It is a good day on Saltair… and the importance of great crew

written by Saltair 2 comments

The last few days have been consumed with boat work, we have had a challenge with water ingress in the lazarette since we started with the boat and even after two repairs the problem is back! It is not a safety issue at this point but requires us to regularly check and to take preventative steps to make sure it does not get worse! In Las Palmas, at our request Hallberg-Rassy installed a couple extra pumps in the lazarette and we are glad for it! Yesterday fix to ensure that the problem does not get worse seems to be working and today we are working on finding a solution to keep the pin that holds the tack of the BWR (Blue Water Runner - our downwind sail) in place … a few days again we realized that with the wave motion the pin slowly worked itself open! (For non sailors, the attachment of the sail was slowly gett loose). Regular deck walks and checks caught this and we have been using our ‘white sails’ (main and Genoa) since. 


working on setting up the BWR

Hopefully we can get the BWR up as it would allow us to sail more directly to St Lucia!
Last night I personally felt a little despondent that we are running into the same issue that will once again require us to get the boat lifted out once we get to St Lucia and that will once again affect our cruising plans! This is where the importance of crew comes in… we are so lucky once again to have exactly the right people along with us! Both Matt and Henning have an amazing attitude and somehow always help me put things into perspective! Special thanks to both of them.

For some comic relief I am including a picture of Adam and his ‘catch’ - we have an ARC family WhatsApp group and once a day or so someone will post a picture of a huge fish they have caught… mahi mahi, wahoo, even a 1.9m blue marlin! We are definitely not fishermen on Saltair (not yet) but thanks to Paul we have gear and have let out our lines a few times (on days when we are not focused on fixing) …. So no fish on our lines but most mornings we find flying fish on deck …. 


Peter on June

Rich on UNO

Adam on Saltair 


Ending this post on a positive note! The BWR is up, we are sailing exactly where we want to, the Bimini is back up providing much needed shade and I just cooked a lunch of eggs and bacon and fruit juice! Life is good! 





Yesterday was a great day to drive, lots of waves and hand steering was fun. we took turn trying to see what boat speed we could achieve... 10.3 it's.... surfing down the waves!