Author Archives : Chris French

What a year!


Whew looking back at 2016 I am feeling very good about the outcome. The long awaited trip to the Sea of Cortez accomplished, not only accomplished but thoroughly enjoyed. It is funny how different an experience will be from what we had dreamed about. Not at all in a good or bad way, just different. The trip to the Sea…

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Redesigning the Seawind 1160 Center Steering Bracket


I’m in the middle of upgrading the center steering bracket. The Seawind design had a single Ronstan Traveler Car to support the Steering Bracket. My understanding is the newer 1160 catamarans have relocated the Steering Bracket from a vertical mount to a horizontal mount to reduce stress on the ball bearings. This would be a significant change so instead I…

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And just like that it was over…


This adventure started on Sunday October 2nd wrapped up today, Thursday November 17th, six weeks and five days later. The crew varied with Vicki getting the most time aboard at 32 days and she was a tremendous help. The energizer bunny of the crew, she was in the water twice a day snorkeling or diving and when aboard never stopped…

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Rudder Bearing Removal on a Seawind 1160


UPDATE January 21, 2017!!! – Rudder bearing installation, see the new post for more information: Update What a process… I had reached out to Van at Seawind Catamarans for assistance on how to remove the rudder bearings. But I suppose I should start from the beginning – for a while now I have had a vibration when making a sharp…

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Snorkeling in Bahia Puerto Balandra


We stopped over in Balandra for a few days before the final, short hop into La Paz. This is home to the famous, and somewhat underwhelming, feature “Mushroom” rock. As it often the case it was smaller that expected and was rebuilt a number of years ago after it collapsed. Still it was something to check off the list. We…

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The energizer bunny that is Vicki


We had a beautiful sunrise our final day in Los Frailes. Our last day in Los Frailes, I decide to not scuba dive but Vicki was still keen to give it a go. So I dinghied her in to shore and walked with her to the road. With all of her dive gear walking to Cabo Pulmo was out of…

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Hitchhiking in Mexico to Cabo Pulmo


Our second day in Los Frailes, Vicki and I made the trek to the nearby Cabo Pulmo where the dive shops were located for the Pulmo reef (a protected national park). It was about four and a half miles but our friends on Thelastic clued us in to hitchhiking to shorten the trip. I had never hitchhiked before but I…

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Hiking to the top of Cerros Los Frailes


The heat (90-95 degrees) has been oppressive during the day so we decided to get an early start on our hike jumping into the kayaks as daylight was just cranking up. We paddled to shore and headed up a ravine that looked like a trail. After five minutes or so the path got narrower and more difficult to follow. A…

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San Jose Del Cabo and the El Ganzo hotel


It was a short sailing day, so we didn’t rush to get moving which in hindsight wasn’t the best, but wasn’t a big deal either. It just meant we had more time spent with wind and waves on our bows which resulted in some pounding at times. A bit out of San Jose, I called up the marina and found…

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