Posted by admin on February 8, 2012 under About NauticEd, Crew, Skipper | Comments are off for this article
NauticEd’s sailing courses cover a wide range of sailing education. They cover from beginner information designed to help a new sailor become familiar with the goings on on a sailboat all the way to extremely advanced information like what to do if your mast breaks 1000 nautical miles off shore.
Saling courses availability
All the courses are online and available worldwide. The information has been internationalized meaning that as you travel around the world you’ll be able to adhere to the various standards. For example, the lighting and buoyage system covers both IALA-A and IALA-B information. In addition to that NauticEd is engaged in a project to make all the sailing courses available in multiple languages.
At first thoughts, some sailing instructors have been against the idea of using the Internet, citing such comments as “you can’t learn to sail online”. However once they start to interact with students who have done their theory work using NauticEd’s multimedia approach to learning, they have started to turn around.
Virtual sailing instructor
As a practical sailing instructor for many years, in many instances I would battle with trying to have students really understand and “get” how the sails should be set for each wind direction. For that reason we invented NED. NED is a virtual sailing instructor that students can interact with to learn the set of the sail. They can see the boat speed up and slow down depending on the set of the sails and the different wind angles.
In other circumstances, we have created interactive educational animations that show how wind creates lift and how turbulence is created. When showing a student on an actual boat in real practice, the student can’t actually see the turbulence if the sail is over trimmed. These kind of things are best left to diagrams and even better than a diagram is an actual interactive animation where by the student can move the sails themselves and see wind spawning off into eddies.
Sailing certification
In addition to the sailing courses that NauticEd offers, we also worked with the world’s yacht charter companies to create a sailing certification that would be acceptable and desirable by them. What we overwhelmingly found during our interviews is that the bareboat yacht charter companies wanted to see lots of practical sailing experience in addition to theory knowledge. For this reason we created a free online sailors logbook allowing students to enter their past experience in a manner with which the charter companies were familiar and in a similar manner that the United States Coast Guard require when applying for a captain’s license. Then combining the theory courses that were completed with the practical experience we were able to electronically create and display a very useful sailing resume and thus sailing certification.
Thus the NauticEd sailing certification inherently contains more information about the student’s real knowledge than any other sailing certification because in order to get the certification, a student must fill out their practical experience logbook. With other certifications, if you do a weekend class you can get a certificate and the charter companies said to us that that was not enough to allow a client to take out a boat. The NauticEd certification covers everything a yacht charter company needs to know.
So in summary, and perhaps tooting our own horn a little, NauticEd has the best sailing courses available and the most useful sailing certification when it comes to chartering a bareboat yacht.
Posted by admin on November 24, 2011 under About NauticEd | Comments are off for this article
At NauticEd Sailing School we’ve been collecting student reviews on our sailing courses few quite some time now and we’ve got to say a big thank-you to our students for submitting them all. It’s been awesome to see all the NauticEd reviews come in.
By and large most all of the NauticEd reviews on our courses have been extremely positive and we’ll list some of them below. We’ve also had a few NauticEd Reviews that were constructive criticism which we value very much. Those ones were almost all related to spelling or typo issues. And just being honest here, a while back we did have one person even ask for their money back because of a number of typos that were found. Fortunately, not long after that one of our valued students who is a professional editor offered to review all the courses for those errors. We promptly accepted and he went through all of the courses to remove as many as he could find. Thanks Jim!
Still every now and then we get a student point another out and we promptly fix those. We encourage this feedback but those are very few now. Quite honestly I’m a better sailor than speller but we agree that that should not detract from the professionalism of the site.
Please note that we value every one of our NauticEd reviews by our students and act accordingly.
We did have two other students ask for their money back based on the courses that they took were too basic for them. However, one student then went on to purchase a more advanced course. We stand by our money back guarantee. It just makes sense to do this especially in this digital world where NauticEd reviews can appear anywhere on the internet and like any business we only want good ones.
Now to the good stuff – each of our sailing courses has embedded into it a third party piece of software from rating-system.com that allows our students to make comments and give a NauticEd review after they’ve completed the sailing course. These reviews and comments are then posted automatically to the specific sailing course page. For example to see the NauticEd Reviews of our skipper sailing course go directly to the skipper sailing course page. There you’ll see the NauticEd reviews.
