Sailing Talisman Archive – Page 4

In this middle section of the passage we make the turn west into the trade-winds. We’ve headed almost 200nm south and are now just north of the Cape Verde Islands. And as the temps warm and the winds change from northerlies to easterlies, the westerly cu...

Squalls are focused small storms, with wind speeds that can approach and exceed gale force. As we get closer to the Caribbean, these become more and more common, especially at night, to the point that we’re rarely less than a few miles from one. Since th...

The Oyster service team in Las Palmas had suggested engine service tasks, but there wasn’t time to do them, so I arranged for the necessary parts to be ordered through the Yanmar service center at Rodney Bay (Island Water World is distributer for Yanmar ...

The passage between St Kitts and St Barts is 32nm +/- and these gaps between islands can be brutally exposed. You get swells and wind unbroken, with fetch that crosses the entire Atlantic Ocean. But things were practically flawless this day. The swells wer...

The situation most skippers dread … being pinned on the dock by high winds. So what do we do? In our case we have a big cat behind us and the wind is blowing a steady 19-20 knots. Take a look to see. We also give a quick look at our failed Sterling Powe...

During lockdown in Antigua we found ourselves with time on our hands for projects that we don’t usually have time for. Lacking temptations like drinking with other cruisers, we tackled a job that’s been on the back burner for a while … recaulking our...

It's a crazy time aboard Talisman, as we prepare to haul for hurricane season. First we suffer an engine room fire, which sets us back for a bit. Wendy goes for a swim and finds a shark under the boat. Then we discover that the crane that the yard is using...

As mentioned in the intro, this episode is about the real work it takes to get a boat in the water. Plus, Talisman had her mast off for recoating during hurricane season in the Caribbean, and we were so excited to see the results. It seemed like the list o...

Talisman has a date with the dentist, in a way. We suppose that's probably what it's like for a boat. But the spars are newly coated in blindingly shiny Awlgrip paint, and the results are something to behold. In truth, this wasn't a purely cosmetic upgrade...

The title says it all. Getting quality work done to your boat is always filled with risk. Here are some common-sense suggestions for not getting taken advantage of. These are lessons that come hard won from thirty years of project management. sailing v...

Failproofing is an elusive thing. No way to ever fully failproof a boat, but we do what we can. In this episode we repair our masthead deflector, which blasted off the mast during some higher wind testing of the boat. This failure was clearly the result of...

After suffering some teething issues following the reinstall of our spars and standing rigging, we set off on a shakedown cruise from Antigua to Dutch Sint Maarten. This 90nm passage was perfect for the purpose. There were significant winds and a good deal...

This is a continuation of our boat maintenance and disaster prevention series. But it starts with some great footage we took skiing moguls and trees at Winter Park Resort Ski Area at our home location of Winter Park, Colorado. Once that's done, we move to ...

A little of this and a little of that. The location is part Dutch Sint Maarten and part French Saint Martin. There's some repair work for the guys who like that, plus some sailing, since that's what we're supposed to be doing. The window project is a bigge...

So here we have some simple sailing footage, as we bring Talisman from French Marigot Bay, in French Saint Martin, over to Simpson Bay Lagoon in Dutch Sint Maarten (SXM), then to Saint Croix in the USVI, and finally to St. Thomas, also in the USVI. This is...

The difference between a dedicated bluewater boat and lightweight charter type boat becomes clear (again) as we leave St Thomas for Bermuda. Although the whole passage wasn’t like this (but could have been), leaving under 35-40 knot winds and huge swells...

After our sporty passage from St Thomas to Bermuda, it’s now time for the second half (unless we want to be stuck there). People might think we spend a lot of time up on the mast, but after the beating Talisman took on the way out, it seemed foolish no...

Here, we had an impromptu opportunity to tour a quite new Dufour 430 sailboat that was currently being chartered but for sale by the owner. It’s a nice example of a modern production boat. Not a heavy ocean sailor but a fun inshore cruiser. Fit and finis...

