Sailing Positive Waves

We spent our last evening in Southampton at anchor. It was our first night at anchor on Positive Waves and something we'd all been looking forward to. Fresh off watching a circus in Treguier, the kids were excited to rig up their rings and cirque de soleil-style silk and do some stunts. The next morning we motored back to the Hamble River and picked up our repaired dinghy.  Arctic animal bath time. It was drizzling when we left the dock, but we were happy to get moving, even though it was just 50 or so miles up the coast to Newhaven. The wind was forecast to be 10-15 knots but ended up being around 4 knots so we had to motor the whole way. Motoring is no fun, but we were happy to be on the move and getting closer to the Kiel Canal. The kids watched Pippi Longstocking and played Legos. Hans caught a couple little mackerel which he filleted and we had for a snack when we arrived. Newhaven was very industrial and working class. Directly across the river from the visitors' dock was

Flying the Code Zero. We left Treguier on Sunday August 9. Our current plan for the rest of the summer and beginning of the fall is to sail to Sweden via the Kiel Canal. It's pretty far and we're late in leaving because of delays due to coronavirus, but we're going with the attitude of "let's see where we end up and take it from there." The boat is built for all weather and pretty much any and every sea state, so it's really just a matter of our personal preferences for comfort and ease. We had two errands to run before we can set our sails toward the Kiel Canal: 1) fill up on diesel fuel in Guernsey, and 2) get our leaking dinghy repaired in Southampton. A circus came to town so of course we had to go. We sailed to Guernsey on Sunday. It took a lot longer than we originally estimated mainly due to the crazy strong tidal currents between Brittany and Guernsey. The majority of the crew also had to cope with some seasickness which is never pleasant. Once you

Happy birthday to me! The final moving aboard task was to take Positive Waves for her first sail. By a wonderful coincidence, the first best day also was my birthday. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present—sailing our dream boat that we have been working toward for the past ten years.  Jean Francois arrived right around slack tide. It’s about a 7 nautical mile trip up river to the sea so we quickly pushed off and spent the one hour trip up the river stowing the Iines and fenders, learning how to put the centerboard up and down, and checking the running rigging. The entrance to the river is a serpentine path around mud flats that are only visible at low tide. There are a lot of small fishing boats and sailboats on moorings, and there were plenty of other boats going out for an afternoon sail. When we got close the entrance, we turned the boat into the wind and raised the main. We fell off, turned the engine off and unfurled the jib. We were sailing! We sailed out the mar

Concurrent with moving all our stuff aboard Positive Waves, we had to learn all the systems on the boat. Positive Waves has a lot of systems. Since she is our permanent, long-term home, we outfitted her for comfort and liveability. We have a washing machine, hot water, an electric toilet, amazing lighting, a diesel heater, and a big fridge. We also have a watermaker that Hans will install in the future. In addition to the lifestyle comforts, we have an array of electronic devices to aid in sailing and navigation. All these creature comforts require lots and lots of power. We have a 400 watt solar panel, a wind turbine, and a hydro generator we can tow behind the boat to produce power whilst sailing. The power produced gets fed into a lithium battery system which is managed by a couple different controllers. Finally, when we’re plugged into shore power at the dock, we have a massive inverter and something called an isolation transformer to keep the electric inputs clean. Basically, we h

Reunited with our crate at the Boreal boatyard. Now we just need to transfer all the contents onto the boat. We have been in France for about one week now and we’ve been living aboard Positive Waves for five days. It has been so busy. Moving all our stuff aboard, finding a logical home for each item, learning how all the systems aboard work, and going sailing for the first time. There is a lot of information to absorb, understand, and process. I find myself working all day, jumping from one task to the next, and then collapsing in bed around 10 or 11 at night, thinking of tomorrow’s agenda.  We stayed at a hotel for the first few nights after we arrived at Treguier. Of course we wanted to move aboard as soon as possible, but we first had to learn the basics of how the systems operate so we could get water out of the tap, boil water on the stove, flush the toilet correctly, and turn the lights on and off. It was important to look in all the lockers before we put our stuff in their bec