Here are some of the NauticEd reviews on the skipper sailing course page.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Clarity
5
Informative
5
Quality
5
Recommend
5
19 October 2011
NauticEd Review:
A very thourgh basic understanding of sail boat knowledge.
Clarity
3
Informative
4
Quality
4
Recommend
4
13 August 2011
NauticEd Review:
To aid in remembering the different configurations for entering/leaving the slip, it would be good to say why the various approaches are recommended rather than just what to do in each situation.
Clarity
5
Informative
5
Quality
5
Recommend
5
13 August 2011
NauticEd Review:
In fog, I think Id motor for more control. But Im an amateur.
Informative
5
Clarity
4
Quality
5
Recommend
5
8 August 2011
NauticEd Review:
A nice course with a wide range of information. I would prefer printable PDF but Youtube movie would be impossible then.
(An example of how we listen to our NauticEd reviews is we have since gone through and added PDF downloads to most of our courses)
Clarity
4
Informative
4
Quality
4
Recommend
4
8 August 2011
NauticEd Review:
great intro
Clarity
5
Quality
5
19 July 2011
NauticEd Review:
You should periodically check your links to outside resources to see if they are broken. Otherwise, this is a very helpful module.
Clarity
5
Quality
5
5 July 2011
Review:I thought this course would be just a review of things I had learned while taking ASA 101,103 and 104. I was sooo wrong! This course adds a great deal of information to what I had already learned. I was very impressed with how up to date and in depth that information is. It was well worth taking.
Clarity
4
Quality
3
5 July 2011
NauticEd Review:
Worthwhile.
Clarity
4
9 June 2011
Review:maybe more detail will come in future units
Clarity
3
Quality
3
4 June 2011
NauticEd Review:
The tides and currents information, especially the charts and graphs are a bit overwhelming to a beginner. Obviously very important though, so would have liked to be more carefully immersed into it.
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You’ll also notice the Star ratings. on our sailing courses page, a summary of those stars is listed next to each sailing course and you’ll notice that there are no stars less than 4/5. We think thats pretty impressive and we hope you do to.
The posting here is not a course in celestial navigation by any means. However it’s meant to simplify a few principles for you so that you’ll at least have some sort of celestial orientation. And… perhaps it’ll inspire you to learn the aging art.
This was written by Grant Headifen, Educational Director of NauticEd. NauticEd provides online sailing courses and Sailing Certifications accepted by charter companies worldwide.
Latitude: In the northern hemisphere, finding latitude is simple using one of the greatest gifts to human kind – The North Star. What ever angle the northern star is at from the horizon, that’s your latitude.
Imagine you’re an ant sitting on the top of an apple looking at a spot directly above you on the ceiling then the spot is 90 degrees from the surface you’re standing on. If you’re standing half way around the apple then you’d barely see the spot but it would be horizontal to the surface you’re standing on and so the spot would be at zero degrees. And if you were ¼ of the way down the apple then the spot would be at 45 degrees etc. ie the northern star is the spot on the ceiling to us.
You can also find latitude using other celestial sightings but they involve table lookups and are slightly more complicated. Not meant for this post and also note that there are a few more complicated variables not taken into account during this simplistic explanation like the height of your eyeballs above the earths surface etc etc. But at least you’ve now got the principle.
Longitude: Now this is a fun one and in an incredibly easy principle. But years ago (early 1700′s) while the principle was easy then the execution was difficult. Read on to see why.
The earth rotates through 360 degrees in 24 hours. That’s 15 degrees per hour. By convention, when the sun is at it’s highest point in Greenwich, it is noon in Greenwich. That means that at a place that is 15 degrees to the West of Greenwich the sun will be at it’s highest point one hour later. Six hours after Greenwich the sun will be at it’s highest point somewhere in over the USA and 12 hours later the sun will be at it’s highest point in New Zealand.
Animation of time zones
So if we know the time in Greenwich and sun just reached its highest point where we are then we can calculate our longitude.
Lets do a few examples. If it is 6 pm in Greenwich and the sun just peaked overhead here, then I am 6 x15 degrees to the west of Greenwich which is 90 degrees West which is right near St Louis Mo.
