Wondering what to get the cruising sailor (or liveaboard) in your life this holiday season? Most of us boat folk are minimalists, which makes us notoriously difficult for gifting. There’s no room for excess on board!

We took a break from publishing a gift guide last year, sending it only to blog subscribers—which generated some email so we’re back, baby! We hope this guide with our handpicked recommendations helps relieve a little holiday stress. Remember, Amazon’s Black Friday begins early.

Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. No cost to you, and super helpful for us. Learn more at our values statement; we only make recommendations that we support 100 percent. And if we know of a small business you can support instead, you’ll find that linked here, too. If we miss one, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Clever Cameras

Night vision security camera

Motion-activated cameras with sound and alarms. Notifications gave us peace of mind during travel for Annapolis and the low-light image capture was amazing. Bonus: microphone and speaker let you talk (to your cat, even) through the camera!

Thermal infrared camera

Troubleshoot a diesel engine or wiring issue by identifying hotspots with Flir’s One Gen 3 camera. (Also fun for cat pics!) Caveat: Our friend and surveyor Marga Pretorius points out that this model is not strong enough to see into laminates and detect moisture in the hull of a boat.

Insta360 GO 3S

Great cruising vlog features: Level the horizon (for that sunset time-lapse from the cockpit). IPX8 rating means you can take it snorkeling. Way easier to mount with magnetic attachments, and more! Leveling up POV video with this on Totem.

Low-light, weatherproof camera

Security and a nav aid. Spend $2k (or $20k) on a fancy-schmancy marine version, or about $60 for this copycat and use your MFD as the display.

Quality of Life

Nordic Icebreaker

Perfect cubes even if it’s tossed around the freezer. Our friend Susan says “We’ve gone through a lot of ice cube trays with lids but none have worked until this.” Count us in!

No Eggs, No Worries

Easy methods to substitute for eggs, plus a selection of classic egg recipes re-interpreted to be eggless. Why cruisers need this: It may not be possible to buy eggs in remote locations. The eggs you can buy might be bad (the last dozen eggs I got in the Marshall Islands were moldy inside the shell) and are probably costly. It’s at least a month before I may find eggs for sale. And why not be healthy and compassionate? You don’t need to be vegan to appreciate this cruiser-created cookbook.

Malizia sunglasses

By sailors, for sailors, perfect for this sailor! I was gifted a pair earlier this year, and they now live on my face whenever I’m outside. Polarization lets me see into the coral-strewn water here, optical clarity is #chef’s kiss, coverage is excellent (super sensitive eyes here), and grey tint is perfectly dark in the tropics. Bonus: The frame is 85 percent recycled fishing nets. The Vallon store has a pre-holiday 25% off sale, sitewide, until December 3.

Stick-on bifocals

Hydrotac means I can wear Malizias and read a book at the same time. Less than $20 for a pair, they adhere inside lenses with a drop of water. A second pair converted my snorkeling mask. Way easier and cheaper than prescription lenses.

Water Time!

Prescription mask

Vision more complicated than my stick-ons? SeaVision masks are made in St Petersburg, Florida, and get rave reviews. Built to last, they can adapt lenses to your fave mask, too.

Dive clacker

Needed this a few days ago to get Jamie’s attention underwater about a shark swimming nearby (because sharks are gorgeous, and I didn’t want him to miss it). This makes either a rattle (for snorkelers) or clang (divers tap on the tank). Thumbs up on this and the mask from the dive aficionados aboard SV Motu.

Go Green

UNPaper Towels

Washable, reusable replacements for paper towels, these do exactly what they are supposed to, plus they come in fun colors and prints. I haven’t used paper towels in over a year and don’t miss them a bit! We’re linking to the maker site, Marley’s Monsters, so you can peruse the other goodness they have.

Compressed air fan

Koonie makes another product better! “I got tired of looking for compressed air cans,” said our friend Travis. We’re tired, too: Ditch those refrigerant/propellant cans for good.

On-Board Toolkit

Mini soldering iron

The size of a pencil, this charges via USB. Fortuna crew connects it to a power bank for portability.

Universal funnel

May not sound sexy but it’s incredibly useful. Our workaround in the past has been a thin, flexible cutting board held in place. This is much better!

Digital electronic level

Make your installs look pro-level! This clever device from Klein Tools is a level, an angle finder, a relative angle reference. Its magnetic bottom keeps it in place.

Better cable stripper

Jonard’s wire stripper has an adjustable wire depth. Get it right the first time when stripping small-gauge (large-size) wires for, say, battery bank wiring. This and level (above) tips from the current refit underway on Atargatis.

What’s Jamie getting?

I’ve fallen in the habit of sharing Jamie’s gift in this annual post. This paragraph was mysteriously missing in the copy he proofreads for me. (No spoilers, friends!)

Endoscope camera

16-foot cable reaches into deep dark corners to inspect tanks, the hull behind your generator, and other inaccessible dark corners on board. LED lights at the camera, that connects with Wi-Fi to your smartphone. (I nearly spilled the beans recently for a project where he might have used it!)

Timeless Favorites

These gift ideas never go out of style:

Marmara towels

All Turkish towels are not created the same! We’ve used Marmara bath towels for nearly a decade. The standard size makes great hand or dish towels. Currently 25% off on their site (linked).

Bone conduction headphones retain ambient noise sounds while listening to that audiobook on night watch. SHOKZ became instant favorites on Totem.

Solar powered string lights

MPOWERD’s 44-foot length is great for casting a gentle glow in the cockpit.

AND… A discount on our services!

Gift your friend, a loved one or yourself an hourlong consultation with me and Jamie! We are offering a limited number of our “try-us-out” coaching sessions at 50% off. We can do a lot in an hour. Learn more about how we get people happily cruising here, then get in touch for a custom gift certificate—until they run out!

Still struggling for inspiration? Our guide collection and gift ideas (16 posts) can be found at this link.

The post Our Favorite Things: Holiday Gift Guide for the Hands-On Sailor appeared first on Cruising World.

We’re currently at sea, with more than a thousand nautical miles from Hawai’i behind us, and more than a thousand ahead of us to our destination: Majuro, Marshall Islands. So far, this passage has reminded us how less-tangible skills can be as important to cruising as those you can learn in a seminar or class. Among the most useful of these skills is listening—not as in listening to your partner, co-captain or crew (although that’s important, too), rather, listening to your boat. It’s often trying to tell you something. For an explainer on this, jump to the video.

Years of learning Totem’s creaks and groans were put into practice this week. Jamie and I departed from Kona, Hawai’i on Monday, September 9, bound for the Marshall Islands. On our third day at sea, sailing downwind, wing-on-wing, in trade-wind conditions, we were bewildered by a mystery clunk from the rudder. We have always been aware of a “light” clunk, from the upper bearing at deck level, but this was a different sound. Different, in this situation, on a converging path with unsettling weather in the forecast, was not good.

Worst-Case Scenario

Rudder failure has the potential to be sudden and catastrophic. We imagined possibilities, thinking about “sound, bluewater boats” with capable crews who have had rapid, disastrous outcomes from rudder failure. Feeding our concern was that, some years ago, a sistership to Totem had a serious potential rudder problem. Heavy bronze bolts securing the bronze skeg to fiberglass began backing out. They were able to resolve it, but as we were underway gliding over the ocean floor 16,000 feet below, we couldn’t assess our clunk underway.

Anatomy of Totem’s Rudder

Totem‘s rudder has three bearings. The highest is at deck level. Below that, a second bearing lies where the rudder post passes through the hull at the bottom of the boat. These first two can be inspected to varying degrees from the lazarette while at sea. The third bearing is a gudgeon and pintle mechanism midway up the rudder securing it to the top of the bronze skeg. Halfway across the Pacific, this bearing could only be inspected with a swim.

The deck-level inspection we were able to conduct at sea gave us no cause for concern. The origin of the clunk must be coming from somewhere that we could only inspect by getting in the water, which wasn’t safe with 1.5-meter wind waves, plus a 2- to 3-meter (and occasionally 4- meter) swell from the north.

An Unplanned Pit Stop

As we considered our options, an interesting one emerged: a small, remote atoll that was 300 nm west of Totem at the time. With our onboard broadband from Starlink, we researched this option further, only to discover that “Johnston Atoll,” while a US territory, does not welcome visitors. It’s a military site, a former nuclear testing location, and a site used to incinerate and dump weapons. For the last couple of decades, it has also been a wildlife refuge managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Nonetheless, I sent an email with fingers crossed and a queasy stomach. To our astonishment, within a matter of hours, we had traded several emails with the F&WS management, while looping in the US Coast Guard’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) in Honolulu to document the situation.

