44 The life of Boanerges
Door: Eddy Dunlop
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Eddy
05 Mei 2014 | Colombia, Cartagena
Warning: This blog is programmed by amateurs. It is not able to show lage amouts of fotos correctly. So I transfered the photos to Picasa.
https://picasaweb.google.com/117136664253104321549
If you prefer this site be my guest:
The 20 photos below this blog entry (reisverslag) are in a correct order. The filmstrip however shows only 20 of the 70+ photos.
To view the other photos of this blog-entry:
1 Select Foto's (left of page)
2 Click on "alle fotos"
3 Select the requested blog-entry ie nr44 .....
4 Start viewing the photos, from the last one, backwards and up.
Don't ask me why I use this blog. Good luck with viewing.
Before Boanerges my boats always where extremely fast boats in their class.(as one can see on the photos) I did not sail competition but I like the speed. But with the speed comes weakness while speed requires less weight. When my fast Pandiono was sold I decided to buy my last boat. It should be strong, robust, safe, big and a catamaran. Big because size gives speed and comfortable sailing. Strong and robust because I was fed up with worries about breaking parts, losing masts and finding cracks after a season sailing. Too I already dreamed of leaving Europe. With entering unknown places and reefs. So it should be a go anywhere boat. She should have fixed keels instead of dagger boards. And a not very common requirement, an open view around to keep contact with the sea and air. Only a small deckhouse should be permitted. I like to have a good sight on the waves, without obstructions. At night it makes that one has seen 360 degrees around in seconds and one can take another half nap.
I talked with Bill Bullimore from PBM agency who sold my Pandiono and he came up with Boanerges. I travelled to Gweek in Cornwall and took two trusted and knowledgeable friends with me to protect me from hasty decisions. I know myself a bit. My friends did see it happen when I saw Boanerges, it took 5 seconds to decide that I wanted her. I bought her, without a test-sail.
And I never regretted it.
Boanerges is like an old model Mercedes, comfortable, spacious, durable and still rather fast. She has enough payload to take ample friends, stores, spare parts, tools, dinghy with two engines, dive equipment and much more. She has 3 cockpits with a lot of flat deck area. Over time I appreciated that open spaces more and more. She is rather narrow inside but that is not a problem for me, I like to live outside, with air and light. There are enough beds and she has storage room. She is fast with the wind from the aft quarters but I had to accept that upwind she sails like an ordinary cruiser due to the S-shape hull form and the strange Proud rig.
Since I have installed a cutter jib 5 years ago the upwind performance has improved remarkably. And only since I sail in the trade winds and the Caribbean I started to understand the Proud rig. Nowadays I sail mainly without mainsail. Only when I want to go really upwind the mainsail is hoisted. It is a remarkable relaxing way of sailing.
Boanerges is build in Cornwall by Toby Richardson based on the hulls from Proud. It is an Ocean Ranger (the Quasar is derived from this model) without cabin. He started building when he was 18 years old and did a magnificent job. In his later years he started the Modular Mouldings boatyard with a friend and did build the extremely fast Firebird catamarans and the 50ft Freebirds.
In 1981, a few years after Boanerges was completed, Toby circumnavigated in 3 years. In the late 90's Boanerges got a great refit and I bought here.
I removed beds to get room for more storage space, build a bathroom and a real double bed. And sailed a lot with friends and family.
Only since I started my journey I sail solo and I like it. Alone on the big sea, living your own rhythm. Boanerges is very forgiving and with the Robertson autopilot and remote control one can sail the boat under all conditions from within the hammock in the cockpit.
A drawback is that she is a big boat and that mean a lot of maintenance, like all big boats take. And I did not realize that being permanently in the sun and on the sea with ones boat, gives a lot of wear and tear, much more than anticipated.
Many of the items newly fitted based on information in the Netherlands were a waste of money: For example the beautiful made new soft-top over the main cockpit. The PVC cloth and stitching literally dissolved in the sun within a year. As did the dinghy of which the supplier stated that he had satisfied customers in the tropics. But in the Caribbean one encounters mainly AB and Caribe dinghies, build with Hypalon type cloth.