If the sun peaked overhead in Los Angeles what time would it be in London.?Well LA is 118.15 degrees West (from Google earth). Divide that by 15 degrees per hour and we get 7 hrs 53 minutes. Now since the times zones are created in bands this would round up to 8 hours. Thus it would be 8pm in London.
You’re sailing in the Greek islands in the Mediterranean and a little bird just told you your latitude is 34 deg 54 minutes north but failed to tell you the longitude. Fortunately you have your handy sextant and just as you take a shot, the sun just reached its apex overhead. You look at your watch and the local time is 12:10:48 pm. Where are you?
Since you’re in time zone B you are 2 hours ahead of Greenwich. Thus the time in Greenwich is 10:10:48 am. And since the sun peaked just now (=noon) then you are 12:00:00 minus 10:10:48 = 1 hour 49 minutes and 12 seconds from Greenwich. Putting this into decimal time this is 1.82 hours. Multiply this by 15 degrees per hour and we have 27.3 degrees East or 27 degrees, 18 minutes East.
You’re in the harbor north of the town of Kos on the Island of Kos.
That was incredibly easy, so why all the hoopla back in the 1700′s? The King of England even offered up a ₤10,000 reward to anyone who could solve the issue of Longitude. The above math was well known but the issue was telling the time. No one could accurately keep time at sea. After 27 years of work on the project, John Harrison, finally invented the Chronometer more commonly known as the watch. The watch was not susceptible to the sudden crashes of waves at sea and thus kept proper time.
James Cook on his second trip around the world in 1772 sailing on Rendezvous, took Harrison’s watch with initially much skepticism. Stating that he’d give it a try. After six months at sea, Cook stated that the Chronometer would almost certainly become the way of the future for Navigators. Cook then went on to reposition many of the Islands in the Pacific including Tahiti, his favorite island. His map of New Zealand astounds people even today with its accuracy.
Again there were a few simplistic assumptions taken in that explanation. But now, at least you understand the principle of longitude determination from a noon shot of the sun. You can also determine your latitude from a noon shot of the sun as well using tables and a bit of math. Again beyond this posting.
On-line product reviews are in demand these days by consumers prior to making a purchase. A recent Nielsen report stated that forty-nine percent of online shoppers said they trusted consumer opinions posted online.
Investing your time, money and well-being in a professional sailing school instructor is serious business. So wouldn’t it be great to know what other students thought about the sailing instructor you’re about to choose?
Now NauticEd Sailing School has stepped up to be the first to provide on-line reviews of sailing school instructors.
Sailing School Instructor feedback form
How On-Line Sailing Instructor Reviews Work
When a NauticEd sailing school student takes practical training from one of it’s hands-on sailing schools, the student now has the opportunity to rate their learning experience with the instructor. When the student logs back in to NauticEd after their hands-on learning experience, a popup window appears. Instructors are rated on: Teaching Ability, Depth of Knowledge, Friendliness, Condition of the Vessel and their Professionalism. If the review is negative, the instructor has the opportunity to contact the student and resolve any issue. The student can then edit their review.
To view other student reviews of instructors, the browser clicks on the Sailing Schools link on the NauticEd website and then selects the sailing school in the Country, State or Province of their choice. There, each affiliated sailing school has a webpage where there is a listing of all the instructors associated with that sailing school. Each profile of the instructor shows a friendly photo, their contact information, their instructor credentials, their specialty and all of the past reviews by other students.
Each NauticEd student’s Sailing Certification is held digitally online. It displays all the online theory courses passed by the student as well as practical experience and practical school training. When a student completes their practical proficiency exam on the water, the sailing school instructor logs in, securely locates their student and then clicks on the “Proficient” button. This updates the student’s Sailing Certification instantly and also posts against the student’s sailing resume. Both can be reviewed by charter companies worldwide on-line, given a secret logbook code from the student.
Grant Headifen, Director of Education for NauticEd says that their professional Sailing Schools are serious about quality but for them it’s hard to be recognized and stand out for providing such quality. Now, potential sailing school students doing their online shopping research will more than likely choose a school with this form of social proof giving NauticEd Sailing Schools the competitive edge.
To learn more about NauticEd Sailing Schools and Sailing Certifications go to http://www.nauticed.org
NauticEd announces some pretty exciting news today regarding gaining your USCG Captain’s Licence. We have made a partnership alliance with Mariners Learning System to allow NauticEd Students gain a United States Coast Guard Commercial Captain’s License.
