Author Archives : Chris French

Sailor on sabbatical…


F**k me. It is so hard. So very hard to let go of SV Strikhedonia. She has been a huge part of my life during the past six years. Taken me on adventures I could never have imagined, kept me up late at night on anchor watch, and grown in me a deep appreciation for Mexico and her people. Along…

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Strikhedonia is sold :(


Best to back up a bit first… With Strikhedonia in Puerto Vallarta and a delivery captain hired it was a waiting game for good weather and delivery crew availability. A month rolls by, no set date. A second month rolls by, still no set date and talk of other deliveries being ahead of Strikhedonia. Huh?!?! So I began the search…

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Premium Mogas in an RV-10? Looks promising


I have begun researching the possibility of running 93 octane, non-ethanol mogas in my RV-10. Reading posts and forums it seems like it should be no problem. 1. My intentions is to run one tank 100LL and the other tank 93 mogas, like others are doing. I’d use the 100LL for take off and landing and the mogas for cruising…

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Aerosport Aluminum Insert Panels – for Garmin G3X on an RV-10


Another big project, putting together CAD files for the aluminum interior panels with all of the avionics and lighting components. Prior to this project I had not worked with CAD software in a very long time and had to learn LibreCAD. No doubt the dimensioning is very amateur but the placement and component dimensions were checked and double checked. I…

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Garmin G3X Avionics Schematic Drawing


Wowza, putting together these documents was a heavy lift. Rough guess is 150 hours of research, drawing, and validation. Initially my plan had been to hire Stein Air to draw my schematics but Covid-19 gave me the time to do the research and work myself, and in the process save $1,000. You need to be very technically proficient to take…

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What’s next? Hmfp, I don’t know, build an airplane?


I am someone who always needs to have a project in my life. With my time with SV Strikhedonia coming to an end, ideas had been bouncing around in my head. For years the idea of building an airplane popped up but the commitment and idea of pounding tens of thousands of rivets after drilling, deburring, and dimpling seemed daunting.…

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The end of the line


The night that Anna and Jessica left PV I talked to my wife. She was greatly concerned as the shelves were bare at the grocery stores in Minnesota. So the next day I headed to Walmart where I stocked up on all the dry good staples, just in case I was stuck for months in Mexico. My plan was to…

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The time slips by much too fast


After a couple high intensity days, we slowed down a bit. We enjoyed relaxing meals in town, walks on the beach, and the ladies did some shopping. Unfortunately the micro-brewery was closed but there are so many beach bars to choose from, it wasn’t missed. As so frequently happens the days slipped by quickly and before we knew it we…

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Hustle to Banderas bay


Back aboard I wasted no time getting Strikhedonia ready for the passage to Banderas bay. I had Jean and our friends coming in about a week and finding a good weather window meant getting to Perula as quickly as possible. After checking out of the marina, getting a good night’s sleep, at the crack of dawn it was time to…

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