kts at times and achieving a record 5.5hrs passage… thrilling. I’ve had the autopilot’s control head checked at the shop and it’s turned up to be naked, that’s after less than 2 years of occasional cruising …that is a worry. It is still under the 2yr warranty but a worry it is. I’m thinking more and more of windvane steering…

On another note, I’m cleaning the water tank ‘cos the water got a bit smelly. And here I’ve got a question to you if you remember…. I’ve started with pumping the water out. I took the hose off just before the filter and connected one of the ShurFlo pumps that I found on Namaste but it wouldn’t suck any water. After bit of checking I’ve found out that the hoses were connected to the filter back to front so I was trying to suck the water from the tap rather than the tank, so, man please explain what is that trick with the hoses because that connection would make the water flow backwards thru the filter. I’m sure you had your reasons… maybe that had something to do with sailing in the southern hemisphere? ;-)))
And one more thing… what would you use to do the tank cleaning? I mean do you know of any good stuff that I could put in the water, rinse the tank and pump out?
Anyway, hope you have a chance to read it before you go offline and give me some clues…

Mate, I wish you and you Family only the Splendid days… I’m sure I’ll find you on some anchorage one day…

Cheers,
Wojtek

I have followed your adventures for probably the last 2000 days and taking notes on your current re-fit. Looking forward to you solving your solar issues and appreciate the shared info.

All the best, Everett

I really appreciate all the input on Desulfating, thanks guys!!!

Hope to sail soon,
Cptn Tye
SV Janthina

My wife and I hope to be crusers soon, business is up for sale , and the house after that. I have both your DVD’s, bought them thru Lats and Atts Shipstore, and thoroughly enjoy them.

Harry

It is hard to think of battery life in cycles when you don’t live at a dock with a 110 battery charger hooked up all the time. My batteries are recharged by solar power which is not always the same amount of charging power. It is easier (for me) to think of it in averages and seasons.

Cheers.