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Viking

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Viking

  1. Yup. Imagine having so much wealth that you can offer 50 billion to buy something and you don't need a single investment bank. "Eh, it's only 50 billion...."
  2. We spent the last 3 weeks in the Raggeds which is a remote part of the Bahamas that's just 100 miles north of Cuba. There's not much down here. No restaurants, no bars, no grocery stores, nada. Well except for the fishing which is .. amazing: Me and a friend have caught at least a hundred lobster the last 3 years and the guy 2nd from the right was way bigger than any previous one. Just a monster. The crew threatened mutiny due to too much lobster so I gave most of these and a bunch more away to other boaters. We've now turned north and are heading back up the islands and then back to the US. We've been here for 3 months and have just a month and a half left. Time flies way to fucking fast. Our last anchorage in the Raggeds at Water Cay: Heading northeast to Long Island:
  3. That's a badass boat. You don't need a starter boat as that is the perfect size to learn on. You just need the equivalent of a basic keelboat course which takes just a few days. The local authorities might say otherwise however but in the US no courses are required. Sailing is the easy part of sailboat ownership btw. The difficult parts are maintenance. Things like "why does the deck feel squishy when I walk on it" or "the keel bolts look really rusty".
  4. Aha you found it! Thanks for sharing and wow it's even more amazing than I thought.
  5. We've been in the southern Exumas and Raggeds (part of Bahamas that's remote and just 60mi north of Cuba) for the last month. The calm before the storm. This was a fun front to come through as it happened just after sunrise. The winds were calm and quiet and then suddenly the monohull's wind generator starts making a loud weezing sound is it spins up. One by one the boats spun around 120 degrees as the wind went from nada to 15-20kts. Here's a picture for your monohull lovers @G650 @Sbbruin @troph. We took a friends Leopard 48 out fishing and fuel and this machine was docked. I can't find anything about it online but it was ~60ft and looks fast as hell. The color doesn't come through in these photos but it was olive green that looked amazing. No crew around otherwise I'd have gotten myself onboard for more pics.
  6. "So I've got this great idea for an app..."
  7. You're finally on the right track Troph! If you have the money a performance oriented cat is 100% the way to go. Hopefully your wife finds the motion of the cat while sailing to be more to her liking. I've met some people that handle monos just fine but get sick on cats.
  8. That's a pretty kick ass setup and looks fool proof. I'm into aquariums and ponds and would be tempted to put guppies or japanese rice fish in there. Thanks for sharing; I'll have to try this sometime.
  9. It's a Manta 42 catamaran. Here's a picture of one (not ours): Well made boats built in Florida for owners and not charter. They're a bit small on the inside compared to modern Lagoon/Leopard/Fountaine-Pajot but it's perfect size for us and has decent performance.
  10. I haven't posted much because doing so feels like bragging and I'm not that type. But since you asked, it's 4pm on a Tuesday and I'm drunk on Kaliks at Staniel Cay. Life does not suck.
  11. Whoopsie. Would love the know the story of how this happened. Drunk? Asleep? Christmas blowjob? "Maritime Management LLC, based here, has reported that a ship under the company's management, the M/T Tropic Breeze, was struck last night at 22:03 p.m. by the super yacht M/Y Utopia IV approximately 15 miles NNW of New Providence Island, The Bahamas. The 160-foot tanker was traveling on its proper watch en route to Great Stirrup Cay when it was rear-ended by the 207-foot super yacht. The catastrophic force of the collision pierced the stern of the tanker causing the tanker to sink to the ocean floor at an estimated depth of 2000 feet. Fortunately, the crew of the Tropic Breeze were uninjured, have been rescued and safely returned to a company-owned facility on shore." https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mt-tropic-breeze-struck-by-mega-yacht-utopia-iv-and-sinks-off-the-coast-of-new-providence-island-301450791.html?fbclid=IwAR3maHBGARbpf1Rwj-I4WlkI402PrBuxdId34wZLWSFYRH0DBlHv9UdTbAw
  12. That looks fast. What speed are you doing? Do your crew fly home after the race or do you bring the boat back to the states with them? I need to arrange to be in Miami early November next year so I can get a ride during the shake down sail before the race. 😀
  13. Getting a boat from Florida to the VIs is a pain in the ass. You're going against the prevailing trade winds so you're basically waiting for a good weather window that might occur every few weeks to get you 100-200 miles east and south and then you wait again. You should look into storing the boat in Grenada during hurricane season. Getting it back from VIs to Grenada is super easy as it's a beam reach both ways.
