Hind-Sight

For those of you that are reading the blog for the travel part, you might want to skip this post. I promised myself that I would do a quick review of the systems we installed/or didn't install on the boat, and whether or not it was a good idea. For those who'll keep reading, please keep in mind that what works or doesn't work for us, may or may not work for you, we can only offer our own opinion, and/or perhaps the opinions of a few fellow travelers. Where to start......

The Fridge

If only because this is my crowning achievement. We heard more complaints about fridges from our fellow cruisers than the weather. Can't freeze, uses to much power, won't keep the beer cold, etc, etc... Our fridge was a dream. http://svvita.blogspot.com/2012/10/building-proper-marine-refrigerator-and.html It performed better than we could have expected, made ice in the hot Bahamas sun, and used so little power that our solar panels had no trouble keeping up. If you are going cruising, willing to take on a rather big project, and like us, you like your beer chilled, then this is definitely worth the hassle. I think the key, other than the 4 1/2" of insulation, is the heavy integrated lids with the double seal. However, keeping the box small, and using a refer unit that draws very little power definitely makes it a total win-win package.

Stove

We bought the cheapest 2 burner stove, with oven, that we could. You can make the trip on a single burner if you want, some do, and others don't have an oven, but for the $2k that it cost to install the stove and propane system, we feel it was worth it. Serena baked all the time. We always ate well, perhaps too well, and the stove performed flawlessly through the whole trip. We expect we will get many more years of service out of the unit.

Interior Redesign

Most of this worked well for us. The table did not, if only because we ended up turning the settee along the table into a permanent double bed. Lifting the galley counter 4" saved our backs from even worse torment, and the added built in storage was a dream. The more storage you build into the boat, the happier you'll be. Especially if its a small boat. It is absolutely amazing how much crap we can cram into poor little Vita. I think perhaps we are not the only ones who have gotten a little pudgier around the middle. The couch offered us comfortable seating, which worked out exactly as planned. It made a great sea berth with the lee cloth, and a comfortable place to spend our evenings.

Solar Panels

Wow, another triumph. I didn't do much, mount them, and install the panel, but they are a incredible. They did the bulk of our charging, and if we were careful, they would handle all of our charging needs. We went a week and a half with no alternator, and had no problem keeping the batteries topped up. Now, our boat is a model of efficiency when it comes to power usage, so that helped, but still, I reiterate what others have been saying for a long time, solar is the way to go. I can think of only two people we met that were happy with their wind generators, even though the rest of the anchorage wasn't. Hour for hour, you will get more power out of a good solar setup than any other system. And its quiet....

Hella Fans

We have three of the expensive ones, "hella turbo". Use next to no power. They were a godsend. We ran them all the time in when it was warm. We only wish we had a couple more.

Shower

Serena was pretty adamant when we left that she wanted a shower in the head. We took along all the pieces we needed to build the shower. We never did install it. Like most small boat cruisers, we shower in the cockpit. The add-a-room gives us all the privacy we need, our little buddy heater heats it up if its cold, and we never have to worry about too much moisture down below.

Water

We opted for manual fresh water only. A hand pump in the head, and a foot pump in the galley. The foot pump was awesome, the hand pump, not so much. In a rolly boat you cannot afford a hand for the pump. Next upgrade will see a second foot pump in the head. We went without hot water, as it tends to be very inefficient, unless you have a system that heats it from the engine exhaust. So we heat all of our water on the stove. It can be a pain sometimes, but we don't seem to mind it. Besides, what else you going to do with the time. We do have pressure water though, for outside water only. We use it for rinsing all our dishes before we wash them, and for cleaning our garbage before we store it. It has been wonderful, and we highly recommend it to others headed out. If you'll have a watermaker, its less important. Water was plentiful all through the states, but in the Bahamas, free water was difficult to come by. We carried about 90 gallons of water, and that lasted us easily 6 weeks with conservation.