Why would you want a USCG Captains License?
Simply stated: If you are ever planning on receiving remuneration for operating your vessel in the United States waters, you must obtain a Commercial Captains License.
The Captain’s License is often referred to OUPV (Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels) or 6-pac license meaning you’re authorized to carry up to 6 passengers.
The USCG Captain’s License does not necessarily contain any specific sailing education but is very much related to boating and boating safety. There is a sailing endorsement that can optionally be attached to the captain’s license but the information and test is very basic.
How does the USCG Captain’s License compare to the NauticEd Captain’s Rank?
The two are designed for completely different purposes. The USCG Captain’s License allows you to gain valuable boating safety information and legally authorize you to captain a boat in commercial situations.
The NauticEd Captain Rank is NOT a commercial boating license – rather it is a recognition that you have studied and passed extensive courses relating to operation and safety of a sailboat and that you have practical boating experience to back it up as indicated by the levels awarded, Level I, II or III.
What are the requirements of each?
USCG Captain’s License:
360 days of any type of boating experience logged (4 hours counts as a day)
US Citizen
Security Background Check
Approx 40 hours of study plus 4 hours of exams
Total costs involved about $1500 including security checks study materials etc
Acceptance: United States Government plus Bareboat Charter Companies world wide
Can legally make money with your boating services
NauticEd Captain’s Rank
minimum of:
50 days of Sailing Experience (4 hours counts as a day) for level I
100 days for Level II
200 days for Level III
50% of which must be skipper of the vessel
50% of which must be on a sailboat greater than 28 ft
Approx 55 hours of study incl 10 hours tests
Total costs – about $300
Acceptance: Bareboat Charter Companies world wide
Can not offer your skippering services for remuneration
Can the License and Rank work in Unison?
Yes absolutely. If you’re intending on offering skippering services on a sailboat we’d recommend doing both the USCG Captain’s License for boating safety and legal reasons plus the NauticEd Captain’s Rank for extensive sailing and boating operations.
Mariners Learning System™ Suite of Coast Guard approved Online Captain’s Licensing courses offer an alternative to the regular testing process held at the USCG Regional Exam Centers. Over the years Mariners Learning System™ has trained thousands of students to get their Captain’s License. Our clients currently enjoy a 98.7% pass rate with our Coast Guard Approved Licensing programs.
We enjoy this high level of success because our curriculum is based on teaching understanding not memorization.
Mariners Learning System™ is an extraordinary learning tool that incorporates broadcast quality, on-demand audio lectures, professionally produced training videos, and integrated online computer based training. Included with each Mariners Learning System™ approved course is 24/7 access to our online instructors. Every instructor is a USCG Licensed Master that has gone through a rigorous approval process meeting the standards of the United States Coast Guard to become a certified instructor. They bring a level of knowledge, experience, and professionalism that adds to the total learning process. In the rare event that an online instructor cannot answer your question, toll free telephone support with one of our Staff Instructors will be provided.
Upon successful completion of your course simply submit, within one year, your application package to a Coast Guard Regional Exam Center. Upon their review and approval of your package, they will issue you an original Captain’s License.
ANYTIME, ANYWHERE LEARNING!
Mariners Learning System™ Coast Guard approved Online Captain’s Licensing courses offer an alternative to the regular testing process held at the USCG Regional Exam Centers. These courses are structured for those pursuing a professional career in commercial boating operations (including carrying passengers for hire) and for recreational boaters wishing to increase their knowledge and skills.
Just posted the sailing video of the experience of racing the St Thomas Rolex Regatta 2011 with NauticEd students and Safe Passage Sailing.
Safe Passage Sailing chartered Kialoa V, an 80 ft maxi, and Northern Child, a 51 ft swan. NauticEd students and charterers with Safe Passage Sailing attended. Over all we had about 20 people on Kialoa V and 9 on Northern Child.
Race conditions were perfect with 10-15 knots of wind and sunny days.
Kialoa V is a legend racing sailing boat, built in the 1980′s it used to win regattas world wide. Northern Child is a professional Captained Charter Boat. Christian Reynolds and Lucy Jones are the Owners and professional Crew Members they specialize in cruising, racing and corporate charters in the UK, Mediterranean and the Caribbean. They offer their clients a range of charters from individual berths through to full boat charters.
