We’ve received a few donations that have allowed us to upgrade little parts of the boat as needed.
During a storm off the coast of New Jersey, one of our mainsail blocks broke, rendering our mainsail unusable. Thanks to Dave’s donation, we were quickly able to source a brand new, sturdy Lewmar block that got us back underway. The new block has a much higher working load than the ~30 year old one and is more well suited for heavy weather offshore sailing. Thank you, Dave!
On one of our fist legs offshore, we had a bunch of sail slides break off of our mainsail. These sail slides are charged with keeping the mainsail firmly attached to our mast. You can imagine the trepidation we felt as we pulled into port in Rhode Island to find four of them had cleanly snapped in half after some heavy weather. We were lucky the entire mainsail hadn’t just decided up uproot and fly away. Chrissy’s donation allowed us to fully recoup from the expense incurred from this repair. Not only were we able to fix them, but we were able to replace them with the correct type of slides that belong on batten ends. We have been sailing with these slides for a couple months now without so much as a hint of weakening. Thank you, Chrissy!
The anchor is widely considered to be the best type of insurance when it comes to boating, and the anchoring system is certainly only as strong as its weakest link. We’ve worked hard to perfect our anchor tackle by finding an oversized 65 pound CQR anchor, a strong swivel, and a matching shackle, but we didn’t have an adequate chain hook. The chain hook allows us to transfer the load from our chain to our slightly stretchier nylon lines (and adds two additional attachment points to our boat). Levi’s donation allowed us to add the final piece to our anchoring puzzle and sleep a little more comfortably while on anchor. Thank you, Levi!
We were eager for a way for friends and family to follow our adventure. We found that Garmin had the best options for “always on” tracking and their inReach MINI model fit our needs perfectly. We wanted something waterproof that would allow us to update a shareable website, not cost an arm and a leg, and would work anywhere in the world. Our inReach Mini has been tracking us since we left Boston, sending an updated GPS coordinate every 10 minutes, and hasn’t failed us yet. See our map here:/follow/
We’ve found a few bonus features too. We are able to pair the inReach Mini with our iPhone and send/receive text messages, request weather forecasts, and chat with an emergency service if needed from anywhere in the world. Steph’s donation has made this all possible, and we are most grateful. Thank you, Steph!
