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Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Fine Art of Storage in a Small Boat in Readiness for a Big Voyage!

With that title I feel like we are hobbits... actually living on a boat is reminiscent of life as a hobbit, I'm sure!...we will be living in a small roundish abode and go on lots of adventures... Yup, I guess we are hobbits at heart!  Speaking of which, did you hear that they are going to start filming The Hobbit Part One in New Zealand, February 2011?  By the time we arrive we should be able to visit the new set!!  What fun!

Anyway back to our hobbit- hole, I mean... boat!  Lately we've been focussing on what we can take on our voyage and where we will put it all!  A seemingly daunting feat, but seems amazingly do-able after re-reading (we have mentioned them before in our list of greatest books but they deserve an encore):

Lin Pardey's The Care and Feeding of Sailing Crew  


















                             and Beth Leonard's Voyager's Handbook



 If you are planning to "sail over the horizon" these books are a must in so many ways...  I don't know what we would do if we didn't have these two experienced authors sharing their incredible experience and insights!

Also, we found a great resource in the provisioning pages of Dave and Rhonda Mancini's website about their 2 1/2 years of cruising the tropical South Pacific in their PSC 34 SV Swan.
SV Swan anchored at Moorea
Oh yes and don't miss checking out  Beth and Evan's website chock full of incredible helpful information.


So... last week my friend Maria Mirka drove with me and our two 'puppies' (one is 10 years old and the other 15!) out to our cottage on Quadra Island, B.C. where my co-cap was already hard at work doing a locum at the Campbell River Hospital.  Once we arrived Maria and I went to work measuring all of the storage space on our boat... actually Maria did all the work as I sat at the computer struggling to get the d**n thing to cooperate (no luck on my part!)... did I mention that I HATE Microsoft???  ...actually maybe I hate computers in general (more like a love/hate relationship I guess).

Enough of that, back to the storage issue...  as I was saying before I headed off into my tirade about our computer woes... Maria measured every nook and cranny however large or small that looked at all like a place for us to use as storage.  Bill had suggested that I print out a diagram of our below decks and make our measurements on that...


After all the measurements were taken:


It turns out that with the mattress taken out of the quarter berth we can stow twelve, yes you read that right, twelve 12" sq. plastic milk cartons... amazing!  Now, don't you think that two mid-sized adults could survive on that much food over 6 months?  Considering the longest passage will be approximately 5 weeks when we will then be able to re-provision (is there such a word?).  So I'm thinking that this might not be too onerous a job as I first thought!  Also, let's not forget all the tuna, mahi-mahi, flying fish, squid etc. that we will be catching as we sail along... and believe me, we have a lot of fishing gear that we intend on using heavily (now we will just have to persuade all those little fishies that they want to swallow our hooks!). 

I bought a number of plastic food storage containers (the largest being 5 litres with handy little oblong snap-open access covers on top) - we will use the largest of our two hanging lockers, which are located in mid-ships, to stow the large containers filled with flour, rice, beans etc. and from those I will fill smaller containers for daily/weekly use which will be right in the galley.  I am also thinking that we need to put some moveable shelves in the larger hanging locker to make that space more useable and yet still able to revert back to a space to hang things. Hhmmmmm... so that's  why it's call a hanging locker!

Storage containers for the boat - gotta love that Walmart!

During our long passages our forward berth will be used as a sail locker and even the head will be used for storing our  45 pound CQR anchor and 300 feet of nylon and chain rode!  Okay for you non-boatie types the head is the toilet... and you might ask "Well, then where do you...?"  Don't even go there...

Bye for now and...
see you when we see you.

Co-caps
Catherine and William

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Progress Report & Summary

Dear Readers,
           
All men dream:  but not equally.  Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity:  but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.
                                                              T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Thank you for following our dream.  The voyage of Catherine and William (Norrie) is EDD "Bound for N.Z.", June, 2011.  Our blog was started June 2010 at the one year countdown after 18 months of refitting "Terrwyn" our Pacific Seacraft Crealock 37, hull #231, 1990.

"They name vessels girls' names as we love them so"... and in honour of our mutual Welsh heritages we renamed our baby - Terrwyn this spring (see earlier blog).

This"voyage over the horizon", "across the ocean", "around the world" has been a lifelong dream of ours (after all it's all about climbing mountains and crossing oceans as old mountaineers go to sea).  Our plan to complete Terrwyn's refit by 2011 is on track with new electrical system and bimini under construction this month.

So far:  all sails, rigging, topsides and upholstery have been replaced.  She has been upgraded to ocean from coastal cruising potential with the addition of a Monitor self-steering vane, H-3 windlass with all chain rode, larger anchors and a Fatty Knees hard dinghy.  The navigation system included redundant GPS's, Nobletec chart plotter, complete paper charts from her home port of April Point Marina, Quadra Island to Gulf Marina, New Zealand.  Pilot Charts for the South Pacific, multiple cruising guides, C Plath sextant, H.O. 49 Reduction Tables, Nautical Almanac and Star Pilot T-89 calculator. Communication equipment includes DSC-VHF, SSB ham radio with antenna tuner and Pactor 3 Modem [in progress].

Two seasons of cruising Northern Georgia Strait and Desolation Sound have provided our sailing, heaving to, anchoring and general seamanship practise grounds.  Study has included all of the Pardey's, Hal Roth, Beth Leonard and the Hiscock's books.  Entertainment ranged from Slocum's voyage, Shackleton, D. Lewis, Dove, God Forsaken Sea,  B. Moitessier, H. Melville, J. Conrad, Bowditch's bigraphy, C. Hasse, B. Toss, P. O'Brian, Robin Cox-Johnson etc. etc.

So there we are, 8 months to go.  We crossed yet another Rubicon last week with the purchase of our Ocean 4 man life raft in cannister.  After decades of anticipation it is done; may we never see the inside of that 29"x16"x12" cannister.

Thank you all for reading and please comment and ask us any questions you may have.

Fair Winds
Co-cap William