Trying out a Spade anchor

One new Nelson friend, Adrian Faulkner fell in love with the Maggie B. He was, however, shocked about our main anchor which is a 80 pound CQR. He had gotten to know the French inventor of the Spade anchor, which is quite different in design. I said something like “well, everybody has their favorite anchor.” Or words to that effect. The next day he brought by a thick package on all sorts of careful tests by several different independent organizations, which proved that the traditional “plow” anchor was pathetic and the Spade was terrific. That caused me to recall that the Maggie B did drag in Barbados, the Seychelles and twice in Tasmania. All were in notoriously bad holding grounds. But then I thought of the anchoring challenges ahead of us in the Marquesas, the coast of Chile and Patagonia, and all of a sudden a “top rated” anchor seemed much more attractive. While the Spade anchors are excellent, their availability isn’t. It is run by Frenchmen.

Adrian is off to Southeast Asia for five months and has loaned us his anchor with the understanding that we either get it back to him by his return or get him a new one. I’m hoping that the overdue shipment will arrive in Auckland by the time we get there. Meanwhile we’ll try it out in Marlborough Sound and the Bay of Plenty.

The essential difference is that the “plow” anchors plow up the bottom. I have definitely seen it happen in Barbados. The Spade digs in. Also the plow anchors have a big proportion of their weight in the shank and not much in the tip, which needs to dig in. The Spade has 50% of its weight in the tip and supposedly digs in so hard and fast that new owners think that they have snagged an underwater cable. We’ll see.

someone

Tips on handling customs duties and VAT/GST taxes

Customs duties and VAT/GST taxes can come to significant numbers and it can add up to real money. Many countries, including Australia have mechanisms for “Boats in Transit” to avoid or recoup those taxes, but just try to actually make it happen! Australian GST is 11%. In theory it is refundable when you leave, but the rules make it essentially impossible. First you have to sign into a “scheme” (yes, that’s what they call it) which, besides paperwork, requires you to pay $38 for each crew member. That $190 for us would mean that we would have to have spent more than $1727. But just on goods, not services. Goods and services mixed in a bill? Sorry, not deductible. Then if it is just goods, you must be able to prove it is being exported. Paint, painted on already? Sorry, can’t tell. Rope made up into halyards? Sorry. Did you know it also has to be exported within 30 days of purchase? Sorry. And you don’t get 100% of what you spent due to unspecified charges. I talked to three Customs officers and a “question line” at the Capitol, and got the impression that it had never actually happened.

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Know Your Boom

While in Fremantle, we also found and fixed a problem we didn’t know we had. Our boom is carbon fiber and hollow. The main outhaul goes into the boom about a fourth the way back from the mast. Three-fourths the way back there is a cross-member inside the boom to support reefing lines. At the end of the boom there are two rollers to guide the outhaul line up and out to a clear, handy place to attach to the sail. It would make sense to run the line straight back and clear to the rollers. Unfortunately we found that the line had been run OVER the cross member, from which it had to cut sharply down to meet the first roller. So as the sail worked, the Spectra rope sawed into the cross member and the cross member sawed into the Spectra line. The line is now reversed and cleared and no great damage to the cross member.

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You can’t check out any time you like, but you can always leave. . .

Brazil is a lovely country, but bureaucratic beyond comprehension. To clear into Natal, we had to visit 1) the Federal Police (Immigration), 2) Customs, 3) the Health Ministry (”Are you bringing Yellow Fever?”), and 4) the Captainerie (Harbor Control). It only took us four hours, filling the similar information in each spot. We were told that when we left Natal, all we had to do was check out with the Captainerie, which we did.

On arriving in Salvador, we went at once to the Captainerie, and checked in. No problem. Soon the Federal Police showed up and wanted to know why we hadn’t checked out of Natal. We said we were told we didn’t need to, they showed a line on one of our forms which said we had to. We asked why we had to check out with the Federal Police when we weren’t leaving the country and they said because we went to another Federal State. So they wouldn’t check us into Salvador because we were still officially in Rio Grande del Norde. But they would check us out when we were ready to leave for Cape Town. Which they did promptly. It made perfect sense to them. At least they didn’t send us back to Natal to check out. And, no, nobody asked for or hinted about “special fines” or “processing costs” or anything.

