I just got back from a visit to the shipyard in the south of England where Distant Shores was built. Northshore, who build the Southerly line of swing keel sailboats is located in the very picturesque hamlet of Itchenor, near Chichester and the Solent. I had two reasons to visit. I wanted to catch up with the shipyard and see how they are doing, and secondly we had a couple of charter guests this year who are considering buying a Southerly. They wanted to see the shipyard and check out the other models. The Southerly line now extends from a 32 footer right up to a 57 currently in build.

I was also interested in how the company was doing in the midst of the world news of economic slowdown. On that front I shouldn't have worried. Even the new plant building that wasn't online when we set sail from the dock in November 2007 was mostly full. Business seems to be going quite well. The UK£ is down against the Euro and the US$, so maybe that's partly responsible, making the Southerly more affordable. At any rate it was nice to see such a busy shop.

The new 57-footer is well under way - the plug is completed and will be moulded shortly. Like all Southerlies, the 57 has a swing-keel and will draw just over 3 feet with the keel up.

Here is the new Southerly 48 in the shop.

The new 48 is much closer to completion. Hull and deck are complete. The interior is coming together and plans are to launch her in late spring. She looks like a very fast and spacious boat. In many ways like a bigger faster version of our 42. This is definitely a boat to watch and I will keep up with this model as she gets further along.

Well we have lived on Distant Shores for almost 1 and a half years now and I thought it was time to revisit the issue of Battery Capacity.

How did my original electrical budget work out? How do the Mastervolt AGMs work? Did we use more or less than planned?

The budget was fairly close. Of course it is always hard to judge in advance what total use would be and there are going to be changes based on where and how you cruise. Luckily our Mastervolt power system includes a battery capacity monitor so we have been able to see total power used and judge how we are doing.

Basically our budgets were fairly close... most of the time. I said we would need 130AH while at anchor. This is true if we anchor and swim/read/explore etc. The difference is if we get out the computers and do a few hours of work! On Two-Step we didn't do that often since there wasn't really space. But with Distant Shores we have the space and occasionally have a day at anchor where we catch up on work, emails, and even some rough editing on the television show. The computers are power users and put us over our budget. Running a typical laptop will use 3-4amps so running both of ours for 5-6 hours is a big 40 addition to the budget.

At sea was where I had thought we would be closer to the line with a budget of 200AH per day. This has turned out to be close. I think it is around 220 in practice. Luckily the boat is very easily steered and the autopilot uses less than Two-Steps pilot to keep her on course. But the instruments are fairly heavy users. We have two plotters, the big E120 down in the nav station and the Raymarine E80 out in the cockpit. Those both use a fair bit. They are wonderful devices and well worth it but I didn't budget correctly for them. The E80 draws roughly 2 amps and the E120 about 2.5. Then I discovered that it wasn't really the plotters themselves, but the backlighting. So at night when we dim them the draw is almost 1/2. At any rate, the budget for the ship at sea is really around 220 AH. This is really a bit close to the line with the batteries we have.

Our ships battery bank includes 2 big house batteries. David at Mastervolt wanted us to use 3 - totaling 675 AH of house capacity. I decided the 42 couldn't accommodate all three since the third would have had to go in a separate custom battery box. So we have two totaling 450AH power and on long passages we have to run the engine more than once a day. In practice we run the engine for an hour each morning and evening.

If we were to do it again I would find some way to follow David's recommendation and fit 3 of the big Mastervolt AGM.

How have the AGM worked out? Well these Mastervolt AGMs are my first experience with the batteries and they are brilliant. AGMs charge quickly, do not require maintenance, do not vent fumes and do not discharge themselves when left for a while. All in all they are great. On Two-Step we used to be checking our batteries, filling them with water regularly and cleaning up the spills. The AGMs just sit there and look just the day they were installed.

Note the black thing that is stuck to the left hand battery... this is a temperature sensor. To look after any battery is important to having them give good performance over a long life. The temperature sensor ensures that the big 100Amp battery charger we have is not over heating the batteries, and that they are being charged at the correct rate.

Got to run! Next time I will report on my recent visit to the Northshore Yard (builders of our Southerly 42).

Sorry not to have added to my blog in a while... I am going to try and get caught up!! My last was back in the fall and we have done a LOT since. I will start with our passage to the Caribbean since it is something many people are planning at some time in their sailing career.

There are two main strategies for a North American boat wanting to get to the Caribbean...

1) The Thorny Path - jumping from island to island through the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. (yellow arrows)
2) Offshore - directly offshore from Beaufort or North of there to the BVI. (red arrow directly fro Beaufort North Carolina)

Our plan was to modify the second option and jump off from the Bahamas heading directly east to join the offshore route, then head SE to the Caribbean. This would be a passage of over 1000 miles and the prevaiing winds are from the east so this initial easterly push would be dead into 15-20 knots. My plan was to wait for a cold front, and use the wind shift to hitch a ride and hopefully gain some easting that way.

With option 1) The Thorny Path, one might spend 2 months getting south. Our option 2) would take 2 weeks (one waiting for a front then 7-8 days sailing direct tp the Caribbean.

Of course any boat planning this must be completely prepared for some tough going. The front means you might be out in 30-40 knots of wind as the front passes, and the rest will be close hauled in 15-20 or higher.

Distant Shores is a very good boat for this passage since she is quite good close hauled. We swung the keel all the way down to our full draft of 9-feet, and with our long waterline we go upwind very well.

It was also important to be able to go fast enough that we would be able to stay with the front. The idea that as the front approaches the winds will clock around from the proveailing Easterly, to South East, then south. Then they will build in strength and clock further to the South West. As the front arrives the wind will switch to the North West then north before settling back to North East. We planned to use the period where there was no East in the wind to make our way east. The wind would be aft of the beam for all that time. The two problems are ...

1) fronts can be quite strong and pack winds of 30-40 or higher was they pass
prepare your boat for winds up to 50 knots, we used or triple-reefed main and reefed our small tough jib
2) a fast moving front might run past so quickly that we wouldn't get far enough east.
we averaged 170 miles per day and kept up with the front using it to make almost 500 miles easting

Summary:
Offshore route is a possible option if your boat and crew are prepared for a tough week at sea.
Be prepared for strong winds and tough uphill condiions.
Watch the weather in advance to see how the fronts are passing.