Latest Magazine Article -Ocean Navigator

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A woman sailor need not leave her boat behind when her husband passes away, while sailing around the world…she CAN continue on!

Leaving Cape Town after my husband died from Covid, across the biggest ocean yet, without the captain I sailed the last 75,000 miles with was daunting. The very thought of it causes immense anxiety in my life to this very day… but with some careful planning and assessment of the risks, I was able to prepare for a passage with another man…and to successfully cross the southern Atlantic Ocean, 6100 miles this past year. This is the story of what I did to prepare for such a task.

Well, I am finally back to writing articles after nearly 2 years of not…this time for Ocean Navigator magazine. Michael Hayward did much of the photography for it. You can view the article below on page 24

Click to access ON274_MarApr22_digital_edition.pdf

Did you know you can get free electronic copies of the latest editions of Ocean Navigator? Mine as well…Michael may have have an article in the next edition, and I will be writing more for the magazine as well…

One major mess up that Ocean Navigator did was to NOT give the photo credits to Michael Hayward… all but a few were from him..the best ones…

https://oceannavigator.com/digital-editions/

What Worked, What Didn’t, After 13 Years Sailing Brick House

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Blue Water Sailing Magazine just published my article yesterday. Usually Patrick writes this one, but this year, it fell to me. Special thanks to Jeff Carlile for helping with editing, back in July, when an article deadline was just one of many problems in my life 🙂

This article talks about the many things we added to the boat in Richards Bay, at the Zululand Yacht Club, as well as at the Hout Bay Yacht Club in Cape Town, just before Patrick passed from Covid 19.

It includes a review of our GOST security system, our Torrid Hot Water Heater, Coppercoat, Hypervent from Defender Industries, our Manson Supreme and Manson BOSS anchor, our Raymarine Autopilot, and Raymarine Chartplotter with Predictwind, Our Victron Battery Monitor, our Freedom Won Lithium Iron Phosphate battery upgrade, our Balmar Alternator, Regulator and serpentine belt kit, as well as Propspeed, and our Cubic Mini woodstove, as well as our Avon Dinghy/RIB.

Link to Original Article for Easier Reading..(the below may be too small to read here…plus there are other great articles in this issue of Blue Water Sailing Magazine!

Communication Evolution on Brick House : Iridium GO! Predictwind!

 

Predictwind & The Stormy Weather of Cape of Good Hope/Cape Aghullas!

 

 

Predictwind & The Stormy Weather of Cape of Good Hope/Cape Aghullas!

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This was Rebecca’s most feared Sail to date…the stormy weather going around Cape of Good Hope and Cape Aghullas! And she was right…we experienced every kind of weather on this passage including a huge electrical storm where we still wonder why we were not struck by lightning! Luckily Predictwind gave us great forecasts through the Idirium GO, right on the Raymarine Chartplotter so we knew what weather was coming before it came! Patrick is t one to use an IPad, but having the wind and currents right on the Raymarine Axiom Pro chartplotter…well he couldn’t avoid looking at the weather forecasts when I downloaded them!
One thing we forgot to mention on the video, is that a Predictwind Offshore DID warn us of a stormy night ahead with its CAPE forecast. There was about a 4 hour period on the Cape forecast on Predictwind that there was a pretty big chance for squalls. Oops…forgot to tell the captain…I was psychologically prepped for bad weather, but he wasn’t. But the smart captain that he is…obviously he saw the dark clouds ahead, turned on the radar, and could see it coming, and got down sails ahead of Time! A perfect example of the bad communication at sea that we have sometimes. It’s not just on land girls…and it’s not always the captain!  The wind and waves were not so bad, but those lightning strikes were pretty darn impressive!
I am glad to have the Cape of Storms behind us, and all beautiful fair weather sailing up ahead…Ha-Ha who am I fooling!
We also forgot to mention we have an “ion dissipator” at the highest point on our mast. Can that be why we did not get struck by lightning? No idea…Probably not.

 





Using Our Electronics -From Predictwind to our Raymarine Chartplotter to our Monitor Wind Vane to Sail the Wild Coast of South Africa!

A Tour of our Valiant 40. The Bluewater Sailboat. What do we like about it? What would we change?

Preventing a Lightning strike on a sailboat : Lightning Protection