Safe Passage Sailing put this together as an experiential event – providing people a safe team environment where they could do something they’re not likely to do on their own. And from the testimonials on the sailing video, you can see that everyone had a spectacular time.
Dowsing the massive spinaker on Kialoa V
It was a weeklong event. We stated out flying in on Saturday, getting aclimatized to the Caribbean waters (not hard) then on Tuesday and Wednesday we had two practise days of learning how to sail and handle the boat. We all fitted into our natural positions on the boat and Brian Thompson and Rich Stearns the professional racing mentors lead the team.
On Friday Saturday and Sunday we raced the St Thomas Regatta. Each race was between about 10-20 miles with upwind beats, cross wind reaches and down wind runs flying our spinakers. While none of us came first or second, the experience told it all. The learning curve was steep but no one minded a bit.
PRESS RELEASE: NauticEd Launches New Sailing Course: Anchoring a Sailboat
Today NauticEd released another sailing course: Anchoring a Sailboat. The sailing course focuses on knowledge required to effectively and successfully anchor a sailboat.
Anchoring a Sailboat Sailing Course
Captain’s Alex and Daria Blackwell, authors of The Art of Anchoring, wrote the NauticEd specific sailing course. The sailing course consists of 12 modules and will be sold for $17 online at http://www.NauticEd.org
Grant Headifen, Educational Director of NauticEd, says that the Anchoring a Sailboat sailing course is a welcome addition to the 12 other sailing courses that NauticEd offers. NauticEd plans to make the Anchoring a Sailboat Course a prerequisite to gaining the NauticEd sailing certification rank of Bareboat Charter Master. “We’d received lots of requests for a comprehensive anchoring course from our students. Anchoring expertise is one of those really important sailing skills that is required and sort after. On a bareboat charter sailing vacation, for example, you spend more time at anchor than you do sailing. And anchoring is a bigger stress on the charterer than most other sailing activities. Charter companies don’t really realize that more people would charter if the stress was taken out of overnight anchoring” says Headifen”.
PRESS RELEASE: NauticEd Encourages Advanced Sailors to Get a Sailing Certification
Click on this button and you’ll be invited to test-out of the NauticEd beginner to intermediate sailor Skipper Sailing Course.
Skipper Sailing Course Test-Out
This is NauticEd’s latest strategy to help advanced sailors get beyond the requirements to sit entry level sailing courses and to focus on advanced education. “What we’ve found is that advanced sailors want the education and the associated sailing certifications, but they’re unwilling to have to go back and study the basics just to get the certification process started” said Grant Headifen, Director of Education for NauticEd.
NauticEd is a big proponent of voluntary Sailing Certifications. Grant Headifen, Educational Director of NauticEd says that “The blockage in the sailing industry certification system is that certifying bodies require advanced sailors to do “101″ type lessons. That prevents advanced sailors from subscribing to any type of sailing certification and thus, more importantly, furthering their formal education”. NauticEd solves this problem by quickly allowing an advanced sailor to prove their knowledge of the basics through the online test-out system and then get on with their real education and NauticEd Certification.
NauticEd mines their Student’s profile to determine their sailing proficiency via the courses the student has taken and passed, their logged experience in the NauticEd Free online logbook or looks to see if the student is the holder of other sailing certifications. Once NauticEd determines that the student possesses advanced skills, they are electronically offered to take the Skipper Sailing Course test-out rather than be required to sit the whole course. The cost for the online Skipper Sailing Course is $67.50, where as the test-out is just $20. The student is then given $20 credit towards any other sailing course that NauticEd offers making the test-out essentially free.
To pass the Skipper Sailing Course test out, the student must pass with a 90% average in all 10 modules of the course. The student is given 3 attempts to pass each module. Upon passing, the student is given free full access to the Skipper Sailing Course for life. If the student fails, they can then apply their $20 credit towards the purchase of the Skipper Course.
NauticEd offers four Ranks of Sailing Certifications and 5 levels with in those ranks. The ranks are Qualified Crew, Skipper, Bareboat Charter Master and Captain. Ranks are dependent on the level of theory education that the student has performed. The Levels range from I through V and are dependant on the amount of experience the student has logged with the FREE NauticEd online logbook. The levels and ranks are interdependent, in that, certain ranks can not be attained without practical experience. A proficiency stamp is also applied to the certification if the student has done a practical test-out of skills with an affiliated sailing instructor. The sailing instructor digitally marks the student’s certification online once the student is deemed practically proficient.
