Compressors

It’s Saturday morning and we are researching compressors, which we can take with us and use on the boat.

Some of the features we are looking for is small and compact, reliable and has a world wide access to spare parts.

We are planning on using 15 litre cylinders on our way round, this will allow us to partially fill the cylinders without charging them up to the full 232 bar, this should reduce the stress on the compressor and hopefully make it last a bit longer, anyway that’s the plan.

Without to much trouble we had a short list within about an hour of research, the two models in question are the Bauer and the Coltri Sub, both models are powered by the same Honda petrol engine.

Both claim to be reliable and have world wide service and are very compact with similar charging times for the same size cylinder, so it only left the price and one model came out much cheaper than the other and was available from a local supplier to us, who has been in the industry for some time.

I intend to go to the company and have a chat about the model we are interested in.

The Coltri Sub



The Bauer



Will let you know how I get on with the factory vist.

Paperwork

Not much to report today, two things getting the boat on the register of British Ships and the 'Sail Away Scheme', which should allow you to buy a boat and sail it out of the EU, without having to pay the VAT.

The first one went smoothly, we now have our Certificate of British Registry and with it our number, which is SSR129810, which at the first opportunity will be proudly displayed on the hull.

The second one was not quite as smooth, but we think we have an answer, without having to sail the boat back to the UK to complete the VAT exemption and all the paper work, in triplicate of course, before allowed to continue on route.

With the help of Carl from M.I Cats and the manufacturer Fountaine Pajot, we can have the boat from the factory including VAT exempt documentation for a reasonable sum, which we will take. Just like to point out that on the site for the 'Sail Away Scheme' that it says either from the UK or member state, but alas after a phone call to HM customs, who insist that it is only from the UK and no buts!

Carl thank you for your help, it is much appreciated.

Factory Options.

We now need to start to think what factory options we would like to have fitted to the boat. Below is a list of considered options:

Bowsprit and its gear, which is supply and fit composite pole, furler and winch, furler line circuit led to cockpit, sheets and blocks and additional winch on the mast.

Spifurl, which is I am reliably informed is a new design of a downwind sail between Fountain-Pajot and sail loft INCIDENCES whose advantage is that it can replace the GENNAKER and the SPINNAKER, the mounting is on a swivel.

220 volt main system, which incorporates a shore power cord, the feed to 1 charger supplying the bank of house batteries, 4 outlet sockets split between the saloon and cabins and the feed to the water heater.

12 to 220 volt 500 watt inverter feed from the bank of house batteries with 2 power outlets.

Lazy Bag threaded onto the boom, suspended from lazy jacks.

Epoxy, antifouling, plus commissioning in La Rochelle.

Well that should be enough of the factory options, but we still need a list of extras, which seems to be getting longer by the day, but more about that later.

Electronic Instruments

We have received our official order confirmation from M.I. Cats, which now means we now need to start to plan on what additional extras we need on fitting out the boat.

On the sea trial, the demo boat was fitted with the now standard factory fitted Furuno electronic instruments, which did not strike us as an improvement over what we have come used to, which is the Raymarine ST60 electronic instruments, the first and most obvious problem we had was with the wind indicator only showed the usual true and apparent wind direction and with no indication given to the wind speed as seen on the Raymarine ST60, so it did not take long to decide that we would stick with what we know and we would be fitting Raymarine instruments, after all, our last boat had Raymarine electronics and we never had a single problem with them, so stick with what you know. Plus it seems Raymarine has just updated the ST60 range, which is now called the ST60 Plus.


We will also be fitting an autopilot and the Raymarine ST6002 with the usual additions of the corepack and the drive unit will do nicely.

Technology...

Today I have been finding out about GMDSS LRC and Iridium communications, which don't come cheap, one of the main aims apart from safety and communications is the ability to download grib files via wireless communications. Plus the ability to send emails to stay in touch with our families without paying through the nose, there are a number of companies offering this as a product and a service.

Anyway just to say there is no shortage on the internet of people offering wireless communications. One thing is clear and that is we will need to do the GMDSS LRC course, which seems to be about 4 to 5 days with an exam at the end.

So, we would like to achieve the following:

Down loading GRIB files for weather analysis.
The ability to email our friends and family and receive emails of course.
Update our blog site via email, whilst on route at sea.
Well this is the first test of the technology, which is updating this blog from an email post.

Fingers crossed.

Mahe 36 Sea Trial, Chichester

Our day started very early with a 4.30 alarm, or it would have if we hadn't been so excited that we were already awake and eating breakfast by then. The day of our sea trial of a Mahe 36 made by Fountaine Pajot, the boat which after many months of research we had chosen for our round the world sailing adventure, all we needed now was to actually try it. After a mere 5 hour drive we would finally get to step aboard and better still head out and stretch her sea legs.

After several years of trying and failing to find a route out of the rat race we had finally decided to stop looking, take some time out and see the world, then worry about what we will do when we finish (if we finish) with hopefully a much better outlook of the world. Once we'd made that decision we really just needed to make the commitment and make it happen. We already had a deadline, March 31st 2008, the end of Kevin's current contract and now our wedding day too, because we really don't do things by halves. So now we have 9 months to buy a boat, sell a house and all contents, two cars, hand in my notice, oh and organise our Wedding / Leaving party. The trip was planned well before the wedding, then about 2 weeks ago Kevin quite spontaeously proposed in our favorite restaurant, so now we have quite the most amazing honeymoon planned. So, there was a lot riding on today, we really had to make a decision on a boat and get a delivery date (we found out there was an 11 month wait which could leave us waiting for two months) as we'd really set our hearts on setting straight off after the wedding.

