Drouges & Energy

The last two pieces of major equipment - at least that we were deciding upon - were a drouge or parachute anchor and alternative charging for our batteries.

Drouge - There is actually a fairly significant amount of technical research available on the subject both in terms of alternatives (drouge or parachute anchor) as well as design. Reported actual experience with any particular storm solution though is not robust in depth - which really is a good thing - since the point is to avoid storms altogether anyway. The first thing we noted is that modern underbody designs tend to do better with active rather than passive approaches. As the HR 40 is modern in design, we elected to go with a drouge. In terms of design we selected to have a Jordon Series Drouge made for us by Ace Sailmakers (http://www.acesails.com/). The multi cone design made intuitive logic verses a single drag device given the risk of lifting a single drag device from the water or fouling it. After some inquiry, while no guarantee, we believe the construction of the HR will allow for attachment of the drouge bridle to the stern cleats.

DuoGen - Again with some research as well as first hand experience (solar panels on our previous boat) we elected to go with the DuoGen (www.duogen.com) for electricity generation. Our highest consumption will be while underway, as we have always been heavy users of our electronic gadgets. The DuoGen seems to be a clear best in class for a towing generator solution. The wind mode though is likely to be less than satisfactory, but this seems the plague of all wind generators as one tries to anchor in a protected spot anyway. We always found that our solar panels delivered much less than rated, even though of high quality, were extreme space consumers to get "enough", thus ultimately believe that an improvement in solar cell technology is required before they become fully practical for a small cruising boat. It is likely that we will ultimately need something more for charging while at anchor, but we will tackle that once we know more precisely the size of the shortfall with the current solutions.

The New Year - Excitement & Acceleration

The New Year ushers in our planned departure date (May 2008) and a long list of things to do prior to departure. First things first though, our boat shipped from Sweden on January 7th to the east coast of the U.S., specifically Essex CT, where we will take delivery and commission her.

In response to a question we received: Our planned itinerary will be to test boat and systems and provision in April and begin sailing down east towards Maine in mid May returning in late summer down the ICW (at least parts where we can sneak our 6.5 foot draft) and then on to the Bahamas’. Whether we continue farther south through the Caribbean or come back to the U.S. for the hurricane season of 2009 depends on how we adjust and progress with our new life. Will provide more details on our itinerary as we get closer.

The focus now is in one word logistics, with the boat, other than commissioning and system testing very much ready to go, we turn our attention to; 1) getting misc gear to the boat, some stored in CT, some with us in Switzerland and some with friends and family 2) selling or giving away our possessions including car and furniture in Switzerland 3) moving onto and provisioning the boat. At this point it all feels manageable and we do a little each week to keep going forward. I am sure we begin to the feel the pinch in March or so as we are an ocean away from our boat but yet still trying to get "ready".