After a soft launch of the Skipper test-out system, NauticEd reported it was well received with its beta tested advanced students.
To learn more about the NauticEd Sailing School and Sailing Certifications go to http://www.nauticed.org
I’ve got one basic comment for the title of this post.
“You have to be good – real good – no no I mean really really good”
They say if you loose a race it was bad luck but if you win it was pure skill. When you win a sailboat race, one thing is for sure, even if you got lucky, you’re a good sailor and not only a good sailor but a good racer. There is a big difference between the two. I consider myself a pretty darn good sailor but … a good racer? Well.. not so much when I compare myself against those that race every week.
Last Wednesday we raced in a local regatta. I was rail meat (or self moving ballast – which means the guy who hangs his weight out to balance the boat). About 50 boats were involved. Our fleet of Young 8.8 meter sailboats was about 10 strong. Wind was about 12- 15 knots. And just to prove the point from above, the skipper is an old college friend of mine and an accomplished racer, yet we didn’t win. I would have to say that no bad decisions were made. We raced an almost picture perfect race, yet came in about 5th. Spinnaker launches and retrievals were perfect and done in a timely manner at the correct places. We even rounded the bottom mark in third place and came out of the mark in first place.
One failing we probably did have was not enough rail meat. The boat was healing slightly more than the other Young 8.8′s who had more crew on the rail.
Just one other thing I noticed was that on the two upwind legs back up to the finish line, the skipper/helmsman was needing to call to the mainsheet trimmer to trim-in & sheet-out, this causes a second or so lag each time. Multiply this over 200-300 trim changes throughout a race and you can loose significant ground.
The main sheet trimmer has to be really good when it comes to a close hauled boat riding on the edge of being over powered. There is a fine and skilled balance of perfect trimming of the traveller and the sheet. You’ve got to know instantly which one to trim. Main sheet out to spill wind out of the top – main sheet in to power back up. Traveller down (out) do depower from a gust – traveler up to recover once the gust passes. And they all have to be done in unison. Additionally the trimming can’t be reactive – it has to be slightly preemptive to keep the boat going fast.
This is the stuff you can’t become proficient at through online lessons or even just a few practical lessons on the water. There is only one way and that is to get out there and just do it. We highly recommend joining a yacht club and putting a notice on the board that you’re available to race. Guaranteed you’ll get a call. Skippers are always looking for reliable people to show up with out fail. Start out as rail meat then you can move up to trimming.
However, saying that, you’ve got to learn the principles. At NauticEd, we teach the theory so that you understand what is happening and why you might sheet in / sheet out / traveller up / traveller down.
Shortly – NauticEd will launch a FREE Introduction to Basic Sail Trim lesson. We’re going to use some REALLY high tech interactive flash demonstrations so that you’ll really GET the picture. Once you’ve completed that you’ll be really jonesing to get your head around our full Sail Trim Course.
Additionally, this year we’re going to launch a Regatta Race Tactics clinic – we’re interviewing authors now. So stay tuned.
To complete the story from above – wow, what a fun race. At the bottom mark, we were inches from another boat. They we all yelling at us but we had overlap and rights – they needed a few lessons in race rules of right of way. Hee hee! At the last mark before the finish line, we were on a starboard tack going for the mark – another boat in our fleet was approaching on port. We hailed starboard to establish rights ( we were outside the three boat lengths from the mark). They had to come up on the wind a little. Had we kept going, they would have had to tack over and we easily by the rules could have forced them to do that and make them loose a lot of time. However, there were other boats ahead of us in the course and so the prudent tactic was to tack on the layline to the mark and go for the finish. Because of the other boat’s momentum they were on top of us and beginning to pass as we picked up speed. Dave our skipper concentrated on making our boat go fast. I pulled my legs in from over the rail because they were so close. Then slowly because of everyone concentrating on making the boat go fast we pulled back ahead of the boat. We finished about 100 meters ahead of them but still in 5th place. Grrrrr!
