Friends

Our talented friend Rory and his beautiful wife Erla brought their two gorgeous little girls, Bailey & Isla-Dean, to visit us on the boat a while back. Rory & Erla were at my birthday party two years ago, where this whole dream started and they have never stopped supporting and believing in us or doubted that this dream would ever be realised.

Our team is blessed to have many friends like Rory and Erla. It is those kinds of friendships that help to motivate us through the bad times, when things are rough, and to celebrate with us when everything goes well!

Thank you to ALL our friends who have made the effort to come and see the boat, to those who have contributed to our dream and those who have helped to keep us going with uplifting words of encouragement.

Your support means the world to us and we hope to be able to give back even more than what you have blessed us with!

 Kate

First published on offtheline.co.za

Stack Pack

The old blue main sail cover that came with the boat was on its last legs. Age, holes, sun damage and birds nesting in it before we bought it meant that we had no choice but to make a new one. 
This time we decided to make a stack pack instead of a just a cover. A stack pack makes our sailing lives much easier and it looks a lot neater, especially on our new boom!

Once again Rufus and I tackled this together as it was a first for both of us, as with the spray dodger, and needed a bit of teamwork to perfect. The team is super stoked with the result but hopefully the birds won’t like it as much as the old cover…
 
Kate

First published on offtheline.co.za

Day at the Office

After much delay, Kate and I finally built up the courage to redo the anti-slip on the walkways of the boat. It was decided that the previous effort didn’t prevent sufficient grip against deadly slipping. The combination of extreme motivation and fantastic weather made today perfect. We sprayed down the boat this morning, in preparation, and on return from our round abouts, killed the anti-slip redoing. In celebration we had a beer at good old Berties and enjoyed the beautiful evening.

Viv

First published on offtheline.co.za

Solar Power

We recently installed our brand new solar panel! Our ‘neighbours’ in Harbour Island, the Louw family, kindly gifted us this 110 watt panel in exchange for some work on their sails.

Once again our team’s knowledge, experience and skills saved us quite a bit of money. The panel needed a stainless steel frame to secure it to the back of the boat. A quote from a local manufacturer ended up being almost the same price as the new panel itself. In the end, thanks to Rufus’ background in the steel & construction industries, his sturdy custom design cost us a quarter of the quoted price (it also helps when the labour is free...).

The solar panel, together with the wind charger and smart power consumption, will provide enough electricity to run our lights, navigation equipment and refrigerator etc.

We would like to say a BIG thank you to Robbie Louw and his family for their generosity. This panel will make life on board a lot easier and safer as we travel the world. 

Kate

First published on offtheline.co.za

Boom Boom Boom

We have a new BOOM! We were kindly given an old boom by Mark Hatting a few months ago, unfortunately it was a little long for our main sail and needed a few repairs. Thankfully Nigel came to the rescue and to our delight our repaired, shortened and resprayed boom arrived last week, together with a spanking new gooseneck!

Now ain't she looking spif!

Viv

First published on offtheline.co.za