Were we prepared to declare an emergency? While establishing our needs, yet making it clear that we did not want any resources to be expended on our behalf, permission was granted for us to anchor for our inspection and any repairs that might be necessary. We received the official green light around midnight, and we waited for the relative safety of dawn to alter course with a gybe toward the atoll.

Inspecting the Rudder

We arrived at dusk—a move made possible courtesy of the arrow-straight, 500-foot wide channel blasted through coral by the military. We anchored and waited for the next morning to inspect the rudder. Once in the water Jamie was able reproduce the clunk. The lower bearing has play enough that slight rudder flex was enabling the pintle to bang against the gudgeon/bearing. Closer inspection revealed nothing bad. The skeg was as stout as when it was new (42 years ago). Although the play is new, roughly 3/16”, the hardware looked perfect. We found no compromised rudder integrity, but would rely on a second inspection to be sure.

The Source of the Clunk

Nearly 5,000 nm have passed under Totem’s keel since splashing last December. This sound did not occur across that time period. So, why now? What changed?

Chief among Jamie’s concerns, despite the good initial inspection, was the construction of the rudder post. If the rudder post was one long rode section linking in the skeg at the bottom, then we had a problem. The excess play wouldn’t have been possible unless internal metal structure was coming apart. We spent hours poring over photos of the rudder and skeg, mainly from when they were removed in Thailand for inspection. That was a project, in Thailand, with somewhat dramatic fashion.

Photos showed what memory had forgotten: that the rudder post didn’t exit through the lower bearing. Instead a short stainless post, a pintle, meant the play was okay and not a sign of internal problems. We suspect Totem’s very DDW point of sail, which put multiple directional forces on the rudder compared to other points of sail, pushed and shoved the rudder around, making the clunk sound. We communicated findings back to the F&WS team and to the JRCC Honolulu, who at this time were looping in folks from the US Air Force and applying pressure for us move along as soon as possible.

Johnston Atoll: Wild, Mysterious

If we had to assign a single word to Johnston Atoll, it would be “creepy.” (Not how one typically describes a remote tropical island!) Reading the atoll’s history may be exciting for some, but the legacy is sobering. Bunkers scattered around islets, concrete bulkheads around all the land we could see, a concrete block of a building we assume is where chemical weapons were incinerated, and not a sign of living human presence. 

The cacophony of seabirds, which seemed to occupy every scrap of land, counterbalanced the darkly morbid shadows cast by the military legacy. The boobies, especially, provided some entertainment as they perched fearlessly near us around Totem. 

The terms of our stay were very clear: There was to be no exploring. We were prohibited from going ashore, and we could not swim—other than what was required immediately adjacent to Totem to inspect the rudder. No problem! Yet, while we did not go to the wildlife, the wildlife (or the birds, at least—marine life was minimal) came to us. At any moment, as many as a dozen boobies sat happily pooping away on our solar panels. (Another aerial assault at Johnston Atoll perhaps?) They gathered on our bow pulpit in groups of five, and even hung off the snubber line, watching our every move.

The sheer density of birds offered a reminder of just how important it was to restrict our movement, to prevent anything we might inadvertently bring to their delicate environment. The red-tailed tropicbird population was devastated here after ants (ants?) infested their nesting grounds. How easy is it for ships to introduce a pest? It was no problem for us to remain happily aboard our floating island, Totem, simply grateful to be here and find resolution. (For more about the crazy ants (yes, that’s what they’re called), check out this article from F&WS on the many years required to address their threat. Also, click over to this beautifully photographed article from the Audubon society).

Departing Johnston Atoll

Getting away was the next trick. (Ideally, we’d have departed immediately!) I was keen to arrive in Majuro for a multi-day festival the following week, during a public holiday, Manit Day, that celebrates Marshallese culture. If we carried on right away, we might still have made a day or two of the festivities.

Unfortunately, the weather for departing was, in a word, unsettled. After watching mostly benign conditions in this part of the Pacific for the month prior to leaving Hawai’i, volatile conditions from the ITCZ moved tropical waves toward our location and threatened to spin up into more severe weather.

We wanted to get away. We definitely didn’t want to be in a system turning cyclonic with 45 knot winds and potential stronger microbursts. We put this short video together to illustrate. Weather watchers might learn from how Jamie’s reviewing a combination of wind, rain and satellite imagery to determine when we could safely carry on. Friends and followers may understand the personal relating of this wild experience.

Next Stop: Majuro

We departed again the morning of September 19th, literally watching at anchor for the winds from a nearby system to move past our location and open up a safe window for us to carry on. We’ll miss the festival in Majuro, but we’ve regained confidence in our rudder.

Want to follow along?

Totem’s PredictWind tracking page includes data about current weather conditions. Noforeignland users can see our circumnav track here. 

Join us at the Annapolis Boat Show in October

We’ll be flying from Majuro to Annapolis for the annual sailboat show. Our departure will be only days after we make landfall. Hopefully, the 30ish hours of travel will feel like a cakewalk after this passage. Meanwhile, we’re excited to be teaching a range of courses, details below. Please join us if you’re coming to the show. Note: Pre-registration is required, and seats are limited. (At least one course is already sold out.)

American Sailing Association seminar, Oct. 11

How to Sail Around the World: No boat show ticket required to join our afternoon, half-day seminar with the ASA. Insights, inspiration, and the toolkit you need to plan your own successful, long-distance cruising adventures.

Cruisers University seminars, Oct. 7-10

• Becoming a Cruiser: Together, we break down the massive project which is “how to go cruising.” Think of this as the best of our coaching work condensed into a packed day to get you launched and comfortably on your way.
• Sail Inventory and Care: Jamie gets hands-on with sails! Practical information to care for (and save money with) your boat’s sails
• She’s a Cruiser (Master Class): Behan presents in collaboration with two other cruisers, Nica Waters and Liz Shaw, this program is just for women, with concrete actions and intangible essentials. Guest speakers lending their wisdom include Lin Pardey, Sheryl Shard, Mia Karlsson, Sophie Darsy, and Hilary Howes
• Basics of Fiberglass Repair: Jamie will detail materials, basics of fiberglass work every cruiser should know, demonstrate live, and let you get hands on to try the methods and mixing as well. (this class is now sold out)
• Route Planning: careful route planning leads to safe and comfortable passages: learn the tools and method from Jamie!
• Safety at Sea: Jamie uses examples and tools to help you avoid being an UNsafe boat

Take the Wheel, Oct 11-13

This flagship Annapolis Boat Show program is divided between a morning in the classroom and an afternoon on the water. We lead the classroom portion, and discuss sailboat design (features, tradeoffs, and bluewater myths), purchase process, how to maximize your boating pleasure, and budget planning for setting sail.

The post Sailing <i>Totem</i>: A Mystery Clunk and a Mid-Pacific Pit Stop appeared first on Cruising World.

It’s been a month since we initially expected to leave Hawai’i. Fortunately, this delay has given us time to embrace a well-known cruising mantra: “Plans are written in the sand, at low tide.” Reflecting on the causes of our delay underscores the importance of practicing patience while cruising.

Patience isn’t just a virtue; it’s a cruising muscle we should learn and exercise. Without it, you risk costly mistakes. Fail to be patient as a boat-shopper, and risk owning a boat that has unanticipated added cost or complexity. Fail to be patient as an active cruiser, waiting for a weather window, and pay the price in comfort or safety. A lack of patience can transform a valuable learning experience into one that derails a cruising dream entirely. The ability of a crew to handle the pressure to be impatient is often a deciding factor in a successful cruising journey.

True Trials

As part of our coaching services, we provide weather guidance, and recent months have offered ample opportunities for cruisers to exercise patience.

Earlier this year, the crew of Mug Up waited six weeks in Saint Martin before weather conditions aligned for their voyage to Bermuda. By the time they were ready to depart for the Azores, mechanical issues caused another monthlong delay. The late-season timing made them question whether to continue east at all.

Meanwhile, in the South Pacific, crews working with us were pinned down in French Polynesia’s western atolls. These stops, originally planned as brief respites, turned into three- and four-week stays due to volatile weather south of the South Pacific Convergence Zone—waiting for a reasonable sea state to exit a lagoon through a skinny, shallow pass and a gale-free passage west.

Jennifer Hyer, aboard Terikah, reflected on the shift in mindset that helped her crew:
“For us, once the decision was made that we should stay longer, it took away the daily anxiety of trying to decide. Acceptance of our current reality allowed us to relax into it and see it as an opportunity to catch up on boat chores, school, walks on the beach, and really digging into a place. Slowing down has allowed us to make meaningful connections with the local people and their way of life. I think it’s all about accepting the present moment as our current reality, not trying to fight it or change it.” 

