Sinking Ship? Cracks In Hull Sailing 75 mi Offshore [Ep. 85]

*Warning* *Graphic Boat Images* The hull is delaminating when we discover salty sea water coming in through a hole in our hull while sailing 75 miles offshore on a bluewater passage in the South Atlantic Ocean. What now?!

#sailing #sailingaroundtheworld #sinkingship

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Contents

0:00 Kate is solo sailing, singlehanding while Curtis sleeps
3:36 Setting up a preventer for downwind offshore sailing
8:35 Setting the spinnaker for more bluewater boatspeed
12:18 Dolphin Attack (kidding) we are mobbed by a huge pod or school of dolphins which jump all around our sailboat
14:48 Curtis talks about how our B&G Sailsteer works and our H5000 autopilot is steering downwind under spinnaker
16:57 Checking the weather and our routing on the PredictWind Offshore app using IridiumGo!
18:09 Night time sailing maneuvers, spinnaker takedown, and crossing ships in the dark
22:10 Curtis talks about what the night shift is like offshore
23:05 We find damage and delamination with salt water entering through cracks in the hull

About Us

Kate and Curtis both learn how to sail when they were young. Kate was a junior sailor in Opti’s and 420’s while Curtis went cruising in the Great Lakes with his family. We met while sailing in a Melges 24 regatta and have been sailing together ever since. The first time we went cruising together as a couple was on a friends borrowed J Boats J 105 in the North Channel of Lake Huron and Canada (part of the Great Loop). Those few weeks, and watching other channels like Gone With the Wynns, Sailing Uma, Project Atticus, Delos, Nahoa, and Sailing La Vagabonde, convinced us that the sailing life was for us.

We bought our boat, a J Boats J/46, in 2019 after spending years searching for the perfect bluewater sailboat to sail around the world. We were interested in a catamaran and monohulls, but loved the performance cruising design of the J(it is faster than most cruising catamarans). We spent six months refitting her in Rhode Island, before selling our house and cars, quitting our jobs, and leaving land life for good to become digital nomads, with the goal of sailing around the world via Cape Horn.

We have since navigated over 12,000 miles together, through storms, big waves, pandemics, and lockdowns. We sailed to Maine, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Grenada, Sint Maarten, the Azores, Canary Islands, and Brazil, on our way south to Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile to sail around Cape Horn and into the Patagonia fjords.

We never intended to become influencers or start a new YouTube sailing channel, but now it is what we do. We love sharing our experience and adventures with you. We have learned to fly the drone and edit videos, trying to produce relaxing and listenable videos for you to sail away and watch at home while having coffee on Sunday mornings.