It’s all extreme fun. If you want to learn to sail – learn the theory here at NauticEd then get out there and race. Man you’re going to learn a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last weekend we met up with our friends Chris and Christine Ellsay in Nelson New Zealand. Chris and Chris, with their three kids aged 10, 8 and 6 are sailing around the world and it was refreshing to hear them say – “I don’t know how long we’ll take”. They’re 3 years into it and have made it from the great lakes in Eastern Canada to New Zealand so far. The route has been via the Caribbean, Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, Galapagos Islands, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, Tonga and now Kiwiland. (We missed them by a week when we were in Tonga with the NauticEd Graduation Trip in September last year.)
Holding out in New Zealand for the summer while the tropical cyclones pass overhead in the pacific islands, they say they’re returning to the Pacific, starting with Fiji in Late April 2011. Then they’ll decide if to hang another year in the pacific or head off to the top of Ausy through the Indian ocean in 2011 or 2012.
I interviewed Chris and Chris (and the kids) on their experience with a catamaran rather than a monohull for sailing around the world. Their opinion after 10,000 miles is that they would not have done it any other way. The comfort and space was the resounding feedback.
Here’s a short video introducing Stray Kitty a World Cruising Life Style, and Abel Tasman National Park In New Zealand.
Here’s a few pics of Stray Kitty, their 42 foot PDQ Antares 2002 Catamaran.
Stray Kitty in the Nelson Marina
The foredeck at anchor is a great place for a few gins after a hard day sail.
Foredeck of Stray Kitty 42 ft Catamaran
The Kids are being home schooled by Christine and by the sounds of it – they were way ahead of where they should be – good job Christine!
Kids sailing around the world - pretty cool kids
These three kids (my one is the 2 1/2 year old 2nd to right ) are pretty amazing – they fear nothing, do their school work, do as they are told, release the lines on command, know which electrical switches to flick on at the right time – in fact I think they’d make it back to land if mum and dad fell overboard. They’re pretty cool kids and are a delight to spend time with.
Plenty of room inside the catamaran for school work
The Catamaran has heaps of room inside and it’s easy for the kids to do their school work underway because the boat stays flat when sailing.
Stray Kitty is sailing the traditional route around the world following the trade winds. Chris reported that much of their sailing has been downwind and so here he is showing me his much used bowsprit for flying their Gennaker. Oh and by the way – notice the incredible bay that we stayed overnight in – in the back ground in Abel Tasman National Park at the top of the South Island.
The Catamaran Bowsprit
There is plenty of safety gear on board and Chris and Chris are doing it right. Notice all the the MOB gear at the stern of the boat ready to be instantly deployed should anyone go overboard.
The boat has on-board a generator, two alternators and solar panels for powering all the electrical requirements of the boat. The total solar production capability is about 500 watts. Chris says for every thing to maintain with out the use of the generator or alternators – he’d like to have about 1000 watts of solar capacity so they do have to kick on the generator every now and then.
Solar Panels on the hardtop of Stray Kitty
Chris also discussed with me his Internet connections via SSB and his weather information gathering capability. Here he has downloaded a GRIB which is a map forecast of the sailing area we were in. The expected forecast was for 35 knots and they got it right. Out sailing we saw it peak to 36 knots on the wind meter. Made for some fun sailing.
Downloading the Weather GRIB
And the kids loved the bumpy ride that day as you can see here.
High waves making the trampoline a fun place to be
And here’s us busting through the 1-2 meter swell.
Crashing through the waves sailing the catamaran
Over the 4 days we spent with these true ocean sailors, we had a blast (beyond the 36 knotter). We scored some amazing shots of the Able Tasman National park in New Zealand which will be on the next blog. Stray Kitty will be making the passage up to Auckland via the east coast in a few days but first they’ll have to wait for right weather conditions to cross one of the world’s renown rough water ways, the Cook Straight which lies between the North and South Islands. High winds and current can make this one a bit tricky.
We’re pretty jealous of Stray Kitty. One of Chris’ sayings over the weekend was the “we regret in life more things that we don’t do than what we actually do” and this was one of the big reasons they sold their business and set out across the oceans and wow they had some good stories to match.
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When you win a sailboat race, one thing is for sure, even if you got lucky, you’re a good sailor and not only a good sailor but a good racer. There is a big difference between the two. I consider myself a pretty darn good sailor but … a good racer? Well.. not so much when I compare myself against those that race every week.