We were meeting Karen from M.I. Cats at Chichester Harbour at 10.30 to go down to their demonstrator model followed by a sea trial later in the afternoon at high water. We were on the road before 5am and so managed to arrive in the lovely town of Emsworth for a tea and snack by 9.30. Conversation was dominated by Kevin's discovery of a 5000 Euro price hike on the Mahe the day before which had been posted on YachtWorld.com. It was a pretty big blow because we'd been in email contact trying to arrange a date to see the boat for about 6 weeks and so felt we'd unfairly missed out on the old price. We'd really begun to question our plan to buy a new boat, it's easy to dismiss 5k on top of a 168k Euro base price, but we'd started to measure the cost of everything in terms of how long it would last on our trip and 5,000 Euro was three months of sailing or a complete set of boat electronics. So we were just hoping that we could persuade M.I. Cats to let us take it at the lower price.

At 10am we headed over to Chichester Harbour to meet Karen and head over to the boat. We had seen the demonstrator quite by chance a couple of months before when viewing another boat in the area and had been amazed by the size and sturdiness of the appearance, in fact we hadn't even recognised it as a Mahe at first. We were so impressed that from that day the Mahe reached the top of the list and the Athena 38 or Lavezzi 40 the previous favourites were back up options in the event of an unfavourable sea trial.

We were grinning from ear to ear as Karen stepped aside to let us on board and we finally got look around, this may not have been best tactic for our later negotiations but as we both agreed later we'd pretty much both decided at that point anyway. We headed into the saloon and were amazed at the size, the pictures we'd been pouring over for weeks had made it appear much smaller than it actually was, which again we both just kept repeating whilst grinning to Karen. Then we were all over the boat like it was Christmas, in all the cabins and lockers, "look at this", "look at this", all pretence of impartiality now gone.

The Mahe 36 is built more as a family cruiser than it's predecessors which are really designed more for the charter market often with ensuite heads (toilets) to each of four double cabins, great for 8 people on a one week holiday but not the best use of space for 2 people for 2-3 years. The Mahe has 3 double cabins and a full size heads, taking the equivalent of a full cabin, creating a great "Master" hull with King-size cabin and shower with full standing height access. Add to that 6'3" headroom all round and all sheets lead to the helm for easier short-handed sailing, separate engine lazarettes and still with all round visibility from the saloon at deck level leading to a fantastic cockpit with loads of seating and a double helm seat, it felt like it had been built with us in mind.

Carl from M.I. Cats

We'd been finally converted to catamarans after a week's charter of an Athena 38 from Gosport this Easter where we'd instantly seen the benefits of a level stable platform, visibility all round from the saloon and galley, lower draught, increased speed and better maneourvability from two engines. Easily the best sailing we'd ever done, the sheer joy of not having to hang on to prepare food and move around. We were just so ridiculously over excited by that all week, because now not only were we going to sail around the world but it was actually going to be comfortable and enjoyable rather than just merely a challenge, fantastic to achieve but pretty gruelling whilst it lasts.

So, now it was just a sea trial and the price to be negotiated, we headed off for lunch to digest the updated price lists that Karen had given us, also the news that she had previously tried and failed to get another customer an order through on the old price. The good news however, was that the newer boats had some upgrades to them - Spifurl (screecher) sails instead of gennaker, volvo engine management console, white gel coat in the salon in place of battleship grey, electric fuel gauge and two hatches in the front windows. These were all changes which we would have made if able, we'd be pleased to get the newer looking model to reduce future depreciation, better yet the factory had started a double shift and we could now get the boat on our chosen date of the first week of April 2008. So you can see now how we started to justify the increase in budget to ourselves, though we trolled through the prices of options and recalculated our previous figures. Kevin was still determined to get the lower price and so we headed back early from lunch for Kevin to start the haggling, whilst I had another look round, being completely rubbish at those sort of negotiations.

Karen was slightly surprised by our unusual approach of price negotiations before the sea trial but after a few calls to France and to Carl one of M.I. Cat Directors we'd reached a deal subject to sea trial. We were pretty sure that this would be fine after all we had read from forums of current owners and following our Athena experiences. So Carl headed over and we head out to sea. It was quite a gusty day so ideal from our perspective to really see what she was like. As we were pointing to wind, we set up 2 reefs then dropped the sail before motoring out. It was very similar to the Athena and was done in a matter of moments. Carl took the helm to take us out of the harbour and through the very narrow lockgates at Chichester, now on flow through. We headed out down the channel, having already agreed that we would not be allowed to the open sea as the wind speed was now gusting 25+ knots and sea conditions were rough outside. I think it is company policy not to risk a bad review by scaring the potential customer, we wouldn't have minded but could understand their perspective and agreed to a 2-3 hour sail up the channel and back.


Jo at the helm

Kevin took the helm as soon as we were out of the mooring area near the entrance. Carl set the main with 2 reefs and a reefed genoa and we set off close hauled as soon as we were able to make 40 degrees to the wind, we were at 6 knots as we eased the engine into neutral. We were amazed by how high it pointed, this not being a great quality of the Athena or cats in general. I took the helm so Kevin could have a look around. There followed a great 3 hours of sailing that flew by, we managed several points of sail as we wound down the estuary and finished up downwind hitting 9 knots briefly on the way back. She handled really well and and made little notice of the choppy albeit sheltered conditions. We were now both utterly convinced and so headed back with Carl and Karen to hand over our cheque for the deposit. We'd done it, there was no turning back now! Delivery April 2008 with a factory visit in October.