  14. Hanse isn't a catamaran so I say no. You want a Leopard 44-46. I've actually not been on a Hanse so I can't comment on those specifically. I'm curious as to keeping it year round in the USVI or PR. Lots of boats do that but the insurance has to be $$$ during hurricane season.
  15. I worked food service at six flags for 3 seasons and back then they used Sysco (or something similiar). You could eat fairly decent meals (burgers, salads, etc) no problem. I loved that job as a teenager. Made out with a co-worker girlfriend on the spinnaker many a times.
  16. I usually like dark mode in apps but this one looks like shit.
  17. In the words of the great Captain Ron, "Well if anything's going to happen it's going to happen out there."
  18. Getting antsy. We've been in TX since May and will return to the boat in a few weeks. We'll spend 3-4 weeks getting ready and then head down to the Keys. I didn't share in May but while we were docked at the St Augustine Municipal Marina we got hit by 55ft power boat. The current in St Augustine can rip at max flow and some captains underestimate it. This boat was docked directly in front of us and was backing out and quickly got sidewise to the current. They hit us once and were then the wrong direction to get out of the marina so they powered forward, hit another boat, managed to turn around, and then hit us again on their way out. The other boat that got hit was hit again two days later. 😠 The damage was both rubrails on the bows were ripped off, anchor and anchor roller were pulled out of the deck and twisted, bent anchor bridle padeye, and a bent pulpit. Just 5k in damage! Not bad! Fortunately the dude had money and just sent me a check. My insurance broker when I asked him what to do: "Do not get the insurance companies involved! Work it out between yourselves first." Ah insurance companies that don't pay out... it's the american way. BoatCollision.mp4
  19. We renewed in person at the Tarrant County Courthouse in Arlington. One really nice covid change is that the passport office is now on a scheduling system. Previously you'd show up, take a number, and wait hours to be called. Now you show up at your scheduled time and you're the only person there and get help immediately. We chatted up the lady working and she loved it. No longer does she have to deal with customers that are bitchy because they had to wait hours.
  20. We renewed our kids' passports in Aug and it took a month. We paid extra for expedited service.
  21. We went to the Dallas march. Neither the wife nor I have ever been to a march or protest so figured now's the time. It's hard to judge crowd size on the ground but I'd say there were 2-4k people there. The sign game was strong.. my favorite "This is my resisting bitch face."
  22. I've learned that the most dangerous boat on the water is a big ass power boat with an owner captain.
  23. The % of sailors, even seasoned sailors, who don't know how to tie a cleat hitch is way higher than you'd suspect. They think that a cleat hitch keeps it on but it's the wraps that do. Thin dinghy painter + big cleat = you need lots of wraps. Every year in the Bahamas a couple of dinghys get lost. The owners blame the locals on facebook ("Our dinghy was stolen!!") and half the time the dinghy is found days or weeks later by another cruiser on an island with outboard still attached. I never let another boater tie off my painter for that reason. Except one time this year I handed my painter to a buddy who's been a liveaboard for 6 years. I figured he for sure knew how to tie a cleat hitch. We were drinking in the cockpit of his boat (a monohull) and two hours later I noticed that my dinghy was gone. Fuuuuck. We grabbed a flash light (it was around midnight) and set off to find it in his dinghy. Even that alone was a big risk as if his outboard went out then we'd be turbo fucked. It took us an hour but we finally found it about a mile up the island. The current from the outgoing tide kept it pretty close to land fortunately.
  24. If the boat still floats and the crew is all alive then you did good! What was the second crazy situation? Most casts lack backstays, so sailing deep down wind just freaks me out. The swept back shrouds just don't seem like they are back enough to provide that much support for all of the forward forces on the rigging. Yet somehow the masts don't fall down. Fucking magic I guess.
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