Those connections included assisting a local family with repairs to their copra shed and helping shuttle goods between islands. The Hyers’ ability to adapt transformed their delay into a deeply rewarding experience.

Aboard Mug Up, Jillian Greenawalt reflects on the challenge of maintaining a state of readiness to depart along with a normal pace of everyday life between boat projects, homeschooling and fun: “We definitely questioned whether or not we were making things too hard, or if we should reconsider our plans. But remembering our bigger goals, and why, was helpful to staying on course.”

The key, for the Mug Up crew, was making sure they took time out to have fun, instead of getting pulled into work and boat projects.

What both of these crews are doing reminds me a lot of our guidance to have a happiness engineer on board: not getting so caught up in boat-work pressure that they don’t take time to enjoy where they are. Easy to say, difficult to do. But patience pays off: Despite long waits for late-season passages, Mug Up is currently enjoying the Azores before their upcoming shorter hop to Europe.

When Patience Runs Thin

We’ve also witnessed what happens when patience falters. One crew, pressured by a crewmember’s urgency, departed against advice. They hoped for the best (believing the worst wouldn’t be that bad) but faced the worst—an aborted passage that ended their cruising dream.

Sometimes, waiting for weather is a case of picking the best of a poor set of options. Watching and overanalyzing forecasts in New Caledonia, we were late in the season for the last leg to Australia. Leaving on the heels of a gale, with 40 knots pushing Totem southwest, was choosing the best of the worst for that passage—and the job waiting for me in Sydney.

Six years later, we sat in Bermuda studying forecasts, faced with a similar situation. There was a fixed date on our calendar to present at the SSCA’s gam in Essex, Connecticut. We’ll tell anyone who listens that the word “schedule” should be eliminated from a cruiser’s vocabulary, but we fell victimto our own advice and left with what we wanted to convince ourselves was going to be “boisterous, but fine.” And the outcome may have been fine, but we surely could have done without the near-fire (when water ingress shorted a solar panel controller), the broken stanchion, and the lost kayak.

The Current Challenge

As I write, patience is again being tested. We initially planned to leave Hawai’i in late July, but then, my father announced he was visiting. Hooray! No patience needed there; we had a great week with my dad. 

We drove around the island, revisiting haunts he and my mother used to visit, making memories with the relatives here.

After Dad flew out, Jamie and I decided to give ourselves a week and spend our wedding anniversary here instead of at sea. This also allowed me to continue my earnest research into the best Mai Tais on the tourist coast of Kona, a mission I’m taking seriously.

And then, on our anniversary, the eastern Pacific looked like this:

And so, we waited a little longer (slightly more patience required now). Our hope was to visit Kiribati before heading north to the Majuro, Marshall Islands, from where we would fly to the Annapolis Boat Show to teach again at Cruisers University. That buffer of time was fading.

The systems passed and faded, and we again neared our departure, making our final rounds with the rental car: one last night with cousins (wow, they put on a feast), one last provisioning stop at Costco, one last farmer’s market visit for freshies. Really the only test of patience we had was when a US Customs official initially refused to process our clearance paperwork because “the Marshall Islands are a US territory; you don’t need this.” (Fact: The Marshall Islands are an independent republic with a compact of free association with the USA, and I very much did need that outbound clearance from CBP). 

And then, Jamie had a sciatica onset. (He first had short-lived sciatica pain about 20 years ago.) It brings bouts of writhing pain and creates a big sleep deficit. There would be no option of departing until that resolved. Meanwhile, weather continued to be significantly more active than expected in the Eastern Pacific. As I write, hurricane Hone has just passed below Totem, a Category 1 grazing the south side of the big island of Hawai’i. Behind it? Another hurricane (Gilma) and a tropical storm that may become yet another hurricane (Hector), and additional disturbances that seem like they may want to spin. Oh boy!

We won’t get to visit Kiribati now. Disappointing? Of course—not to mention an opening for pangs of impatience. But we also know how miserable it could be if we didn’t take the time needed. Still, it’s a dance: Patience shouldn’t be an excuse to delay indefinitely, either. The boat will never be perfect. The “unicorn” passage is rare. Be patient to pass on a “dragon” passage, or be prepared to fight for it. But most of all, have no regrets.

The post Patience as a Cruising Virtue appeared first on Cruising World.

Updating the standing rigging on our Stevens 47, Totem, wasn’t an intentional part of the 40-year refit that we recently completed. We had re-rigged in 2019, anticipating our departure to the South Pacific in spring 2020. The pandemic scratched that, and we embarked on a significant refit in 2021 that instead left this rig on saw horses for a year and a half.

Putting the rig back up was among the last tasks during our extended stay at Cabrales Boatyard in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. As we neared mast-stepping day in November 2023, my husband, Jamie, busted out his rigging kit. That’s how we refer to the 10X loupe that serves as the key for scrutinizing components at a level that human eyes just can’t do without magnification. 

Some halyards showed age and wear, but we already knew this and had a replacement Dyneema/polyester double braid replacement line on hand. The one surprise? Totem’s backstay.

Our Backstay’s Weak Link

New in 2019, the wire still looked fine, as did the swages. But two Sta-Lok insulators on the backstay—an assembly that enables that aft wire to be used as an antenna for single sideband radio—didn’t. Surface crazing on the black nylon portion of the insulators, which were added in 2008, suggested ultraviolet degradation.

During our 2019 rerig, we chose to reuse the backstay insulators. The fittings inspected well. Some people consider mechanical rigging terminals such as Sta-Lok, Hayn Hi-MOD and Norseman to be indefinitely reusable. They’re not. Jamie considers their lifespan at two rigging cycles (or about 20 years) maximum. Our old insulators met safe criteria, so we saved money by keeping them.

Still, we knew to look out for trouble. In the past few years, friends on two different cruising boats had rig failures due to broken insulators. Both crews practice good seamanship and don’t skimp on safety. Melissa White has written about losing the backstay on Galapagos (in her blog, Little Cunning Plan, and also in 48°N magazine), three weeks into a passage from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. With only 500 nautical miles to Cape Flattery, Washington, their insulator snapped in half in the rolling swells of the North Pacific Ocean. They were in conditions that allowed them to stabilize the rig, and they altered course to a closer point of landfall.

The crew of Miles wasn’t so lucky: When their insulator failed, their rig came down. Never mind the fact that they’d had a rigging inspection only months before, and no faults had been found.

When they dismasted, they were in degrading conditions approximately 100 miles east of Eleuthera, Bahamas. In an admirable effort, they secured the wreckage and bashed overnight to the nearest safe harbor in San Salvador.

So, Jamie took another look at our setup last November, and he condemned Totem’s insulator. The conclusion was easy, but the decision about next steps was not.

We were days from putting Totem back in the water, looking for a weather window to sail south. Five family members were flying to meet us in a bay 800 nautical miles south of the boatyard. Any delay in stepping would make us late for the family Christmas. Could we get to Puerto Vallarta with the existing backstay, or could the rig be compromised on our trip south?

And, in the time between putting insulators on the new rig in 2019 and wrapping an extensive refit in 2023, we had changed our stance on single sideband use. Once our only offshore communication, the hardware no longer earned a place on Totem because multiple satellite options are available today. Since we weren’t installing the SSB, we didn’t need new insulators. This opened options to consider in replacing the backstay.

One of those options was Dyneema, which is a strong, lightweight line made from synthetic ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers. Dynex Dux is Dyneema that’s put through another cycle of heating and stretching to get every fiber in every yarn bundle to be exactly the same length. It’s lightweight, super strong and has virtually no stretch, making it a great alternative to wire for rigging.

We knew this because in 2008, Jamie had installed a Dynex Dux solent stay and inner forestay on Totem. He had also installed a Dux backstay on a friend’s boat in Puerto Rico in 2017, and loved the results.

With Totem now our focus, we reached out to Colligo Marine, the US distributor for Dynex Dux, rebranded as Colligo Dux. Colligo’s founder, co-owner and lead engineer, John Franta, helped us. Picking up the backstay became a perfect excuse for us to drive to Southern California for Thanksgiving with cousins. (Shipping into Mexico is fraught with issues.) Barely a week later, we were on our way back to Mexico with the new backstay in hand.

Shifting forward a few weeks, Totem was in Banderas Bay in time for family Christmas, after a conservative sail south with the old backstay in place. The new one was installed in the slip at Marina Riviera Nayarit. The hardest part of replacing the backstay with the mast up? Detaching and lowering the old backstay, because it was so heavy. The new stay was in place minutes later.

