By far the most interesting piece of news I picked up while wandering the show in Annapolis the last two days came from this man, Foxy Callwood, renowned owner of Foxy’s Bar on Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. During the course of a rambling conversation, Foxy complained of the lagging effort to revitalize his home island after last year’s devastating hurricane. He also let slip with a sly smile that he was working on a scheme to launch a new airline, JVD Airways, that he hopes will help rekindle the local economy by offering direct flights from ...
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October 5, 2018
Day 1
Noon Position: 35 33N 124 06W
Course/Speed: SSW 7
Wind: NNW 17-19
Sea: NNW 6
Sky: Mostly clear. Some thin cumulus
Bar: 1022 and falling
Cabin Degrees Fahrenheit: 68
Water Degrees Fahrenheit: 62
Percent Relative Humidity: 71
Sail: #1 genoa out full; one reef in main; wind on starboard quarter.
Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 146 (Note: this is distance measured as a straight line from one noon position to the other.)
Avg. Miles/Day: 146
Miles since departure: 146
Well past the Farallones and on into the evening, the sea maintained the color of jade. As ...
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We all know that to compete at the very top level of sailing you need money and lots of it. Well, let’s just say that this new and very exciting sailing event announced this week at a glitzy launch in London there is no lack of money. Larry Ellison is worth an estimated $61.8 billion as is ranked 7th on Forbes list of richest people ...
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October 4, 2018
Departed Drakes Bay at 0900
Day 0 (Noon tomorrow will close my first full day at sea and will be recorded as “Day 1.”)
Noon Position: 37 48N 122 46W
Course/Speed: SSW5
Wind: NNW15
Bar: 1018
Sea: S3; NW4
Sky: Overcast with drizzle
Cabin Degrees Fahrenheit: 63
Water Degrees Fahrenheit: 59
Percent Humidity: 79
Sail: #1 Genoa full; Main full; starboard quarter
Yesterday morning, a wind from the west. I let it set in for several hours to be sure; then I weighed after lunch.
Mo ghosted along under engine toward the south and past the ...
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We’re just shy of a year ago when I posted for the first time on this blog. I posted the letter I wrote for Randall as he headed out to sea. When I wrote last time I thought I wouldn’t see him again for a year. The reality was very different.
Hi Figure 8 Voyage readers, this is Jo. Yes, I do exist. Yes, I am 100% supportive of Randall heading out on his adventures. Yes, I miss him terribly. Yes, I have adventures of my own. What can I say, we’re not your traditional couple. But as I’ve said ...
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ClearCruise AR targets on the Hillsborough River. The icons across the bottom of this image allow turning on and off target types. Note the MOB mark 106 feet off our port bow.
I spent the last four days judging the Innovation Awards and then attending IBEX, the International Boat Builders’ Exposition. We awarded Raymarine’s ClearCruise AR (augmented reality) technology (press release) the award for the OEM electronics category, and I have to say I’m pretty excited by this technology.
I’ve seen a few gizmos like this before (though not marine) and most of them left me more nauseous ...
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This truly was touch and go. I’d had the boat hauled in early September to attend to a fairly discrete list of chores: 1) put on fresh bottom paint; 2) have some nice handrails sent by my friends at Boréal welded on to the stern arch; 3) make sure the engine’s running gear was OK after that run-in with a pot warp. It was the last item, of course, that created problems.
Turned out that wrapped pot warp (remember?) had ruined the cutless bearing, and to change that out the prop shaft had to be pulled, and as ...
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October 3, 2018
At anchor, Drakes Bay
7am. Showers. Flat Calm.
If you’d asked me a month ago how the first few days of the F8V2.0 would go, a description including “anchored at Drakes Bay” would not have made the consideration set.
I departed the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday morning. It is now Wednesday morning, and again there is rain and calm. On Monday, a light wind came on from the south for a time, then the southeast. The rain began in the afternoon; evening brought a downpour, thick and loud and erasing any sign of ...
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With these latest surveys by the USACE, Wilmington District all of the previously known ICW inlet crossings shoal areas in North Carolina have now been surveyed post Florence. While there are some changes in several of the inlet crossings, they are all passable if you follow the ATONs. Proceed on a rising tide and with caution.
Between Georgetown and Charleston the previously noted shoals are still present. Between Charleston and Beaufort, we have reports of recent dredging, but there are no surveys from the USACE Charleston District. Assume the previous shoal areas are still present until you can verify that
...
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OCTOBER 3, 2018 The US Army Corps of Engineers has just released a survey of the Carolina Beach Inlet crossing and Lockwoods Folly Inlet crossing. In both places the channels have narrowed and shoaled slightly .
Carolina Beach. Depths of greater than 8 feet MLLW can be found at R15 and that seems to be the shallowest point in this inlet crossing.
When turning west into Snows Cut remember that there is shoaling to about 5 feet at the red side. Favor G161 as you turn west.
Lockwoods Folly. Here is the latest USACE Lockwoods Folly survey. Between G46 and ...
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