March 7, 2001

By Grzegorz | March 7, 2001

Photos of the Day

March 7 – Cuba

Remember Gene and Marcia’s photos of the
Bahamas from yesterday’s ‘Lectronic?
Well, here are some shots of Cuba taken by the same crew of the
Manta 40 Pangaea.

If you get a chance to sail to Cuba – which
is full of American boats – don’t miss it. It’s very strange
and interesting. Our overwhelming impression? It’s the world’s
biggest slave plantation, where the people idle away their lives
waiting to die.

Grass Powered Tractor

Mercado at Holguin

Puerto Maniti

Photos Courtesy Pangaea

Money and Cruising

March 7 – Western Hemisphere

The following is an excerpt from Matt Stone’s very fine overview
of two years of cruising the Americas with his family aboard
their Wylie 65 Saga:

“From a cash flow perspective, cruising
is affordable to almost anyone. We encountered and enjoyed people
from every part of the spectrum – shoestring budgets to
‘spare no expenses’. Neither end had a lock on the happiness
quotient, and neither was necessarily safer or better equipped
than the other. As far as actual costs go, our family of five
spent about $40,000 per year for everything – including a satellite
phone habit that averaged about $1,000 per month. This figure
also includes $8,000 of hospital cost for elective surgery,
all boat expenses, plenty of inland travel, and a new laptop.
We made no particular effort to be frugal, yet we found that
the whole trip was far more economical than living in the Bay
Area! Once you get into the tropics your cost of living declines
dramatically. We met numerous families who had sustained a cruising
lifestyle for 5 to 10 years by avoiding the higher cost areas.
Everyone has different requirements, but the bottom line is that
money is not a problem. The big ticket item is your boat and
there are loads of reasonably priced, competent boats on the
market. The barriers to departure should not be financial ones.
En route it is possible to earn a living in various capacities. Working
for fellow cruisers is one way but we met people earning
funds by teaching, running restaurants, consulting and running
shoestring trading operations.” For the complete article,
see the April issue of Latitude
38.

If we were to classify cruising budgets,
we’d do so the following way:
Frugal –
Under $500 a month per couple.
Careful –
Under $1,000 a month per couple.
Typical –
$1,500 to $2,000 a month per couple.
Carefree –
$2,000 to $3,000 a month per couple.
Money is no object –
Over $3,000 a month per couple.

How much do you pay a month for your housing – include the utilities
– and automobile – including gas, insurance and parking?

Food like this in the tropics just isn’t
expensive. For example, the boy selling shrimp on a stick. The
‘oysters wheelbarrow’. Or the chile relleno at a local restaurant.

Photos Latitude/Richard

Big Blow Down in Mexico

March 7 – Pacific Coast

“We’ve been getting some great surf in down here in Banderas
Bay,” reports Mike Miller of the Vanguard 32 Uhuru, “but
the weather hit big time last Friday with winds gusting to over
40 knots at Punta Mita, and up to 60-65 knots down at Tenacatita
Bay. Apparently the high winds in Tenacatita scattered boats
all over the place.”

By the way, Mike joined us for a great
spinnaker run on Profligate in Banderas Bay about 10 days
ago, during which he told us he’s currently sailing alone – but
wouldn’t mind some female companionship for the cruise to the
Caribbean. Mike’s about 40, handsome, well-groomed, in good shape
and has great social skills. He’s a consultant for the outdoor
sports company he used to be the national sales rep for. If you
want to contact him, you can do so by
email.

Mike Miller of Uhuru
Photo Latitude/Richard

The Race Aftermath

March 7 – Marseille, France

Cam Lewis of Team Adventure, now
1,000 miles east of Buenos Aires and 5,300 miles from the Marseille
finish line, referred to his recent birthday as follows: “Today
marks the beginning of my 44th lap around the sun. I am still
working on my second lap around the planet.”

In the aftermath of Club Med’s first
place finish, we’re learning that the 100-foot cat wasn’t as problem
free as the skipper and crew let on. By far the most alarming
problem was a primary structural failure resulting in an area
of delamination around one of the main crossbeam roots, the area
where the crossbeam that supports the mast joins the hull. Skipper
Grant Dalton explained:

“We were fine until about 5,000 miles
from the finish, which is 75% of the distance around the world,
when we suffered some nasty structural core shear, or delamination
under one of our beams, exactly where the front beam joins the
starboard hull. Before we left Barcelona we had to decide what
to take in the way of spares. We had to think carefully because
you don’t want to weigh the boat down with unnecessary equipment.
It is important to take universal things, things that can do a
lot of jobs. Apart from a few spare parts, we also took three
amazing guys – our Three Man Army, Neal MacDonald, Ed Danby and
Jan Dekker – who could fix anything, with hardly any parts. And
when we found the delamination problem they just got inventive.
The core between skins disintegrated over a patch of about two
square meters in a really important structural part of the boat.
The Three Man Army took the watertight bulkhead doors from inside
and bolted them on to the inside and the outside of the suspect
area. We had to steal parts from other areas in the boat, for
example the bolts we used we ‘borrowed’ from the base of each
winch, we took two from each winch, and we took a few from the
generator… We didn’t talk about it at the time, we just dealt
with it, and anyway big boys don’t cry – we fixed the problem
and got over it. Importantly, we didn’t want the opposition behind
us buoyed by the fact that they could smell blood.”

In addition, just days from the finish, a lower shroud failure
cause them to nearly lose the rig.

The Club Med crew display their trophy
to the press.
Photo C. Borlenghi Courtesy Club Med
www.catamaran.clubmed.fr/

We’re still having trouble getting the photos
from the Heineken Regatta, so we’ll put off our report for another
day.

YOTREPS

March 7 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? Check out YOTREPS –
‘yacht reports’ – at http://www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/

Weather Updates

March 7 – Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

To see what the winds are like on the Bay
and just outside the Gate right now, check out http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/wind/.

California Coast Weather

Looking for current as well as recent wind
and sea readings from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena
and the Mexican border? Here’s the place – which has further links
to weather buoys and stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/stuff/southwest/swstmap.shtml.

Pacific Sea State

Seas are normal in the Pacific. But you
might check out the Pacific Ocean sea states at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.

For another view, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/global.html.

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