Wire vs. Synthetic Rigging

If Dux is so great, why didn’t we replace all of our standing rigging with it back in 2019?

Well, we did think about it. At the time, Jamie chose wire because of the cost of additional hardware necessary in the shift to synthetic rigging. We simply didn’t have the resources to consider the upgrade.

There are other considerations for a switch to synthetic rigging, too. They include abrasion, chafe, ultraviolet longevity and thermal expansion. Stainless steel wire has just as many issues and is harder to inspect well. Our new backstay was an easy choice this time around because of the weight savings, ease of installation and absence of chafe points.

We’re now getting ready to sail around 2,000 nautical miles from Hawaii to Micronesia. We aren’t sure yet if we’ll make landfall in Tarawa, Kiribati, or sail the slightly shorter distance to Majuro, Marshall Islands. Ideally, we can visit Tarawa first (it’s harder to get there later), but the weather will make the decision for us.

Meanwhile: Totem Talks will be on again before we sail west. For this next free livestream, we’ll have a circumnavigation roundtable with our friend and neighbor here in Hawaii, Dustin Reynolds. He didn’t just circumnavigate: Dustin holds a Guinness World Record for the first solo voyage around the world by a double amputee (arm and leg).Bring your voyaging questions, and sign up to be notified by email for the date of the livestream.

The post Rigging Redo: Our Switch to Synthetic appeared first on Cruising World.

The last of any cruising cobwebs were shaken out as we sailed our 47-foot Stevens Totem across a chunk of the Pacific Ocean. Our recent passage from Los Frailes, Baja California Sur, to Honokōhau, Hawaii, was within 100 nautical miles of the distance we sailed from Mexico to French Polynesia.

That’s a significant passage.

By the numbers, we covered a distance of 2,805 nautical miles. It took us 16 days, eight hours at a top speed of 12 knots and an average speed of 7.2 knots. Our best 24-hour run was 186 nautical miles. We burned just 12 gallons of diesel and 4 gallons of gasoline. And while we did not catch any squalls, we did stop counting after 19 flying fish landed on deck.

Two additional crew contributed meaningfully to the passage: our son, Niall, and our friend, River. Niall, who is two years past graduation from Lewis & Clark College, left his job in refugee services earlier this year. Of course, he intimately knows the floating home he grew up aboard. River is a boat-savvy friend we met while he and his wife were cruising in Mexico in 2019. He was supposed to join Totem to sail to the South Pacific in March 2020, but we all know how that year panned out. His gentle strength and can-do attitude make an excellent addition to a passage. Plus, he brought the chill that I sometimes needed.

After teaming up for the first couple of nights, we did two-hour rotations at night and ad-hoc watch-standing during the day. The help was a luxury that Jamie and I may miss for our next big leg to the Marshall Islands.

Conditions Underway

Conventionally, this passage benefits from northeast trade winds; the angle would put apparent wind at or just behind the beam on Totem, where our boat shines. These conditions are based on the establishment of the North Pacific High (a high-pressure weather system bringing stability and generally mild conditions) as spring progresses.

In the days leading to our departure window, the high developed into a nice, stable size and location. In our pre-departure crew meeting, my husband, Jamie, discussed our weather expectations for the passage: we’d time our departure to get around Cabo San Lucas in moderate conditions, we’d spend 24 to 36 hours of close reaching in 15 to 18 knots; and we would shift into broad reaching and then running as we got west under the high.

Jamie’s only concern was the high growing bigger or shifting south, leaving us with little to no wind. He expected we’d drop 3 to 5 degrees south of the rhumb line route west to the big island. We also expected decent stargazing along the way.

Our passage did not follow this script.

There were two subtle changes to the North Pacific High. First, a low pressure system moved eastward in an arc over and down into the top of the high. Second, a stationary low formed near Hawaii, causing torrential rain and flooding. That low nudged the high a little farther north.

Where we were, compressed trades came out of the north. Totem’s speed often ranged from 7 to 10 knots, pulling our apparent wind angle well forward of the beam: not close-hauled, but 65 to 80 degrees was far from the broad-reaching to running we expected. After a week, the wind finally began to clock northeast. On day nine, the apparent wind angle was at 130 to 150, and we set up a wing-on-wing sail plan.

This was a more active passage than most. Cooking was a challenge. I complained at times that cooking required arms like an octopus to hang onto everything, but I appreciated the mostly starboard tack, as it makes our galley is easier to use. One passage win? Discovering that the roll of thin silicone mat I purchased for baking also serves as excellent nonslip under plates.

Another win was minimizing garbage. We throw organics overboard, but not glass or cans. We reduce packaging before departure. We cut soft plastics and stow everything in containers until landfall. How we make it work (and dealing with garbage while cruising more generally) is described in much more detail here.

Also unexpected were the number of chilly nights and gray skies. Starting on our second night at sea, there was rarely sun until day 13. That hampered our solar power generation. Those 4 gallons of gasoline burned? Running the generator to top up our batteries.

Some stargazing would have been nice, but overcast weather prevented that. It also hampered power generation. Totem has 1,215 watts of solar. In Mexico, this was enough to meet all power needs, including making hot water. With the cloud cover, we had to run the generator several times to keep up with power demands.

Gear Failures

We lost a Corelle dinner plate. It’s supremely durable dishware until it hits a surface just right and splinters into 16 million shards. It was our second plate in 16 years to break in dramatic fashion.

We also had a shackle failure on day 14. Jamie explains: “Pre-departure, I ran out of seizing wire on the last shackle to be moused, securing the genoa head to the upper furling swivel. Instead, I used a zip tie. The shackle pin still backed out, and gravity pulled the genoa down. Naturally, this happened in the dark hours before dawn. The sail slid down the foil, and since it was poled out to starboard, slipped into the water and trailed alongside like a well-behaved, wet sheepdog.”

Totem kept cruising along at 7 knots as our genoa skimmed the surface of the Pacific. It happened while Jamie and I were in the cockpit, chatting, as he turned the watch over to me; half of the crew was awake, the other half quickly roused.

It was a demonstration of quality teamwork as the crew got the sail, still attached at the tack and clew, back on deck and secured. Closer inspection after landfall turned up more.

As Jamie explains: “After the passage, I went aloft to retrieve the furler swivel and halyard from the top of the foil section. There, I was surprised to find that the endcap on the foil section was gone. Puzzled, I tried rotating the foil and found that it locked up in one direction. I suspect that when the shackle opened up, the genoa luff tension released, causing the halyard to recoil and pull the swivel up into the end plate—apparently with enough force to rip out the machine screw, which then fell inside the foil, causing the furler to bind. Should be easy to retrieve it, but it means another trip up the mast.”

I helped Jamie go aloft again to retrieve the bits. Then, it would be a matter of ordering replacement parts for the furler and some hand-sewing to repair the chafed top of the genoa. It got chewed up when it flogged at the masthead before making its graceful descent for a swim.

In Hindsight

We did not have fishing gear on board. Our kit went walkabout during the refit. Initial plans were to replace it before we left Mexico, but with the limited selection, we opted to wait until we arrived in Hawaii. Sure enough, even a convenience store in Hawaii had a better selection of lures and line.

All in all, though, this successful passage was a significant milestone. Putting about one-third of the Pacific Ocean between Totem and Mexico, after several false starts in the last few years, was meaningful.

Jamie and I have set off on a new chapter of our cruising life. We were gratified that our preparation and shakedown had been solid. The post-refit Totem, which still feels like a new boat in many ways, is ready to be our oceangoing magic carpet, once again.

Want to see some video from the trip? We had fun making a few clips; check our Instagram.

The post Passage Report: Sailing <i>Totem</i> Finds Aloha appeared first on Cruising World.

Aside from the few sneak peeks I’ve shared on Sailing Totem’s social media, I’ve largely kept my new ink all to myself. For an entire year. Why? Because it’s personal! The flock of swallows marks, for me, the journey our family shared of sailing around the world together. A special time, an uncommon achievement, a journey we shared.

What is it about sailors and swallow tattoos, anyway?

There’s a mix of symbolism, superstition and tradition in the ink sailors choose. Tattoos have a history longer than we can imagine, with archeological evidence stretching back to the Stone Age and in disparate corners of the planet. By the time Cook voyaged in the 1700s, body art was an established ritual among sailors.

