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Salvador, Brazil
Wow! It happened! Amazing. Our new 46-foot
catamaran, Hands Across the
Sea, has been built, launched,
commissioned, and is now happily afloat on a river in Brazil.
To make
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Hands
Across the Sea was launched in early November, 2007,
in Aracaju, Brazil
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this happen took a decades-old dream
(TL and Harriet's) and eight months of work by a dedicated team
of designers, builders, woodworkers, electronics specialists,
and riggers at Dolphin
Catamaran (see the bottom of this page for our Dolphin team).
To be honest, even though we have been afloat and "shaking
down" (road testing) Hands for a month now in Todos
Santos Bay in Salvador, Brazil, the reality hasn't sunk in.
Yes, we've sold our house in Massachusetts, ended our careers,
and are now embarked on the first stage of sailing the world
and lending a hand where we go...but there's still a lot to
do before we get started.
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A
traditional Brazilian fisherman's canoe, called a jangada;
when the wind fails, the paddles come out
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First on our list is learning how to
manage this boat, which is both much larger than our previous
28-foot long-distance cruising yacht, and also more complex.
We have nearly all of the modern conveniences of land life,
including a telephone (handheld satellite phone) and computers
(though we have no onboard Internet connection — we have
to find that ashore in Internet cafes). And for sailing we
have networked electronics, including radar and a GPS chartplotter,
and powerful winches for trimming and furling the sails. Because
Hands is a catamaran, we'll be able to cover miles
quickly on offshore passages, though that means we have to
"stay ahead of the boat" (reduce sail area before
squalls hit) to safely handle the large-size sails. We have
about 2,400 nautical miles ahead of us to reach the island
nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and we're excited about the
passagemaking challenges that lie ahead. As we move up through
the Caribbean chain this winter, we will begin to tackle the
other challenge of our new life afloat — lending a hand
where we can through Hands Across the Sea. —
T.L. and Harriet
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Harriet with
(l-r) Jr. Pimenta, owner of Dolphin Catamarnans; Paulo,
project manager of our boat; and Diego, Dolphin's systems
specialist
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Philippe Pouvreau,
designer & builder of the Dolphin 460, testing the
custom-built ship's tender for Hands Across the Sea
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Paulo
and TL with Hands in July, 2007, during the early
construction stages before the interior finishing and
deck hardware installation
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The master
woodworker at Dolphin Catamarans, Paulo, who oversaw
all of the handcrafted joinerwork of Hands
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Jr. Pimenta
with a member of his CAD/CAM design team, reviewing
the boat's anchor retrieval system
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First
sail! Harriet, Philippe, and Jr. enjoy some Brazilian
sunshine and light winds during our first sail on Hands
Across the Sea
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Hands
Log archive
#1 (Nov
2007); #2 (Dec 2007); #3 (April 2008) |
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