The Solara flexible solar panels where a disaster. The tropical sun delaminated the foil from the base, so water ingress everywhere. And the electrical cable is sealed with Sicaflex to the panel !!. They lasted a year and were replaced by fixed Kyocera panels. The Schenker watermaker one can get for free on many places in the Caribbean, thrown away by desperate owners. I changed to a Spectra. My new 10mm anchor chain, obtained from a well known Dutch distributer survived 3 years in the abrasive coral-sand. Some links had just 7mm material left on the contact area. Now I have an Accor hi-tensile chain from the US.
Al together I invested about 15.000 euro in things which did not meet the standards of the tropics and permanent sailing.
My advice for people who leave Europe for the Caribbean: invest as little as possible, sail to the Caribbean and fit out there for a circumnavigation. By that time one has experience of what sailing in the tropics means and at the Caribbean one has the stores of Budget Marine and Island Waterworld and in Panama Marine-Hardware, all of them have an excellent assortment with US prices.(which are 20% less than EU ones)
At St.Martin I stayed for three month to change many items and install what I missed. (See the images) I am really pleased with the AIS transceiver which makes that big ships alter coarse a few degrees because they know my position and coarse in relation to them. And I can see they do that. (the use of a AIS transceiver is very different from a AIS receiver, because it give two way communication) Boanerges does have too a See-Me radar transponder which makes that she shows on the big ships radar as a big fishing boat or a coaster. Since I installed that device, on the North Sea I was often hailed with the question: "What are your intentions". Now I counted for them, before that never happened.
I am proud on the hard-top I made at St.Martin. It gives shade and one still has the open deck-space. One is protected from all directions of rain and wind (as in a marina) with the side-screens I retained from the old soft-top. Nowadays I sleep at night in a hammock with the kitchen-alarm and remote control from the autopilot on the table. That is luxury.
If one has questions about this text or the photos, email can be send to: cat.boanerges@gmail.com
https://picasaweb.google.com/117136664253104321549
If you prefer this site be my guest:
The 20 photos below this blog entry (reisverslag) are in a correct order. The filmstrip however shows only 20 of the 70+ photos.
To view the other photos of this blog-entry:
1 Select Foto's (left of page)
2 Click on "alle fotos"
3 Select the requested blog-entry ie nr44 .....
4 Start viewing the photos, from the last one, backwards and up.
Don't ask me why I use this blog. Good luck with viewing.
Before Boanerges my boats always where extremely fast boats in their class.(as one can see on the photos) I did not sail competition but I like the speed. But with the speed comes weakness while speed requires less weight. When my fast Pandiono was sold I decided to buy my last boat. It should be strong, robust, safe, big and a catamaran. Big because size gives speed and comfortable sailing. Strong and robust because I was fed up with worries about breaking parts, losing masts and finding cracks after a season sailing. Too I already dreamed of leaving Europe. With entering unknown places and reefs. So it should be a go anywhere boat. She should have fixed keels instead of dagger boards. And a not very common requirement, an open view around to keep contact with the sea and air. Only a small deckhouse should be permitted. I like to have a good sight on the waves, without obstructions. At night it makes that one has seen 360 degrees around in seconds and one can take another half nap.
I talked with Bill Bullimore from PBM agency who sold my Pandiono and he came up with Boanerges. I travelled to Gweek in Cornwall and took two trusted and knowledgeable friends with me to protect me from hasty decisions. I know myself a bit. My friends did see it happen when I saw Boanerges, it took 5 seconds to decide that I wanted her. I bought her, without a test-sail.
And I never regretted it.