Why swallows in particular? Imagine the men in the age of sail (which was pretty much all men at that time) embarking on difficult and dangerous voyages from which many would not return. The superstitions associated with this era of sailing were one way for a sailor to feel a tiny bit of control over something which mostly was not in their control, and swallow tattoos are intertwined with these superstitions.

A swallow tattoo marked the achievement of a sailor’s first 5,000 nautical miles, which represented a literal survival at their profession. A second swallow, often placed on opposite shoulders, was a symbol of homecoming. Barn swallows return home from distant migratory grounds, something that probably resonated with sailors wondering whether they’d ever see the shores of their home again. And if they didn’t, well, other superstitions say the swallow would help carry the sailor’s soul to heaven.

Contemporary versions have a range of freestyle options, since color and fine detail weren’t easy for sailors using a needle and gunpowder to do. The “modern classic” is the mid-century Sailor Jerry style, popularized by the famous Honolulu-based tattoo artist (not named Jerry).

My friend Niki, aboard Grateful, has also added swallow tattoos along the way, with different designs reflecting destinations, artists or her own inspiration. Her most recent swallow is a traditional Marquesan style, inked by the artist Kaha not long after arrival in French Polynesia. 

“We researched the ways to be sensitive about having these new tattoos,” she posted. “The key is to speak to the artist and allow for something unique to be designed in conversation about what’s important in your life.”

Niki jokes that “it’s a family thing,” as she shares pictures of her husband Jamie’s swallows, and his sister Mindy’s, both done in Palma de Mallorca.

The rope on Mindy’s representing the knot she tied delivering their other brother’s catamaran both ways across the Atlantic.

I’m neither an artist nor a very creative person. It was a long process—and sometimes painful—to settle on a design direction that felt right and ready to take to an artist to refine. Like my Marquesan tattoo, I sat with the idea for months until the right concept gelled.

A design aspect that resonated with me was to add a bird for each 5,000 nautical-mile increment of our family’s circumnavigation. At the time we closed the loop, it tallied eleven swallows. My self-imposed deadline was to have the piece completed before we left Mexico, symbolizing the beginning of a new chapter in my cruising life.

Once landing on an idea, it still needed the right artist to bring to life. This took much longer than expected. I studied the styles of artists I could access to make sure they aligned with my own, and I seeked personal recommendations. After several false starts, test-driving some temporary designs and a few visits to Tucson, I landed on the right artist and an approach: fine detail, organic movement and a design that allows for expansion with more birds at some future inflection point.

This week, our daughter Mairen, who is an artist, shared her latest work. I swooned—our journey in swallows, interpreted again. (And no, I’m not getting this as another tattoo.) But I just couldn’t wait to proudly post a print she’s made. There are some bulkheads around here that feel like blank canvases, and I sense a new Totem crew tee shirt in the works.

On that note, the family printing business we’ve worked with for years is no more. If you know of an outfit we can support for printing and shipping a small range of Totem gear, please send us a recommendation.

The post Swallow Tattoos and Sailors appeared first on Cruising World.

Looking for an explainer on using Starlink while sailing your boat around the world? How to combine it with offshore communications tools for safety at sea?

Here are all the details of our experience with our own Starlink installation, modifications, service plan options and other essential offshore comms, as well as a look at how Starlink is used in the wider cruising community today.

The first thing to know is that terms can be loaded. SpaceX has changed terminology for Starlink hardware and plans a number of times in the past few years. I’m using terms that are current in 2024.

Second, I’m not an expert at Starlink. I’m a cruiser on a Stevens 47, Totem, who is, like so many of us, astonished at the way our lives are changing around this new technology access. The work that my husband, Jamie, and I do relies upon this connectivity, and our safety tools are increasingly leveraging it as well. I welcome constructive feedback and comments from legit technology experts.

As I write this, Totem is swinging at anchor in turquoise water off Isla San Francisco in Mexico. We’re only able to linger in this Sea of Cortez idyll because of Starlink. We are miles from cell service.

The first time we came here, in 2009-10, we only needed connectivity for weather updates. We got them through our single-sideband radio and via Iridium GO! But today, streaming video calls for our coaching service demands high bandwidth. The Starlink on our stern arch allows us to linger instead of hustling to La Paz. It will be weather (unlikely) or provisions (eventually) or crew flying in (hard dates on those) that will bring us back instead.

Antenna selection

We purchased Starlink in November 2022. We chose a residential Gen 2 dish ($599 at the time; we paid about half in Mexico). This was the rectangle that succeeded the round Dishy McFlatface in 2021. The antenna was used at our apartment in Mexico for a year while completing Totem’s refit, and it is now on a sturdy stern arch mount next to the solar panels. It draws 2 to 3 amps per hour.

This same Gen 2 dish seems to be the most widely distributed among cruisers. In February 2024, it was replaced by a similar Gen 3 dish. The newer dish uses conventional connections on the cable from the antenna, has LAN ports directly on the dish, doesn’t have internal motors, and is supposed to have up to twice the data throughput (300-plus megabits per second). However, it can use 50 percent more power. Gen 3 also has a slightly larger footprint and a different base.

The other option is the Flat High Performance dish ($2,500), a larger rectangle and the only antenna officially approved for in-motion use. Yes, cruisers are using the Gen 2 and Gen 3 dishes in motion, technically out of terms of service, but apparently slow sailboats aren’t ringing the alarm bells at SpaceX. High-performance dishes have a wider view of the sky for better satellite acquisition (so, presumably, more stable connectivity) and use considerably more power, at least double that of our Gen 2 dish.

SpaceX has said that a Starlink Mini dish will be released in late 2024. This antenna is supposed to be much smaller, about the size of a tablet; be set up for DC electricity; and consume significantly less power. Make it half the price and it’ll be a cruiser winner.

Don’t have Starlink yet? Use our link to order, and we’ll each get a free month of service.

Installation on board

Choosing a location wasn’t too hard. There are two factors: Where is the clearest view of the sky? And, where is the dish most out of the way?

The obvious location on Totem was off the arch on our transom. While we were in Puerto Peñasco, the Cabrales Boatyard welder worked with my husband, Jamie, to create a mount on the port side of the arch.

A key customization we made was a stainless tube to frame the perimeter of Totem’s dish. The idea is that if a reefing line or the main sheet flails that way, it will not catch on the antenna and damage it, or send it flying.

The Gen 3 announcement came in time for us to shape the frame’s dimensions to accommodate it, in case we decide to upgrade.

Service plans and costs

Three plans are overwhelmingly used in the cruising community. Mobile-Regional, US accounts $150, for service when changing locations within a single continent; Mobile–Global, US accounts: $200, for consistent service when traveling between continents; and Mobile Priority, which is an add-on to keep service active when you’re away from official coverage areas (see Starlink’s coverage map). US accounts: $2/GB.

We ordered the dish in Mexico and shipped it to our apartment near the Cabrales Boatyard, which set us up with a Mexican service address for our account. Once we sailed south, we switched from the residential plan to a Mobile–Regional plan. When transiting the Sea of Cortez, we toggle on Mobile Priority data. We’ll do the same on the way to Hawaii.

Costs for each of these plans scale and vary by country. Pricing is based on the service address where our dish was originally sent; we pay about half the US rate for our Mobile-Regional plan. It’s not all cheaper, though: Mobile Priority data costs more on our Mexican account, and a Mobile-Global plan would run approximately $70 more than US customers pay monthly.

There are websites dedicated to tracking the range in service plan costs by country. Our data consumption when offshore, so far, has averaged around 6 GB per day on Totem. At nearly $3 per GB on our Mexican plan, it adds up, but it’s a bargain compared to the alternatives for high-bandwidth internet offshore.

Crossing an ocean with Starlink

There are the official terms, and then there are the real-life practices.

Officially, when moving between continent-based regions, Starlink expects an account to be on a Mobile–Global service plan. Offshore and outside of service areas, Mobile Priority data must be toggled on. For example, a cruiser starting in Sicily (European region) who sails to the Caribbean (North America), then stops in Colombia (South America) on the way to the Panama Canal, and transits from there to French Polynesia (Oceania) in the spring would be in at least four (or five, if they were in Africa) regions.

In practice, cruisers have used Mobile-Regional plans without service interruption while transiting regions, such as sailing from Gibraltar to St Lucia, or from Panama to the Marquesas. Mobile Priority does need to be switched on.

Officially, if you’re using Mobile-Regional in a new country for more than two months, you’re supposed to change your service address to the new country, or return to the country where your service address is located.

