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Commissioning
We've owned Sea Spirit for almost exactly three months now, having bought her more or less unexpectedly in the middle of August. Even back then, we knew that our first 'big' trip together would start...
View ArticleSatellite Internet
Wow, there are a lot of satellite Internet options out there. I've been looking at mini-VSAT, which seems to be the only 'unmetered' Internet solution for offshore. Unmetered means that while the speed...
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More on Satellite Internet -- BGAN experiments
Since my Sea Spirit Passagemaker 60 is built for ocean-crossing, I've been looking a little more deeply into satellite communications, as mentioned in my previous post. BGAN is the least expensive of...
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Weather Fax using an iPad and a $135 radio
Continuing on the theme of offshore communications, I thought I'd muck about with my iPad and a cheap shortwave radio, to see how easy it is to receive weather maps. The short answer: easy when there's...
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Boiling the Heat Exchangers
Adam had asked what I meant by 'boiling the heat exchangers, so I thought I'd write an entry about it. You probably already know all about heat exchangers, so just skip over this paragraph and the...
View ArticleThe countdown begins!
It's January 1, 2011, and I've finally got the feeling that our upcoming winter cruise from Fort Lauderdale through the Panama Canal to Golfito, Costa Rica, is actually going to happen. Six months ago,...
View ArticleWhat we looked for in a boat
How we selected People often ask me how we ended up selecting a Sea Spirit Passagemaker 60. This page is an attempt to answer that question, by describing various aspects of boats, and what things we...
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Risks that remain for our trip to Panama
My usual modus operandi in any difficult situation is to evaluate the risks involved, put considerable effort into eliminating or minimizing those risks, and create recovery options in case the risk...
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What we like - and don't like - about Sea Spirit
Before purchasing our Sea Spirit Passagemaker 60 yacht, we looked at a lot of boats, both in person and on sites like YachtWorld. While one could talk forever about one brand of boat versus another,...
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Part 2 of what we like and don't like about Sea Spirit
... continued from previous entry. Fuel system In addition to having enough fuel capacity (2105 US gallons), I was quite interested in how reliable and convenient the fuel system was going to be on Sea...
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Shakedown!
It has been a phenomenally busy couple of weeks here on Sea Spirit, getting ready for our inaugural cruise from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas. Since we intend to continue south through the Caribbean...
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Crossing the Gulf Stream Current
Sea Spirit is in the Bahamas! Ok, I understand that this is not exactly far flung, but for us it is a significant achievement to be here in Bimini at the Bimini Blue Water Resort. Why? Because it...
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From Bimini to Chub Cay
Yesterday, Sea Spirit made the 85 nautical mile passage from Bimini to Chub Cay in the Berry islands of the Bahamas. This passage was about double the length of our first passage from Florida to...
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Chub Cay and passage to Atlantis
We spent a wonderful few days an Chub Cay, which is in the Berry Islands of the Bahamas. Its main claim to fame is as a deep water fishing destination, since the water drops off to over 1,000 feet less...
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New Providence and a new outlook
Winning the mental battles You may recall that in my last couple of entries, I've opened up my heart a little and spoke about some mental battles I was having with regard to boating. I'm happy to...
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Training (and relaxing) in the Exumas
The Freedman family has been busy over the last 3 weeks or so, learning a lot about operating our trawler, and getting to know one of the most wonderful cruising grounds in the world -- the Exuma...
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Fuel economy data
I thought I'd interject a quick blog entry with some fuel economy numbers for Sea Spirit. As you may recall, she's a very slippery Sparkman & Stephens hull design, so we knew she'd get good fuel...
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Off-season update - and are we trading Sea Spirit for a bigger model?
Sea Spirit, being unloaded, before we owned her Sorry to have left some of you hanging after the last blog entry at the end of April. We greatly enjoyed the remainder of our spring cruising season in...
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End of part 1 - Sneak preview of part 2
End of Part One - We have had a phenomenal time on Sea Spirit We have had an absolutely wonderful first year aboard Sea Spirit. For a family's first introduction to cruising, I'm not sure we could have...
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An Update from Sea Spirit and the Freedmans
It has been 14 months since my last confession blog entry, and a lot has happened. The last time I wrote, we had just returned from our Spring 2011 three month cruise in MV Sea Spirit, our 63 foot Sea...
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