SINKING SHIP? Part 2 Sailing to Safe Harbor 75 Miles Offshore [Ep. 86]

We are diverting to safe harbor, the closest travel-lift, 75 miles away, after finding cracks allowing salt water to enter due to a whale collision at sea. What’s the damage? Will we make it?

#sailing #sailingaroundtheworld #sinkingship

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Contents

0:00 Intro – Sailing off the coast of Southern Brazil, 75 miles offshore in the South Atlantic Ocean
0:35 Coffee with Kate – She is singlehanded sailing a 46′ sailboat as dolphins swim alongside while Curtis sleeps
2:45 Roxy the sailing dog is sleeping also, while Kate watches ships go by
3:44 Boat Inspection – how we found the damage to our boat which we think was caused by collision with a whale a few months ago while sailing off the coast of Africa
6:11 Reaching towards Itajai where we knew there was a travel lift from the Volvo Ocean Race – Curtis is singlehanding the yacht while Kate naps off shift, make sure you check his sail trim 😉
8:12 Approaching the port – Kate makes the radio call in on the VHF…in Portuguese! We sail into the sunset as we furl our jib and douse our sails for the harbor entry
10:51 Sunset photography over Itajai from the ocean, as we enter the river channel Roxy the sailing dog gets her first smells of land
12:04 Entering Marina Itajai and how we dock our sailboat, med mooring style. Not exactly a how-to dock a boat video, but if you watch closely you can pick up some tips
13:56 The morning after – welcome to boating in Itajai, Brasil (Brazil). We have our first steps on land and discuss what happens next
15:15 We send a SCUBA diver down to inspect the hull and look for damage, cracks, or a hole. We dove on the boat to inspect it twice and found nothing, maybe a professional diver can find what we can’t?
16:05 Hauling out the veleiro (sailboat in Portugese) for further inspection, we finally see the bottom out of the water for the first time since the collision while offshore months ago

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.