In practice, there is no enforcement of this country requirement unless regions are changed as well. Many cruisers find ways to optimize their service plans based on location without repercussions. For example, cruisers sailing from the Americas to French Polynesia generally choose among three options after arriving: They continue with Mobile-Regional with Mobile Priority data on, or they switch to Mobile-Global, or they sell the hardware to themselves and associate it with a new account in the region. This hack requires reassigning the hardware to the new account, and then closing the old account.

No matter how they set up Starlink, some cruisers limit the power draw and data cost by turning it on once or twice a day offshore.

Modifications to consider

Three modifications help our Starlink work better on board Totem.

First, we converted the AC powered dish to 12-volt DC. Why? To reduce power consumed overall.

Here, we needed two aftermarket components: a 150W GigE Passive PoE Injector ($65) and 12-to48-volt DC Step Up Converter ($39). Connect the cable from the dish to the PoE, which is connected to the step-up converter. Gen 3 dishes have a standard RJ45 connection at the end of the cable; Gen 2 users will need to convert it. That’s the next step. Remember to add a fuse block.

Second, we replaced the Starlink router. Why? To add power efficiency and access more features.

The ethernet cord coming out of the Gen 2 dish has a proprietary connection. That’s annoying when you want to use a different router. We converted ours through this rectangular Dishy cable adapter to RJ45 ($30), then used Totem’s existing MikroTik router ($75). We’re running PredictWind Data Hub ($299) in this mix. Make those connections (network cable on one side of the PoE box, power on the other), and then it works once the 12-volt power is on.

Third, we disabled internal motors. Why? Motors increase electricity use and reduce connection stability on a moving boat, including when swinging at anchor.

SpaceX cottoned onto this, I guess, since Gen 3 dishes don’t have motors. We’d encourage Gen 2 owners to disable theirs: it might feel scary to drill a hole in your antenna, but the performance is more stable, and you’ll save power.

The trickiest bit took a couple of tries to make the dish go flat. Jamie marked the spot, then drilled a hole with a 5/8-inch bit. After sucking out plastic debris, he used a pair of longish, stiff tweezers to pull out the wire connections to disable the motors.

How-to steps for this process are easy to find online. We initially covered the hole with some electrical tape, and later used silicone sealant on it for a longer-term solution.

Integrating to Iridium Exec

Like a growing number of cruisers, Jamie and I rely on connectivity for income. We also aspire to spend time in remote locations again soon. But counting on Starlink working 100 percent of the time is too risky.

Iridium Exec is the obvious piece of gear for reliable remote connectivity. The Exec and Starlink are integrated through our PredictWind Data Hub, with Starlink as our primary internet source and with Iridium on standby.

Embarking on offshore passages without reliable backup communication feels dubious at best. For folks who have lower data needs: If texts are enough, an InReach is another option for that backup. It can’t download weather GRIBs, so isn’t a great option if you go farther for longer and end up relying upon it.

Change is the constant

It seems that as soon as cruisers get used to one set of norms with Starlink, things change. Terms of service continue to be inconsistently enforced, which means anyone using Starlink outside of those terms are carrying some risk.

This week, Starlink emailed a reminder to some users that Mobile plans are intended for temporary travel and transit, not permanent use in a country different from the service address on the account. This email reminded users that terms of service are contingent upon regulatory approvals by the country in which the dish is used, and stated that connections could be cut off on April 30.

This notice appears to be aimed at a single country in Africa that does not have regulatory approval, with the helpful directions, “Should you wish to advocate for Starlink to be approved…” Recipients included plenty of South Pacific cruisers (French Polynesia is not yet “available” on the Starlink map) who were shaking in their sea boots. We get it. We depend on Starlink now, too.

More on Starlink aboard

For more resources on using Starlink on board, check our post about Starlink for Cruisers from November 2022. The resources we detailed are still the go-to references.

Coming up from the Sailing Totem crew

We’re giving two American Sailing Association seminars in the next few weeks. On April 25, we’re presenting proactive steps for safety on board. May 7, on the cusp of our intended passage to Hawaii, we’ll discuss passage preparation. For $10 off (more than 25%) use TOTEM10 in the checkout. Register here for safety at sea. The registration for passage planning is here.

On April 28, Totem Talks will answer the important question: Do cruisers poop in the ocean? A no-holds-barred conversation about heads, holding tanks and dealing with our, um, output. Get the poop here.If you’re in our coaching community, you could also join this weekend’s OpenCPN workshop. Want to know more? You can learn about working with us, or get in touch.

The post Welcome Aboard, Starlink appeared first on Cruising World.

Panchita was a callejera, a street cat who adopted us. She was one of thirtysomething animals we fostered while in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, during the extended refit of Totem, our Stevens 47. The rescue agency where our daughter Siobhan volunteered had offered to transport Panchita north of the border for adoption, but when the time came to let her go, we couldn’t do it. She was irrevocably one of us.

Now, we are learning what it means to go cruising with a pet. Here’s the best and the worst of what we’ve figured out so far.

Transitioning Aboard

To help Panchita transition from street life to boat life, we made nests for her around the boat that incorporated familiar smells and favorite things. There may have been a few extra treats doled out. We brought her favorite dried anchovies, familiar litter box, and a fleece throw dubbed “the magical blanket” because of the calming effect it has on her.

The first few days, she stayed mostly hidden, coming out to eat and use the litter box. Panchita gradually explored every corner of the boat in high-alert mode, tail down, creeping from cabin to cabin. During the next week, she gained confidence, and her tail returned to the happy-cat question mark position.

Getting Underway

We were advised in a Facebook group to harness-train her, so we could keep her secure as needed. There’s a mixed set of reviews about whether PFDs are effective for cats. Plan A was to keep her belowdecks, or in close reach in the cockpit, while underway.

Harness training is amusing at first: A cat buckled in for the first time may flop down and forget how to walk, or just look at you with a deeply offended expression. Panchita adjusted eventually. Dried anchovy bribes helped.

Eleven days after moving aboard, we set sail for a weeklong passage to Banderas Bay. She hated the engine, and she vanished into one of her growing list of hidey-holes when it was turned on. Under sail, she slowly became more comfortable moving around belowdecks and making occasional supervised visits to the cockpit.

Her favorite places were often near us, or in one of the nests we’d made for her. An unexpected, chosen refuge was the laundry hamper. Never, in nearly two years at our apartment, did she seek it out. At sea, it must have felt nice and secure, and it had the right smells.

The Poop

Who wants to deal with provisioning for kitty litter around the world? Not us. Some cruisers do, while others use beach sand (sounds like a great way to invite bugs on board). Still others work with what they find along the way. And then, there are cruisers who teach their cats to use the toilet.

On land, Panchita would cry to be let outside to do her business. She got used to litter, so we used that aboard too. We started toilet training with a kit that we found online after arriving in Banderas Bay, and it’s going pretty well so far.

Meanwhile, we also purchased Purina’s Breeze “litter system,” which a lot of cruisers like because you don’t need to stash as much litter. The pellets last longer, and it’s possible to wash and reuse them. They also won’t track sand into your bunk.

Keeping a Cat Safe at Sea

We did not install nets, but many cat owners do. Another calico, Poppet, is circumnavigating on the Valiant 40 Sonrisa with her humans. Here, she demonstrates the attitude of many cats regarding lifeline netting.

Will we install nets? I think we’ll wait and see how curious our ship’s cat is. For now, we feel comfortable with the combination of her general caution and disinterest in being on deck underway, using a harness to secure her if needed, and remaining vigilant about her location when we are sailing. 

Keeping a Cat Safe at the Dock or Anchor

Marinas aren’t a safe place for a curious cat. She might get into a place she can’t get out from, whether that’s trapped in the dock’s structure or inside an unfamiliar boat. Or, she might wander away and get lost. We’ve heard so many heartbreaking stories.

Aside from the danger to the cat, it’s a real no-no to get on another person’s boat (unless there’s explicit permission). The cat could do damage. Panchita has already found the nonskid on my standup paddleboard a nice place to scratch, and the nuisance damage from claws digging into, say, fake teak decking can get expensive to fix.

What if the cat lands in the water? It’s our biggest fear. Some liveaboards hang apparatus off the side of the boat while anchored or moored for the cat to self-rescue by climbing up. It could be a fishing net or a yoga mat, or any of a number of things.

In our first weeks with Panchita on board, that fear was realized. Late one night, she got out through a hatch we didn’t think was accessible to her. We only found out she’d gone wandering when she came into our cabin, soaked and meowing mad, around 3 o’clock one morning. Her bloodied claws suggest that she was lucky to get out of the water, probably by way of climbing barnacle-crusted pilings. High on our agenda is working out something to hang off the transom for her to climb, and to do some in-water training at anchor.