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To learn Portuguese takes two translations…

Few people realize how difficult it is to learn Portuguese. Few understand that it takes TWO translations, first from Portuguese to English, and then to the real meaning.

Thus:

• Portuguese=English=Meaning
• Agora=today=tomorrow
• Amanha=tomorrow=next week
• nao problema=no problem=it is complicated
• Esta sabado=this saturday=next wednesday

But it is mostly fun along the way.

someone

Replacing the Lewmar blocks with Antals | 07.18.06

We are still learning.

One thing that we just learned is that if you send to Brazil something important via FedEx or DHL, customs essentially charges 100% import tax. Yes, 100%. Officially it is ONLY 70%, but there are extra handling fees, etc. If, however, you use a Freight Forwarder, and add the Magic Words “Temporary Importation, Boat in Transit,” the taxes are…..zero. Why not refuse the FedEx and send it back and have it immediately resent? Because Brazil customs declares that once it is here, they will collect from someone, and in any case, they have already collected from FedEx as soon as it was sent to Brazil.

Live and learn.

We have so far had two Lewmar blocks fail on us when under rather normal loads. The web site will soon have photos of the failures. I believe that any engineer or innocent bystander would look at them and say that the Lewmar are very poorly designed. I am concerned that I still have dozens up in my rigging. I am currently replacing the Lewmars with Antals, which appear to be much sturdier. Perhaps other people have had bad experiences with Antals, but I hope that the photos will help any sailor at least consider how to look at a block and consider possible weak points.

someone

Backing down your boat is a necessary skill in European countries

Most marinas in these parts don’t let you lie alongside a dock, you toss your anchor out and back in a narrow slot between two other boats, or there is a mess of buoys/moorings and you somehow put a line on one as you back past, which is snubbed up just before you crash into the dock.

The Maggie B doesn’t have a bow thruster and I simply don’t know yet her characteristics backing down at full speed (speed is your friend?). Also, while we have a big rudder and the propeller plays right on it, she is 62 feet long and 35 tons and sort of hard to spin. It looks as if I’ll have to find some peaceful spot with a few buoys and practice my reverse skills. Any joke about French tanks having only reverse gears is inappropriate.

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A Little Paranoia is a Good Thing

On this leg from Bermuda to Antigua we got reminded that a little paranoia is a Good Thing.

We set out from Bermuda for the 940 mile trip to Antigua with three good pieces of weather advice: 1) the excellent four day forecast from Bermuda Weather, 2) a trip plan from Commanders Weather and 3) Advice from the marvelous Canadian Weather Sage, Herb, of Southbound II.

We also left with the expectation (Gee, it’s in all the brochures, isn’t it?) that we would quickly get into the Easterly Trades and bowl on down reading our novels and never touching a sheet for days at a time.

All three professional forecasts said that we would pick up the Easterlies at about 29 or 30 North, and we did on Tuesday, two days out.

It was just like in the brochures.

Our forecasts generally covered four days and were right on. For four days. The plan had been to give Herb a call each day at 2000 to update, but propagation was terrible and we didn’t get through.

Four days out the barometer started to fall modestly (to 1011 millibar’s from 1019 the day before and the wind picked up from the SSE.

That evening we had a Southerly gale, Beaufort 8. The boat and crew handled it fine, but we should have anticipated it better. We would not have done much different, though it would have made sense to have run East a bit more when we had an easterly to moderate the impact. I should have, when unable to contact Herb, spent more time with the difficult-to-understand USCG SSB weather reports, called Commanders Weather on the Sat phone, and gotten the weather fax working in Bermuda. All three. We’re still learning.

Now we are a day out of Antigua, bowling along in a nice 15 knot Westerly, reading our novels and improving our tans. God and Herb know where the Easterly trades are.

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