14th February 201614th February 2016

A “Business Trip” to Antigua

by Matthew

Kathleen started to think about getting more training to improve her confidence. We both have Sail Canada Basic Cruising along with radio, survival, first aid and navigation qualifications. I had been researching the training and testing for RYA Yachtmaster but I had not formed any plans to get there. Kathleen talked to me about nipping off for a week’s sail training as I was too busy at work. She made the excellent point that we are in process of investing a lot of money in a refit for the boat, but we had not invested much in the crew over the last year. She was right of course. I looked at my work schedule and freed up some time as we started to research some options. We found a couple of options for RYA training in the Caribbean and sent of some emails and landed on Miramar Sailing in Jolly Harbour, Antigua. We signed up for a skills building clinic as we did not know where in the RYA scheme we could slot in.

We joined the boat, Miramar, a Benateau Oceanis 400 and met our instructor – Ian Grant and our fellow student Anna. Anna was starting the second week of a three week boot camp with Miramar. Coming to sailing as an experienced sea kayaker she was gamely eating the elephant that learning to sail big boats is, almost from scratch.

The west coast of Antigua is a great place to sail, with many bays and harbours to play with. Ian talked to us about what we wanted to get out of our time on the boat. For Kathleen, practice, skills and confidence building. For me, the same with feedback on where in the RYA scheme I could slot in. For us, to build our confidence in each other and to improve our communication as we sail.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ian’s natural teaching style and our needs meshed really nicely. He quietly assessed where we were and pushed us both forward with challenges, often preceded with his catch phrase “What could possibly go wrong?”. When we had a skill in hand he would move us forward to the next level or discuss the requirements at Yachtmaster level to put the exercise into context. We practised man overboard (the less political correct version of the Canadian “crew overboard”) to the level where Kathleen and I could demonstrate solo MoB recovery. The resulting tracks are entertaining…

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14th February 201614th February 2016

It is a Small World – Jolly Harbour, Antigua Edition

by Matthew

Last week we went to Antigua for a skills and mile building course with Miramar Sailing. We booked at the last minute, with a choice of Antigua or Grenada, Miramar were faster to respond and got the business. As we were in the process of packing I noticed a FB post from sailing friends Catherine and Henry on S/V Mowzer that they had just arrived in Jolly Harbour, home of Miramar Sailing. We don’t know many people who are “out there” and it was a bit weird to think of the few people we do know in the Caribbean, some of them would be in the same port. I contacted Catherine and we arranged to meet on the Sunday before our course.

Catherine and Henry are about 2 years ahead of us. They sold up and sailed in the fall of 2014 and spent the summer of 2015 in Grenada so they have a lot of cruising experience but still recall the transition. After a tour of their lovely cat, a Fountaine-Pajot Mahe 36, we hung out for the afternoon in St John’s and we asked question after question about their experiences and recommendations. Thanks to Catherine and Henry for the data dump!

It was great to catch up in person, blogs and Facebook are great but glimpsing the cruising life just for a few hours was wonderful. I think we are going to love our time away.

Later in the week we were sailing close to Jolly Harbour and we heard Isbjorn hailing the marina. Isbjorn is Andy Schell and Mia Karlsson’s Swan 48. Andy, Mia and Andy’s dad, Dennis gave us the recommendation that directly lead to us buying Kinship. We never did sight Isbjorn or track Andy down, it looks like they are in English Harbour preparing for the RORC Caribbean 600 race that starts in about a week from this post.

If we bump into people we know at this pace despite only knowing a handful of boats, I suspect our social life might be quite busy.

2nd February 201625th May 2016

Refit Part 3 – Fibreglass and Keel Work

by Matthew

Kinship has been “in the shed” for a few weeks and work has been progressing. The focus was to get all the fibreglass repairs done while the boat was indoors and not dependent on weather. This is also the stage that Dixon was doing most of the work. Dixon has done a fine job of filling and repairing the wounds left by the removal of the radar and wind generator towers along with assorted other small parts that were no longer needed.

The keel repairs have been completed. As I mentioned, we had some cracking of the fairing over the keel joint, seen above. The fibreglass was detached from much of the area of the joint and was not doing much. The crack in the keel fairing is a few inches below the actual joint. I am not sure why this happened, a mix of water getting in and a freezing and some movement in the joint.

We pulled out the holding tank and this revealed the lack of plates under the aft keel bolts and some minor stress cracks in the paint. The rest of the keel bolts have plates. I ground away the paint in the keel sump, the cracks did not penetrate the structure at all. The sump was reinforced with 6-8 layers of 18oz glass and epoxy. Over-sized 3/8 stainless plates have been installed to spread the loads. The sump and the connection to the keel is now stronger and stiffer.

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