Rudders are what separate a yacht from a barge. Having the ability to steer a course and move in an intentional direction is wildly important! This video explains the ins and outs of rudders along with their styles.
As with everything on a boat, the rudder is a mash-up of compromise. The strengths and weaknesses of each design are discussed, as well as an explanation of the target sailor who will appreciate the characteristics of each of these rudders.
We arrived in the Azores August 2018, and spent the entire winter on the hard while carrying out a refit. Now, 10 months later, we are finally ready to go back into the water and get sailing again!
The head refit took significantly longer than I expected. Part of my underestimation was my belief that I could accomplish more in a given day than was possible, the other part was due to the fact that I ignored the fact that “curing time” is a thing.
The project started with a simple plan to change out our head cabinet to “open” the space up further. After some light demolition, serious rot was discovered in the bulkhead and further demolition needed to take place to accomplish the task.
The project was planned to take about 2 weeks, but in reality, it elapsed over 6 months.
Hello everyone!
Sorry for having been rather sporadic in my posting schedule, or rather completely failing to post to the blog entirely during the month of August.
I’ve had some time to grieve over Sammy and I am now able to get back to doing what I enjoy and find joy in doing what I love.
The blog posts will once again resume their usual daily posting.
To be completely upfront with the technicalities of the blog. When I move between countries and time zones, I am not entirely certain that my blogs come out at the right time. I aim for having them publish at 9am EST, but that might be off by an hour or a few because I may not have the proper time entered into the scheduling program.
See, it was easy to maintain this schedule when I lived in the same state and time zone as the blog. I would write on my computer and schedule it to publish at 9am. Done! Now, we are back and forth between Maryland and Portugal and the time difference is about 5 hours. Throw in Daylight Savings Time and I am totally confused…
So, if the post shows up early or late, just know that I am intending for it to publish at 9am EST.
To start off, yes, our sailing trip will come to an end in the future.
When I only lived aboard and dreamed of a cruising life, I was always perplexed by “retired cruisers”. I couldn’t fathom why someone would “Stop Sailing” and move onto land somewhere. I was baffled by this thought and knew that I would never leave this boat.
That was 7 years ago and my thoughts have changed. When we were just starting our cruising life (after living in a marina for 5 years and cruising for only 6 months), the thought just struck me. We were offshore beyond the sight of land, several miles (but looking back, still pretty close to the coast) off the coast of Virginia when I decided that upon our return to the United States, we would buy a house and live on land.
I wasn’t thinking about where I wanted to live or what I wanted to do in the future; it just came to me out of the blue out in the deep blue. I thought this was madness and dwelled on this thought for several days before even mentioning a word of it to my wife, Maddie. She always wanted to live on land and if I mentioned it, there would be no turning back. The fear of leaving the boat made me remain quiet about this thought for several weeks after I first came to this realization.
Then one day, I told Maddie. At first, she thought I was injured or ill; then she thought I was joking! I had to reassure her that this was not a “spur of the moment” thought and that I have actually contemplated this for a long time now. Needless to say, she was very happy!
We didn’t turn around early to get a house, instead we carried on down the East Coast of the United States, down to the Bahamas, back up to Bermuda, across to the Azores, and now onto Portugal. We still have to sail to Greece, then back to the Caribbean, and then back up to Maryland. Needless to say, when we get back, we will have sailed further than most “wishful” cruisers dream about!
So, in short, when we get back, we plan to save up and buy a house. We will not sell Wisdom, and we will not give up on sailing. Sailing is such a huge part of our lives and when we get back, Wisdom will be the longest place I have ever lived! She is so much more than just a boat, she is our home and we can’t just forget about her!
Sailing will become something that we do less often, as we will be working during the week and sailing on the weekends; but it will still be a major part of our lives and not something forgotten as we begin our next adventure: RV road trip through the National Parks in the United States.
It seems that most cruisers we meet are retired. After a lifetime of working and saving up to cruise in retirement, this is their last hoo-rah! We are very young, and if we spent a lifetime cruising, we would run out of waves to sail over! We started cruising when I was 31 and Maddie was 26. Now we are 33 and 28, and when we get back, I will be around my late 30s and Maddie in her early 30s. At that point, we will still have many years left for future adventures!
The journey is still continuing strong, and when this voyage reaches its end the adventure still will have not!