Previously, Panchita loved to be outside, and had free access to go in and out during the daytime at our apartment. Being mostly confined to a boat is a massive transition, but an essential one.

The Benefit of a Tracker

I can’t imagine not having a tracker. They come in two basic types (radio-frequency and cellphone based) with different advantages. We have both and will employ whichever is best suited to the current situation.

Tabcat was our first tracker. It uses radio frequencies. We decided this was a great fit with our intention to be in remote, disconnected islands. It’s a lightweight tag on Panchita’s collar that lets us home in on her location from 500 feet away. We can remotely prompt the tag to beep, and she has become conditioned (anchovies, again) to return to our apartment when it sounds. A Tabcat kit includes two tags, each with a battery life of up to one year.

After Panchita’s nighttime escape and unplanned swim, we also decided to try a GPS-type tracker. Tractive’s historical tracking feature was eye-opening: We could immediately see that she was getting off the boat when we didn’t realize it, and probably getting onto multiple other boats on the dock. We have since buttoned up her escape routes so we can sleep at night, and we set a perimeter alert so we are pinged if she goes beyond our safe, close range. It’s also comforting to know that if she does wander farther, the GPS/cellular network method will help us find her.

The tag is bigger than Tabcat’s, but our petite, 2-pound Panchita doesn’t seem to mind. The tag is also waterproof. It’s possible to remotely prompt it to make a sound or flash a light. It does need regular charging, about every other day, and for those hours it can’t be on. For that reason, some cruisers with Tractive tags purchase two.

This link Tractive gives you a 30 percent discount; the bigger cost will be the subscription, however.

Arriving in New Countries

It’s more complicated to arrive in a new country as a pet than to arrive as a human. Even if the pet won’t leave the boat (like the dwarf hamsters we carried to 28 countries), the pet should be declared, which usually means paperwork.

Pets should be microchipped and have current vaccinations. You may need a vet’s certificate of health from the country where you departed; you may be able to get one on arrival. Countries may require a titer test (proof of sufficient rabies antibodies) taken within the past few years. Others won’t allow your pet regardless of titer tests if they’ve been in countries with certain levels of rabies risk within a defined period of time. Every country’s pet-entry requirements are different and need researching.

Excellent veterinary care is available in Mexico, but we naturalized Panchita as a US kitty with a couple of road trips to a veterinarian in Tucson, Arizona. To avoid the 120-day quarantine that was formerly the norm, handwritten records in Spanish weren’t going to be enough. Plus, the titer test required spinning serum from a blood sample and then overnighting it to the University of Kansas (with results sent directly to Hawaii).  Don’t tell my husband, Jamie, but those trips added up to around $1,000.

Health Needs

Cruisers invest a lot of preparation to care for the medical needs of the crew: giving CPR, and sourcing prescriptions or other medications that could be needed.

To do the proper sourcing for a pet, we attended a presentation by a cruising veterinarian, Dr. Sheddy, who addressed medicines to carry and how to handle wound care, near-drownings, poisoning and more. It was eye-opening. She’s seven years into her mission to provide free veterinary care to animals in need from aboard her sailboat, Chuffed. She shares practical, real-world advice for remote cruising with a pet on board, including medications for your pet’s first aid kit.  

We’d Do It Again, But…

Most pets will increase complication, add costs, and affect the boat’s routing options. And, cruising might not be your pet’s idea of living their best life. You may already have a pet who is part of your family, and who will make the sacrifice willingly. But if you don’t have a pet yet, think hard before adding one if you plan to go cruising.For a more dog-centered point of view, see this recent article in Spinsheet magazine by our friend Cindy Wallach. She’s cruising the Caribbean with rescue pups Choo Choo and Pip, and has great insights.

The post Cruising with a Pet appeared first on Cruising World.

This month, we’re rolling out a new Sailing Totem series featuring hindsight intelligence from our massive refit, beginning with the forward head. Totem’s smallest cabin underwent very big changes and was a showcase for many of the decisions that would shape the refit overall.

When we bought Totem in 2007, the forward head retained the traditional look of a white finish with varnished wood trim. We destroyed that early on for practical reasons: chainplate replacement, better storage and then holding tank migration. They were the right moves, but it was never an appealing space—until now, which goes to show how significantly a boat’s interior can be changed.

This started as a simple repair (this is a theme—the domino effect of a small project). The original sole was a fiberglass shower pan with teak grating, intended as a wet head. In early Totem days we removed the shower, but in its wet head lifespan, the seam between the pan and a bulkhead opened up. Water found its way through and rotted the lower portion of the bulkhead. The area was not visible nor accessible, but Jamie noticed small bits of rotted plywood in the bilge.

He cut a small access hole through the shower pan to assess, and, well, throughout the day it became a large access hole, followed by the decision to rip out the entire pan. A two-foot-wide section at the bottom of the bulkhead was dry rot. (Every boat has it, boss.)

As he cut out the bad section of bulkhead to begin repairs, other possibilities rolled around his head: We could get rid of the 40-year-old cracked Formica. We wanted to decommission the old VacuFlush toilet and upgrade to a newer type, but it would need a new base. Why not move it from the awkwardly narrow location as well? The washing machine sat inside a locker; that placement could be better. Why not rebuild the adjacent vanity while updating that storage? Why not relocate the holding tank seacock that was barely reachable? Heck, why not just rebuild the whole cabin? In the end, only the holding tank (which we installed in Australia in 2011) remained in the same place.

Form and Function

It’s nice to have an appealing cabin after years of strict utilitarianism. It’s also more functional and more comfortable. The bulkhead was rebuilt in a way that no water can ever reach again. Stating the obvious, we made a conscious choice to move away from the wood-paneled interior look of a classic bluewater boat. I expect this will garner some hand-wringing from the traditionalists, and I don’t care. We love the clean, fresh feel and tones of the new finishes. 

To counterbalance the loss of warm tones (still not missing the sterile white Formica), we looked for natural materials to bring back an organic feeling of warmth. A bamboo vanity counter and river rock sole fit the bill nicely.

As for function, the new toilet location and orientation allows easier use while sailing. The washing machine is out of obvious sight and fits the small space perfectly. The existing vanity area storage is more accessible. The vessel style of sink—not normally a favorite—has the subtle benefit of less small counter space. And, it just looks cool!

Material Selection

Bamboo, for the vanity, was honestly a bit of an experiment. It had to be perfectly sealed, as any moisture will wick, stain and damage. Our fingers are crossed for now. We purchased it in plywood sheets from Cali Bamboo, saturated them in multiple coats of epoxy, then used a matte two-part polyurethane finish.

River rock was an unconventional choice for a boat. It feels incredible underfoot. Every time I set foot into the head now feels like a bit of reflexology therapy. To make the install easier, we purchased it in tiles designed to nest together from Pebble Tile Mosaics. They were set in epoxy, sealed, and a boat-friendly grout was applied.

We use AlexSeal for Totem’s hull, and we used the same for the interior. The goal was a durable finish that would feel almost like gelcoat for easy cleaning and permanence. What we didn’t want was the shiny look of a hull, though, which meant adding a lot of flattener. Warmer whites (the cloudlike Fleet White for the headliner, and the warmer toned Lunar White for the walls/bulkheads) give the space a homey glow. The folks at AlexSeal and San Diego Marine Exchange, where we purchased the paint, answered our many questions to achieve the look we wanted.

Product Selections

Toilet. Out goes the VacuFlush, in goes the Tecma Nano. We’ve used Tecma for several years in the aft head, and are impressed. Fresh water (and it doesn’t use much) means no smell. A composting head was never part of our consideration set, since the lone benefit for us is storage space by getting rid of a holding tank. Not compelling, especially when weighed against the tradeoffs. The head’s location changed in the refit. It’s now oriented so when seated you face across the beam instead of fore/aft. Much easier underway.

Sink. The Vitreous China Sink was an affordable (about $60) Wayfair purchase. With a 16-inch by 13-inch oval, opting for a vessel style instead of inset, the counter space was effectively increased, which makes a big difference such a compact space. The faucet is a household Delta model, and while it felt too expensive at nearly triple the cost of the sink, we had been frustrated by faucets and taps that failed quickly and we appreciated that the “guts” of these ones are better made.

Washer. Nothing new here. This is the same Giantex we’ve had since 2018, after finally graduating from the five-gallon bucket. We’ve considered upgrades, but this simple, affordable (we paid around $200) machine has been great. Check out our washing machine discussion for ideas here.

