I see the server is down again. That used to be frequent, but it has been a while now. That means no email and the website is also down. I do have a gmail somewhere, but its after 7 in the evening so will hit it tomorrow. I’m sure they can fix it by then.

This view sums up the wonderfulness of being on a cat like Alii Nui. Put on those fins and shuffle down into the warm water to visit the reef.  Notice the two lanes for up and down apart.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sailing-with-Lil-Explorers-Catamaran-and-Crew/281505708649584

Day 1 Leaving Galapagos –

Beautiful day. Started out with some nice rain to wash the boat, then a pleasant 10 knots of wind to push us along. We have been with spinnaker and main all day, with our speed varying with the wind. There is a large pleasant swell coming out of the Southeast, and some smaller swells coming from a variety of other directions.

We caught another giant Yellow Tail. This one was about 3.5′ long and gave us around 20 pounds of delicious meat. Looks like we will not be fishing for another week. This one was not a giant fighter, nor as big as the last one, but still giant!

Everyone is doing great, and we are all making predictions as to how long it is going to take! My guess is around 23 days, with time off for great wind days!

There are 3 other catamarans leaving today also, and two larger catamarans that have already left, so the race is on!

Until tomorrow!!
Courage

I had the occasion to lay up some Kevlar this last weekend. It was on the door faces for the lunar lander project. It is largely for psyche value, but might hold the door together against a framing hammer attack.

I have not used Kevlar before as I feel that it has no place on a real boat. While it has great tensile strength, it has very little compression strength, and thus low bending strength. It also has the defects that nothing sticks to it, and it absorbs water.  It is often used for marketing purposes though, and it does have a better stretch to failure than carbon fiber.

It is probably most used to market to yuppies who know enough to know that it is higher test than e-glass, but not much else about it.  Kind of like the carbon cleat pads that I saw on a Gunboat.  Cleats are mostly loaded in shear, and shear is where carbon is the least benefical, but hey, its carbon.  And Kevlar does look cool.

The KHSD 53/55/58 cruising catamaran Lil Explorers is continuing its voyage.

Central America now and keeping on.

Find it on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sailing-with-Lil-Explorers-Catamaran-and-Crew/281505708649584

ENTEBBE.
The ministry of Transport has allowed a private company to ply the Entebbe-KalangalaIsroute on Lake Victoria.” They will be using the KHSD 65 catamaran ferry Amani.  http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/New-ferry-gets-green-light-to-ply-the-Kalangala-route/-/688334/2264354/-/preev9z/-/index.html

The KHSD 56 daycharter cat Palmetto Breeze is at it again. If memory serves, this unit is certified for 100 passengers.  http://www.etix.com/ticket/online/venueSearch.jsp?venue_id=8648

Nick’s 42′ catamaran was featured in a newpaper story recently.  I see the software squeezed the X axis so the pictures look forshortened in the X direction.  I kept it so the text remains as large and clear as possible.

Oops I missed it. Was April 5 and 6 here in Seattle. But the guys from Alii Nui were there with a booth.  http://www.divenewsnetwork.com/expo/

The KHSD 65 daycharter cat Alii Nui out of west Maui has a blog now.
http://www.aliinuimaui.com/Blog/

Below a construction picture from the shop at Schooner Creek in Portland.