Lavac Head

No complaints. Which is the way a head should be. We have had several issues with the black water tank though. Also the lack of a good way to empty the tank while in the Bahamas was an issue. We used a manual pump that we connected to the deck fitting. It was a nasty process, but it worked. One of the future upgrades will be a through hull for those offshore runs, and a way to pump out the tank from inside the boat. Most cruisers don't talk about their head, and with good reason. The laws have gotten so strict that most boats would probably have something illegal in their setup. But for those who travel outside their home port, some versatility is important. Have the tank, have a way to empty the tank, have a way to bypass the tank. Nuff said. Have a lock out on it to be as legal as possible, and please for the environments sake, be responsible.

Anchor Gear

It took awhile to gain confidence in our anchor gear. It never gave us reason to doubt it, but hanging a 5 ton boat by a 33lb hunk of steel takes a while to get comfortable with. The windless was awesome. We could not have done it without the mechanical advantage of the Lofrans. Our gear is not particularly heavy, but with our back problems, lifting the anchor too often would have been a real issue for us. The Rochna is a great anchor. It never failed to reset instantly with a wind change, and had a tendency to bury itself completely in a strong wind or current. All chain, 130', we wish we had 200', but it worked out ok. The worst we saw was 60 knots with a 3 knot current, and we never budged an inch. The rework of the bow with the chain locker and fibreglass work, performed exactly as expected, and turned out to be stronger than I thought. I can't say enough good things about the whole setup, we are just so happy with it. The biggest thing we figured out along the way was to set the anchor hard. There is not enough power in our engine to do any damage to the system, so we let her have it. When the snubber stretches to its limits, and starts to sing from the strain, I sleep a lot better.

Garhauer Rigid Boom Vang

The one thing that every person who has done it, agreed on, was to get a Garhauer. For the $375 it cost, it didn't seem worth it, to not do it. Now we add our own voice to the group, and it is still an unanimous vote. For handling the mainsail, I am sure there can be no better piece of equipment. If you have never seen one in action, I won't be able to convince you of its benefits, but the first time you use it on a cruising boat, you will never be without one. Such a simple piece of gear, that honestly we didn't use that much because we didn't sail all that often, but worthy of its weight on the boat.

New Sails

Arguably, we didn't sail as much as we hoped on this trip. And, most of the time we had a sail up, we were running with just the yankee and the engine on. However, the battenless main worked as flawlessly as we had hoped. It was such an easy sail to handle and setup. I ended up sausage rolling on the boom, instead of flaking it, because it just worked so much better. The lazy jacks that we intended to install, never got installed, because they were never needed. The staysail on the other hand, only left the bag about 10 times the whole trip. It was a pain to get ready, and most of the time it added little value. We left it bagged on the stay the whole time, and it always got in the way. I think we are going to put it on a furler before our next big trip. It'll get used more often if its easy to deploy, and it won't get in the way so much. The DRS is a beautiful sail, but it was never needed on the boat. If we were going to do long offshore trips, I would keep it, but for inshore work, it was more of a toy than anything else. I think I flew it 3 times, and they were all just for fun.

Life Line

Our dinghy, named Life Line. Like all dinghies it seems, is a compromise between a lot of different things. We have a 8' Walker Bay with a suzuki 2.5 hp four stroke engine, a hypalon inflatable collar, and a sail kit. She rows nicely, and she is a blast to sail, but she is slow, and wet. Many times I wished for a go fast dinghy so that we could explore further and faster, but they are a bitch to row, use a lot of fuel, and can't be sailed. We used 4 gallons of gas in out little motor during the entire 9 month trip. We know people with nice dinghies that burn that in a day. So the answer? I don't have one. I guess make a choice and live with it. We will stick with Life Line for now, but may one day get a little inflatable with a larger motor, who knows. We may go ahead and do it, and then regret our decision later when our engine quits 4 miles from home.

Davits

I really wasn't sure about having davits on such a small boat. But Serena was adamant. She did not want the dinghy on the foredeck blocking our view, and towing it was not an option. So I went ahead and took the $1400.00 plunge, and installed them. And man, I am so glad that I did. The boat looks quite shippy with Life Line slung from the back, and it puts the dinghy out of sight, out of mind. It took most of the trip to figure out how to secure the dinghy in a way that I was happy with, but now it doesn't move at all under way. Also, because of the way the dinghy is lifted so high out of the water, I have been confident in leaving it on the davits even while offshore, a thing that I was dead set against before we left. I will admit that it was a pretty expensive extravagance on such a small boat, and we definitely could have made the trip without them, but we are happy we didn't.

