General Observations from Cape Town
Thursday, 8.31.06

The Maggie B was launched on January 16, 2006 and set out on her first voyage on March 27th. Since then she has sailed about 9000 miles, and been at sea 84 days. She has thus spent about half her time in port and half at sea. I suspect that the average for most sailboats is 1 to 20, not 50/50.

Just do it!

Last night I asked Bart and Lieve for their observations. Their answer somewhat surprised me — it was essentially “Just Do It!” Their point was that so many people wait for just the right weather forecast or perfecting their rig or finding just the right crew, and never get going. Pretty good and sailing beats not sailing because things are not perfect. Perhaps for some people a boat is just a funny-shaped apartment in a marina, but I’m convinced that many people would go sailing, but there is some minor detail wrong, so they stay in the harbor until it is fixed. One man in Nova Scotia had a lovely new boat,but never went out sailing. I asked why and he said that he hadn’t been able to get the proper sized anchor rode for his #2 anchor.

I was very lucky to have the sailing and mechanical skills of Max, Bart and Lieve. Things would have been much more difficult if they hadn’t been able to jump on our different breakdowns. And we have a lot of redundant systems. But our biggest problem was losing the prop between Barbados and Brazil, and no amount of spares or skilled mechanics could have done much for us. We just had to adapt and behave like a traditional sailing boat, and sail and use the anchor when we couldn’t sail. I think that most things that might go wrong can be treated in the same way of fixing or working around. A perfect boat never sails.

In terms of gear…

One of my mistakes was not assuring that we had spare filters for everything. I thought that I had, but I didn’t. It is easily possible to go crazy about spares. I should have had a “priority” system to highlight the difference between “nice to have” like extra lightbulbs as opposed to “gotta have” like fuel filters.

One real surprise for me has been chafe and corrosion. I knew that things chafe when they rub together and metal corrodes in salt water, but I have been astonished at the speed. Somewhere on the web site is a photo of the windlass control, that had become totally corroded and useless after five months tucked high up in the anchor compartment. The incredibly strong main throat halyard parted after three days of rubbing, just touching, on the gaff saddle. Corrosion eats up the little pins in electrical connectors like a reaper cutting hay.

Next — Cape Town and South Africa

All is well.