Boanerges is like an old model Mercedes, comfortable, spacious, durable and still rather fast. She has enough payload to take ample friends, stores, spare parts, tools, dinghy with two engines, dive equipment and much more. She has 3 cockpits with a lot of flat deck area. Over time I appreciated that open spaces more and more. She is rather narrow inside but that is not a problem for me, I like to live outside, with air and light. There are enough beds and she has storage room. She is fast with the wind from the aft quarters but I had to accept that upwind she sails like an ordinary cruiser due to the S-shape hull form and the strange Proud rig.
Since I have installed a cutter jib 5 years ago the upwind performance has improved remarkably. And only since I sail in the trade winds and the Caribbean I started to understand the Proud rig. Nowadays I sail mainly without mainsail. Only when I want to go really upwind the mainsail is hoisted. It is a remarkable relaxing way of sailing.
Boanerges is build in Cornwall by Toby Richardson based on the hulls from Proud. It is an Ocean Ranger (the Quasar is derived from this model) without cabin. He started building when he was 18 years old and did a magnificent job. In his later years he started the Modular Mouldings boatyard with a friend and did build the extremely fast Firebird catamarans and the 50ft Freebirds.
In 1981, a few years after Boanerges was completed, Toby circumnavigated in 3 years. In the late 90's Boanerges got a great refit and I bought here.
I removed beds to get room for more storage space, build a bathroom and a real double bed. And sailed a lot with friends and family.
Only since I started my journey I sail solo and I like it. Alone on the big sea, living your own rhythm. Boanerges is very forgiving and with the Robertson autopilot and remote control one can sail the boat under all conditions from within the hammock in the cockpit.
A drawback is that she is a big boat and that mean a lot of maintenance, like all big boats take. And I did not realize that being permanently in the sun and on the sea with ones boat, gives a lot of wear and tear, much more than anticipated.
Many of the items newly fitted based on information in the Netherlands were a waste of money: For example the beautiful made new soft-top over the main cockpit. The PVC cloth and stitching literally dissolved in the sun within a year. As did the dinghy of which the supplier stated that he had satisfied customers in the tropics. But in the Caribbean one encounters mainly AB and Caribe dinghies, build with Hypalon type cloth.
The Solara flexible solar panels where a disaster. The tropical sun delaminated the foil from the base, so water ingress everywhere. And the electrical cable is sealed with Sicaflex to the panel !!. They lasted a year and were replaced by fixed Kyocera panels. The Schenker watermaker one can get for free on many places in the Caribbean, thrown away by desperate owners. I changed to a Spectra. My new 10mm anchor chain, obtained from a well known Dutch distributer survived 3 years in the abrasive coral-sand. Some links had just 7mm material left on the contact area. Now I have an Accor hi-tensile chain from the US.
Al together I invested about 15.000 euro in things which did not meet the standards of the tropics and permanent sailing.
My advice for people who leave Europe for the Caribbean: invest as little as possible, sail to the Caribbean and fit out there for a circumnavigation. By that time one has experience of what sailing in the tropics means and at the Caribbean one has the stores of Budget Marine and Island Waterworld and in Panama Marine-Hardware, all of them have an excellent assortment with US prices.(which are 20% less than EU ones)
At St.Martin I stayed for three month to change many items and install what I missed. (See the images) I am really pleased with the AIS transceiver which makes that big ships alter coarse a few degrees because they know my position and coarse in relation to them. And I can see they do that. (the use of a AIS transceiver is very different from a AIS receiver, because it give two way communication) Boanerges does have too a See-Me radar transponder which makes that she shows on the big ships radar as a big fishing boat or a coaster. Since I installed that device, on the North Sea I was often hailed with the question: "What are your intentions". Now I counted for them, before that never happened.
I am proud on the hard-top I made at St.Martin. It gives shade and one still has the open deck-space. One is protected from all directions of rain and wind (as in a marina) with the side-screens I retained from the old soft-top. Nowadays I sleep at night in a hammock with the kitchen-alarm and remote control from the autopilot on the table. That is luxury.
If one has questions about this text or the photos, email can be send to: cat.boanerges@gmail.com
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