Electronics

Laptop - We bought a small netbook before we left. The theory being that it used less power, had less moving parts, and was small for a small boat. It has worked good, but a little more power would be nice for editing video and a little bigger screen wouldn't hurt. I would have one again, but I may bring along a second laptop as backup, and to do things that little one had a rough time with. Also with the laptop is an external hard drive. Backup everything, because in the wet environment of the boat, you never know when its going to give up the ghost.

Chart Plotter - Standard Horizon 5" display. Mounted at the wheel, we loved this thing. It was far from perfect, but when it died there the one day I missed it dearly. This was no substitute for paper charts, but it aided them marvelously. We also had two backup handheld GPSs, which came in very handy, and a full set of free charts on the netbook. I purchased Polarview on the way down and used that to download all the Active Captain data so that we could use it offline. For those of you uninitiated, Active Captain is the cruising guide for cruisers, by cruisers. Check it out, you'll see what I mean.

Knot log and depth sounder - Depth sounder, good, knot log, waste of $350.00. On a cruising boat with GPS, the knot log is not all that useful. Fun to watch, when its working, but definitely not a requirement. The depth sounder though is awesome. We even bought a handheld depth sounder for using in the dinghy, and it was a great piece of kit too. We have friends with no depth sounder, and a 6 foot draft, so its possible to go without, but I don't think even they would recommend the ICW under those circumstances.

VHF Radio - It didn't work out the way we hoped. With the engine running we can't hear the radio below, so we end up using the handheld in the cockpit. I think the answer might be to insulate the engine compartment. Serena and I have been considering AIS as well, but it wasn't really all that hard to live without on this trip. We only come close to being run down 3 times, and they all worked out okay!

Xantrex Battery Monitor - Love this little expensive guy. Monitor the batteries. That's all it does, but it provides us with 24 hr tireless updates to what is going on in our electrical system. We spend more time looking at this than the sunsets.

Digital camera and GoPro - Wow, we took a lot of pictures, and a lot of video. If we never make another trip outside of our home town, we have these memories that will last forever. Outside of the Bahamas any camera that takes good pictures wil do. Ours was less than $200. But in the Bahamas, underwater is where it is at. That's where the GoPro comes in. If you want to be the envy of the other boats in the anchorage, bring a GoPro, and video tape your friends playing underwater with the sharks.

HF Radio - All we have is a receiver. It allows us listen to Chris Parker for weather in the Bahamas. We are not really the chatty type, so if our friends are outside of VHF range, we'll talk to them later.

TV and Antenna - We might not have survived the trip without it. There were days that we could do nothing else but sit in front of the TV, or lay down and nap. Whether because of broken body parts, or bad weather. In the Bahamas there was no TV, and when the mast is down we do without, but all the times in between, the TV saved our sanity, what little there was to save.

Wifi Extender - I built one of these before we left, and it has given us access to internet all over the place, right from the boat. There are lots of commercially available ones, and perhaps I will do a post on how to build one in the near future. We wouldn't be without this nice toy.

Ray - Is our autopilot. It is probably the cheapest wheel pilot you can buy. He can't keep a decent course for any real length of time, is prone to erratic behavior occasionally, and can't drive at all when the weather is rough, but, we wouldn't be without him. The number of tireless hours that he took the wheel, under close supervision of course, made the trip possible. I know lots of people who drive the whole way with no autopilot, but that is not us. And to think, Serena almost didn't let me get him.

That was it. We don't have much in the way of electronics, but we didn't seem to want for anything. We drove in thick fog without a radar, and survived. Although in hind site maybe it would have been smarter to sit still. An anemometer would have been nice, but we didn't seem to notice we didn't have one. Like a friend once said, you simply must have what you must have.

And this is starting to get overwhelming. I think of the myriad of little things that made our life easier, or more fun on this trip, and covering it would keep me typing all day long. But I reviewed most of the major systems. If you where looking for more, or want some intricate details of any of the systems on the boat, please feel free to message me. And, if you read through this thinking that there might be something interesting for the non-boater; I warned you at the beginning.

Vita back to one six.