Favorites

I posted a list of reasons I love the new head on our social media, and the response inspired a more detailed summary. So here goes. A few things stand out: First, how clean this looks, even with the open cubbies. Okay, don’t laugh about the peanuts on that top cubby. That container is actually holding kibble for our ship’s cat, Panchita. Her toys, treats and first-aid kit occupy part of the storage locker behind the head.

I finally embraced a feeling of settling into our home again while rolling up a new set of Marmara’s Turkish towels. We treated ourselves to a new set when we moved back abaord, saying goodbye to the prior towels we’ve had for eight years. Fringe-less, this time. For me, hanging a bath-sized towel by the door and a hand towel by the sink was that moment. If you’d like to support small businesses like Marmara, and their yummy, soft organic towels, we highly recommend.

So, what’s missing? Well, the space could use a little more personalization—some artwork, especially. I have a couple of favorite prints that I’m really tempted to put in the head, but I’m afraid I won’t see them often enough. Maybe the right piece will become apparent while wandering a market here in Mexico; something to remind us of this country we’ve come to love.

Reality Check

The understated material, which is not visible and yet we couldn’t have done the refit without, was epoxy. Jamie’s preferred brand is West System, and he sure went through a lot of it—around 38 gallons for the entire refit. He used epoxy and fiberglass to rebuild the bottom of the rotten bulkhead: epoxy thickened with colloidal silica to fill holds and filler inside corners; epoxy thickened a little with easy-to-sand fillers to saturate every interior wood surface to make it waterproof, tougher and prepared for paint. Where there is epoxy, there is sanding—so much sanding—which required sandpaper, respirators, and two overworked random orbital sanders for one very tired sailor who would much prefer to be sailing.

Jamie is very clear about one thing: that he’s not planning to do a refit of this scale ever again.

What do you like about our refit and the changes to this cabin? Got ideas for what to add in our sparse head? Let us know in the comments!

Don’t miss our March TOTEM TALKS, with a special guest!

Notice how I dropped that mention of our cat’s first-aid kit above? We’ve recently been lucky to connect in person with Dr Sheddy, the cruising veterinarian of Vet Tails. She’s been aboard S/V Chuffed for seven years, bringing free health care to animals along the way. (To be honest, I’d never thought about a first-aid kit for a cat, but, as it turns out, of course we need to.) She’ll join us on Saturday, March 30 at 9am Pacific/Noon Eastern to tell stories from her cruising adventures as well as share some highly practical information about taking care of a pet aboard. Register here, and feel free to send questions in advance!

The post Sailing Totem Refit Series: The Forward Head Makeover appeared first on Cruising World.

As sailboat races go, the first Wednesday-night race of the season was off to a cracking start. Our crew maneuvered ungracefully prestart, and we were sloppy tacking aboard the J/35, but our winter fog lifted as we beat toward the windward mark. 

Then the sailing therapy abruptly ended with a crash. 

As dismastings go, this one was uncomplicated. The windward cap shroud failed at the upper T fitting. What had been installed by a rigger the week before became a mess of wires, crumpled aluminum, and torn Kevlar. I was a sailmaker at the time, and my takeaway was clear: Never trust riggers.

Two decades later, I was aloft on our Stevens 47, Totem, to inspect newly fabricated and installed standing rigging. All was fine up to the second spreader, where I found several missing cotter pins. The memory of the dismasting came to mind. Our dream of sailing to the South Pacific with three young children suddenly felt riskier. We had hired the best rigger around, but the entire project was a fraught with mistakes and delays. A couple of bucks’ worth of missing parts could’ve toppled the mast, our dream and our safety.

Most sailors don’t think it’s necessary to inspect a rigger’s work, just as most drivers never inspect a car’s engine before driving away from a mechanic’s repair shop. But there is a difference. If a car repair is faulty, resources are nearby. Rigging problems at sea can be complicated, and there’s not usually an expert rigger around the corner. 

To prove reliability, you have to own it—really own responsibility for the condition of rigging, steering cables, through-hull fittings and more. This can feel daunting because it’s technical. 

For beginners, forget about rigging terminology and engineering. Also, don’t focus on finding cracked wire strands or fittings. That’s not to say ignore them if you find them, but cracked metal is a late discovery, well past safe limits. Instead, learn to spot clues that indicate early stages of a problem. 

For instance, look for rust on stainless steel and for corrosion on aluminum. Question why a line is getting harder and harder to pull. Sight up the mast while sailing to see if the mast profiles look smooth or lumpy, stable or dynamically bouncing. Look from side to side and from front to back. Note how slack the leeward shrouds are while sailing in different windspeeds. And get to the chainplate behind your bookshelf to look for water stains, especially rusty water stains that trail downward. 

These are all clues to potential problems. You don’t have to know the solution, but rigging failures happen mostly because nobody identified the clues.

Rigging Inspection Tips

Stainless steel should be shiny with a smooth, fluid look. Being rough, dull, splotchy or striated might indicate lower-quality metal, or it can mean that the metal has changed properties from age or use. Stainless steel is least effective at resisting rust when its surface is frequently abraded, such as a clevis pin securing the articulating parts of a boom gooseneck. This is also the case when the surface is deprived of the oxygen necessary to form a protective layer, such as bolts passing through a chainplate and bulkhead. 

Have a 10x loupe to amplify what you cannot see well enough with eyes alone. Look for general surface smoothness, pitting and cracks. Light-orange rust is probably superficial, and is easily cleaned with white vinegar and a rag. Darker red and brown rust can indicate failing or failed metal. 

Does the rust have a pronounced line or edge? This could be a crack, even if it’s not opened up yet. Photograph the area to note the date and condition. Then clean away the rust to assess surface problems. If rust reforms in the same areas within several weeks, the metal is not right and needs further attention.

Additional checks for rigging wire include looking for uneven gaps between the wire strands. Run your hand over the wire, feeling for any strands that are slightly raised. These can be broken strands, which might be hidden inside a swage fitting.

Understanding Alignment

Another thing to consider is alignment. It’s the relationship between the direction of a rigging load (force) and the orientation of the rigging component meant to carry that load.

Take a pencil, grasp each end, and try to pull the pencil apart. You probably can’t. Now secure half the pencil length to a table, with the other half extending past the edge. Push down on the overhanging end. It breaks easily. 

The pencil is surprisingly strong when load is parallel to the length of the pencil. The more misaligned the load is to the length, the easier it is to break the pencil. 

It’s the same concept with rigging. Chainplates should be shaped and oriented to transfer load down the length of the metal and into the bulkhead. If the chainplate has an angle out of alignment with the shroud, then the metal flexes to pull it straight if there is enough load. The more it flexes, the weaker and more brittle the chainplate gets. 

This was the cause of our J/35 dismasting. The T fitting at the top of the shroud was set incorrectly in the mast slot. The forced misalignment was too much for the metal, and it failed.

The most common misalignment I see on rigging is with toggles—the U-shaped linkage used at the bottom of every turnbuckle and numerous other parts of standing rigging. A toggle fitted over a chainplate is often wider than the chainplate. There is room enough that the toggle slides, so one side is against the chainplate. The other side, with a gap between it and the chainplate, is misaligned to the load. The rounded-end portion of the toggle (the bottom of the U) is stressed and flexed, ever so slightly. This cycle loading, coupled with the metal pieces scraping against each other and no oxygen, is a recipe for trouble. 

Where the surfaces come together is a good place to look for dark-red or brown rust on the toggle. This misalignment is easily corrected by adding a few bucks’ worth of nylon washers to keep the chainplate centered within the U of the toggle.

A Sad, Common Tale

We did sail Totem to the South Pacific in 2010. In one year sailing between Mexico and Australia, I counted 15 boats that had dismasted along the way, and a few near dismastings. One occurred on friends’ Tayana 52 after the headstay chainplate sheared off at deck level on passage to remote Suwarrow in the Cook Islands. 

Their chainplate was ­oriented fore and aft. After years of sailing with the wind force in the genoa pushing the headstay side to side, imperceptible flexing in the chainplate without ­structural support to counter the misaligned force weakened the metal to the point of breaking. 

Fortunately, in that case, the inner forestay and a downwind sailing angle (where forces pushing the mast forward create less load on the headstay) were enough to support the mast through the midnight fire drill to reduce sail and destress the rigging. But the lesson remains the same: Try to spot and fix these problems before they reach this point.

As I write this, Totem is nearly ready to sail west across the Pacific Ocean again. Our 30-month refit has left much of Totem new, except the mast, which is original at 42 years old. The standing rigging is only four years young, but I’ll be aloft with my 10x loupe regularly in hopes of keeping the trip uncomplicated, as ocean crossings go.

The post How to Rig Everything in Your Favor appeared first on Cruising World.