Most of the time we are sailing with just the two of us on long ocean passages and the thought of hand steering for multiple days if the autopilot fails reminds me of a getting a root canal 
So we wanted some sort of backup self steering. I had a monitor windvane which was…
Good autopilot article from yachting world magazine based on survey of 250 boats that crossed the Atlantic last year including us. “Drive unit problems made up 45% of the issues encountered – that’s 25 drive units across the fleet that were deemed unsatisfactory by over 250 transatlantic skippers. Just over 20% of problems were traced…
In May’s edition Ali Wood, the editor asks what makes the perfect bluewater boat. We were lucky to be one of the boats interviewed. Best reason to go out and get the latest edition.
Humbled to be the main feature in the April edition of Practical Boat Owner magazine! I have been reading the magazine for many years and never thought I would be featured in an article. This piece covers how we configured Navasana for bluewater cruising. Best reason to go out and get the latest edition.
On Navasana we reef going downwind which is much safer and easier than bashing into big swells and waves especially in the ocean. We have the main halyard and reefing lines all pre-marked with a sharpie marker so we can quickly set them. This is our procedure:
Since we were planning to cross multiple oceans we wanted to make sure we were well prepared for any eventuality. We used the WCC safety equipment guidelines since we were doing the ARC. They have a very useful checklist to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. I used the checklist for my pacific crossing in…
Since we will be downwind sailing for around 20 days with 15-25knot trades winds as we cross the Atlantic I wanted to upgrade my boom preventer to make it safer, easier and prevent any gear damage. Previously I just used a single 12mm polyester line which I attached to the mid cleat and would move…
In the middle of my pacific crossing in 2011 the fresh water pump failed. You can imagine the horror! Luckily I had a spare and in 10mins the end of world was averted I wasn’t so lucky with the fridge evaporator which broke down in Bora Bora. The part cost $200 but the shipping…
We bought Navasana, a 3 cabin owners Nautitech 46 Open new from the factory but from the outset we knew that we would have to make a lot of changes to the boat to get it ready for ocean cruising based on my experience of refitting my previous boat Sudden Stops Necessary for the pacific…
I spent 2 years refitting Stops to go cruising across the south pacific, a project I coined “wide blue yonder” to keep my motivation up, especially when I ran into many roadblocks installing American equipment on a French boat! I tried to do most of the work myself to save on labor costs and also…