Welcome to my blog!
Back at the end of 2013 I decided (apropos of nothing) that I wanted to live on a sailboat. Armed with only a copy of This Old Boat and my blissful ignorance of anything to do with boats, sailing or handiwork I bought the first boat I looked at, a mere 3 hours drive + 2 hours ferry ride away. What a great idea!
Luckily the boat (a Cherubini designed Hunter 36) turned out not to have anything too disastrously wrong with it, so with a lot of time, money and reading I managed to get it into a livable condition. And then I discovered I liked sailing and decided to sail around the world.
Well, I got as far as Mexico before firstly Brexit and then Covid scuttled my plans. So I sold Gudgeon, the Hunter 36, down in Mexico and am now back in BC with a second boat, a Rafiki 37 called Sooner.
Eureka, CA to Drakes Bay, CA
After almost a week in Eureka. it was time to head out. Holley (my old boat neighbour captaining Maquinna Pt) had finished replacing her transmission so we were going to buddy boat - nothing quite as fun as sailing with someone else! We decided to get the second slack...
Hanging out in Eureka
I wasn't going to make this it's own post but so much happened in the following passage (foreshadowing!) that I decided to separate out my stay. Basically we were there for a week, and although the town itself has seen better days (esp the area we were in, oof)...
Neah Bay, WA to Eureka, CA
So before I wrote this I reread my entries from last time, when I hopped from Neah Bay to Astoria, Astoria to Coos Bay and then Coos to Eureka. It is pretty amazing how bad a time I was having, especially on that first leg (also in the last entry I mention having...
Victoria to Neah Bay
As mentioned previously, it was Big Sailing Trip Mk II (this time with less Brexit/Covid). I planned to leave on Monday 28th - however I still hadn't finished redoing my standing rigging (always leave redoing your rigging to the week before your planned departure date...
Update time – return from the dead
So it's been a hot minute since I've written anything, and the main reason for that is that I decided to try to sail across the Pacific again because of the previous point, I had to do the stuff I did with Gudge over 4 years in a few months so basically, it's been...
Adding a dual racor system to the boat
Last year, on the free table at my marina I found the following 'But Matthew', I hear you say, 'That is literally a pile of dirty trash' And I would say - actually, that's the best find I have ever made. Take my hand and let me lead you through the exciting world of...
Wiring up Sooners DC: Part 4 – New breaker panels
Sooners old breaker panel for the DC was old and not actually wired up to anything (the fridge etc was all wired directly to the batteries) so after removing the old one the first thing to do was figure out what I was going to do for new ones. Using an combined AC/DC...
Wiring up Sooners DC: Part 3 – Replacing the BMS in the LifePO4 bank
After pricing out decent cells it turned out to be cheaper to get a premade battery from https://www.electriccarpartscompany.com I went with the BestGo battery pack as seen here https://www.electriccarpartscompany.com/12v-400ah-preferred-lifepo4-lithium-battery-packs...
Christmas Update
Been a few weeks since I last updated, due to it being winter I haven't really felt like doing anything boat or writing related, but here is a brief update. The marina where I'm at has a competition where they give out $100 gift cards to the best decorated boats and...
Sailing Sooner
So at this point I'd taken Sooner out for her first big trip, but still hadn't actually sailed her outside of the short test sail before purchase. One of the really nice things about being on a boat this time is I've met a lot of younger people doing the same thing I...