A real tornado in a populated place like Annapolis? Apparently (and actually) so! It was incredibly powerful, despite not being on the scale you'd see in the American Midwest states of Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, and several others. sailing ta...

So you're going to the 2021 Annapolis Boat Show! We'd love to see you. Come on by, take a look at Talisman, and get the tour. Beers will be on us.

Wow, what a crazy time. We rush to complete a long list of projects, all while hosting guests aboard Talisman during the Annapolis Boat Show. Our open house was a huge success, with over 30 people attending on Saturday, with others coming by Friday, Sunday...

Another big offshore passage, this time the reverse of what we did last year, heading out from Annapolis on a mirrored route plan to Bermuda. For this trip we bring along two guest crew, Scott and Marty. Together they proved to be a great addition, starti...

As part of our ongoing series on offshore bluewater cruising sailboats (boats specifically designed for world-traveling and heavy weather sailing), we present the Oyster 575. This is one of the penultimate boats that Oyster has ever produced. Questions sho...

Knowing better is a good life skill, and one I'm still working at. And on this trip the stupid mounts. In many ways, getting the crap scared out of you focuses the mind, and it's something that honestly doesn't happen that often for me (or us). But in an a...

The flip side of our rough and rather frightening passage down from Bermuda, in which we nearly lost the rig and my own life a couple of times, was the purchase and install of a new Harken MkIV-Mod3 Ocean Series furler. As part of this upgrade, we replaced...

Wendy's brother David shows up with his daughter Alex and niece Georgia for a week in the islands, and a great time was had by all. The islands of the USVI are often overshadowed by the brilliance and honestly superior cruising grounds of the British Virg...

After a short break-in period after our headstay replacement, it's time to retension Talisman's rig. Here's how we did it! We also had our generator start battery fail, which called into question the health of the engine start battery, which is of similar...

Are the British Virgin Islands fully open? Let's go see. After the twin hurricanes of Irma and Maria in 2017, which decimated the BVIs, rebuilding was slow, with many of the Iconic restaurants and bars closed and not even being worked on. Then came COVID...

In our long-delayed Part 2 of our tour of the British Virgin Islands, we again ask the question, “Are the BVIs ready for your planned charter or land-based vacation holiday?” To find the answer, you’ll have to jump into this episode and see for yours...

Back to our windlass for routine maintenance and our Fischer Panda 6Kva Generator, which might be a bit more than routine. The windlass had a known crack in what is called the “lower clutch cone”, which was an easy enough repair. The footage shown is...

James has been friends with us now for several years, really since he bought his Oyster 485, a sister boat to Talisman. James is a character and has so much energy it makes you feel lazy. Through his podcasts, live streams, and YouTube Sailing Zingaro epis...

We bounce around in this episode. We find ourselves in the BVI, using some lost footage that probably should have been in the episodes before James from Zingaro came to visit. That said, on passage from Cooper Island, BVI to Dutch Sint Maarten we suffer a ...

Our guests Jen and Phil arrive in Dutch Sint Maarten, and we sail around the island with them, visiting Grand Case on the French side. This was a blast, and everyone had a good time. But eventually, it was time for us to leave SXM. We opt to sail at night...

Viewers might remember Scott from our passage down from Annapolis at the start of the season. In this episode, Scott and his wife Mary Kay join us for a week of fun in Antigua. We start things out in Dickenson Bay, where we visit the floating Tiki Bar. R...

As I say in the episode, this is a bit off topic for a sailing channel, but I keep getting requests for exactly this type of subject matter. So here we go ... In this episode I demonstrate how Strataglass window glass in installed in Sunbrella marine canv...

2022 was probably the year we did the biggest upgrades to the boat. We added air conditioning, replaced the standing rigging, replaced our galley countertops and gimballing stove, bought a new dinghy, and of course upgraded the battery bank. For Talisman,...