I've been busy getting my Oday 240 ready for sale. Mostly just touching up some things. She looks really nice. She has new sails, new dinghy, and new cabin cushions. The boat has a tiller pilot, solar panel and controller, Garmin chart plotter, and a good bimini. The Tohatsu is 12 years old but runs great. I also believe that I've solved the deck joint issues. It's really a nice boat, but not much market these days. I figure that We have certainly got my money's worth out of the boat in the 12 plus years that We've owned her.
I'll be heading up to Wisconsin to start getting the new boat ready for the summer in late April. In the meantime, next week, I'm heading off with my friend Mark to do a trailer sailor adventure. We are pulling his Presto 30 down to Ft. Lauderdale and heading out for a 3 week Bahamas cruise. We are starting to look at the weather window for getting across. We can leave as early as 3/18, launching on the 20th, but that's not looking great at this point. We can be patient and wait it out up here. We'll see. Here are t=some pics of the Presto.presto 1.jpgpresto 2.jpgpresto 3.jpg
Oh, and I bought a new gadget. I picked up a Garmin Inreach Mini2. It's a global satellite communicator. You can text anywhere on earth, it tracks where you are, has a global weather service, and has a robust sos feature. Also adds one more gps device. The texting is more reliable and instantaneous than what you get with an iphone. The SOS goes to Garmin's global monitoring service and they direct the message to the appropriate rescue responders. Unlike an epirb it includes direct communication with the responders. You would still want an epirb for blue water sailing, but this would be a welcome addition to use in conjunction with. You can set it up to send out regular progress positions to whoever you want.
Looks like someone is going to have some fun!
I just picked up a Zoleo in prep for some adventures. The guy who does Small Craft Tazmania recommended it.
zoleo.jpg
I was looking at that one as well. Seemed like it does most, if not all, that the Garmin does. I was able to get a substantial discount on the Garmin, so that made up my mind.
I've always wanted to sail a presto... I saw it on the internet many years ago, started researching them, then saw one at the Miami boat show. At the time it was very reasonably priced for what it was, but this was when I was just starting out in the workforce so it wasn't meant to be. Alot of cool design ideas in that one.
They really went with some innovative ideas. Probably way too different for mass market. It's actually easier to put up its two masts than the one on my Oday 240. No standing rigging, but managing the wishbones is its own set of issues. The one thing that is really clumsy is the galley space. With the centerboard trunk it is too tight for one person to pass behind another who is trying to cook or clean up. I think that the super shallow draft will really be awesome in the Bahamas.