A total of 600Ah capacity would give us up to 480Ah of usable power (at 80% discharge) of usable capacity with a total weight of 60kg

Since the beginning of our boat travels we did not like the idea of LPG on the boat.

This was it we were going to sail upwind to the Canaries when most people sail downwid to get there!

This stage of the preparation of the hull was not only backbreaking but also psychologically challenging.

Logbook extract for the sailing trip from Madeira, Portugal to La Graciosa, Canary Islands, Spain 272 nautical miles in 46 hours

A pure cost analysis not factoring inflation over a period of 10 years puts normal antifoul paint at 4500€ against the 4200€ of Coppercoat

To our surprise the weight difference between the old set-up with the original Bimini and the new hardtop was negligible.

We start getting closer to Madeira, the winds start pressing blowing close to 20 knots true wind, and we pick up a bit more speed 7/8 knots

Extract of the Logbook for the sailing trip from Cascais, Portugal to Porto Santo, Madeira, Portugal 486 nautical miles in 79 hours

The PredictWind routing weather forecast did tell us the previous days that we should have tracked north to try and keep with the winds

Moment of panic, were they Orcas or just dolphins? Two more sightings with the binoculars confirmed they were Orcas coming in our direction

Eyes glued on the water, Ella going crazy and there it was a huge whale surfacing 50-100 meters to our starboard!

We took a sneaky short cut exiting the Ajaccio gulf by passing in between the Iles Sanguinaires (the Bloodthirsty islands, interesting name)

The boom jumped further to port side with a slam and stayed in that position. The German Mainsheet system looked weird but it was not broken

At this point we experienced 3 knots of current against us. Running the engine at 2000RPMs we were only doing slightly above 3knots of speed

Think it’s safe to say that at this point we both felt this was more than we had bargain for, the winds were way stronger than forecasted

I woke up due to the rolling swell and feeling really cold. John was furling the Jib, the winds had just picked up that extra notch

They were quite surprised that John and I could lift it reasonably easily just the two of us

With a plan in mind, we prepared a set of lines and straps, arranged in a way that allowed us to flip the 3.8x3.8m hardtop

Once all the fibreglassing for both pieces was completed it was time to start working on preparing for fairing and primer painting.