s/v Field Trip

Leaving Boat Lagoon In Phuket, Thailand - only my second time ever driving the boat out of a slip! A quick note before I begin -  I’ve lost my voice.  I’m not sure what I have to say anymore, or even what I had to say before.  What did I tell you about?  What do you wonder about?  Our life aboard after seven years has just become normal to me.  I forget that it isn’t.  I know I take it for granted.  To the rest of the world, our lifestyle is unique, unusual, exotic.  But to me, it’s just everyday life  and I sit down to write, stumped by what in the world I could possibly say.  So, I have decided to ‘just write’ anyway - to meander through recent happenings and insert my inner thoughts as I share, fighting against those voices that tell me how mundane it all must seem to you.   Anyway, here goes… You mean this isn't how everyone buys their groceries?? Back...

Author: Mark Date: Nov 27, 1:00am NZT Location: 34 15 S - 175 38 E Conditions: 6-8ts @ 160 TWA, 228T COG, 5.3 kts AVG SOG, flat seas 24 HR Avg: 145 NM (We are tracking 1pm - 1pm) The big news today was our double hookup of tuna! Around 8.30am we heard the lines go zing, and knew we had two good sized fish on the line. We've had fish on the line virtually every day of our sail...but have been less fortunate on getting them 'on the boat'. This time was different. We managed to land both fish. It took about an hour to clean and prep the fish for the fridge (yes Sarah, I did double bag each batch...grin). Everyone was thrilled to have fresh fish for the finally into Opua. We had seared tuna for lunch and a full spread of sashimi for dinner. It was excellent. Pics of the fish are posted on Facebook. The closer we get to Opua, the slower we've been moving. We've been battling a lot of current today on the nose. Presently we have about .5-.75kts again...

Author: Mark Date: Nov 26, 12:50am NZT Location: 32 19 S - 176 53 E Conditions: 8-10ts @ 165 TWA, 212T COG, 6.2 kts AVG SOG, 1.0m swell 24 HR Avg: 156 NM (We are tracking 1pm - 1pm) We had a good, uneventful day. The biggest struggle aboard is the need to use our engines. We've been motor sailing most of the day with winds variable, light and sometimes non-existent. Overall it's better to have calm conditions than getting whacked with a low passing over New Zealand, but it is still frustrating to use engines. If we were not racing against the arrival of a small low on Saturday, we'd truck along at 4-5kts under sail...but the luxury of the wind and only wind driving us to a destination south of 30 degrees can be foolish with potentially strong and dangerous weather systems ripping across these low latitudes. Last week the low over New Zealand brought 50kts, lighting, rain and hellish conditions on the water....so engine propulsion is the order of the day! To k...

Author: Mark Date: Nov 25, 2:00am NZT Location: 30 18 S - 178 13 E Conditions: 11-13ts @ 130 TWA, 185T COG, 6.7 kts AVG SOG, 1.0m swell 24 HR Avg: 168 NM (We are tracking 1pm - 1pm) Well, we knew it would happen and it did. The winds have died down significantly. In fact, for six hours (6pm - midnight) we had virtually no wind and motor sailed. Arg. I really hate flicking on the engines, but we did. We are targeting arrival by Friday. If we don't keep the boat moving we will push into Friday night and risk getting hit by the low moving over the North Island Saturday. We received a couple of questions regarding our sail configuration during this trip. We've been using our mainsail with our new North Sails Code Zero. The Code Zero (not to be confused with the 'Screecher') is our newest sail aboard Field Trip. It is 30% larger than our old North Sails Screecher. This new sail is a significant improvement over the previous sail. Burns (sail designer for...

Author: Mark Date: Nov 24, 1:45am NZT Location: 27 57 S - 178 57 E Conditions: 14-16ts @ 130 TWA, 185T COG, 8.45 kts AVG SOG, 1.5m swell We wrapped up a very good day today. The winds and sea state have been very kind, and we logged 184NM in 24 hours. Overall a good day for Field Trip and crew. James is getting used to the bumping under his berth that occurs with the waves slapping at higher speed. While the sea state and boat motion are comfortable, moving along at bursts of 10+kts can create some noise. I told James this morning that if Sarah was aboard, she would let me know that I needed to slow down the boat....grin. Every morning we listen to Gulf Harbor Radio, a HF net out of New Zealand dedicated to yachts sailing to and from NZ during the sailing season. This is the last week GHR is on the air, before taking their summer break. According to GHR there are 28 yachts taking this weather window south. That's a lot of boats out here sailing in the same general ...

Author: Mark Date: Nov 23, 1:30am NZT Location: 25 03 S - 179 59 W Conditions: 16-18ts @ 135 TWA, 210T COG, 8.3kts AVG SOG, 2m swell with 8s period There's a lot to get everyone caught up on regarding our trip from Fiji to New Zealand. I've been delinquent on updates so far with our trip. I promise, I'll do daily updates until our arrival to New Zealand! We've been having a great time. Onboard we have James Garbacz and Carlos Diaz. James is the husband of my business partner Laura and Carlos is a good friend and sailor from Argentina. Reminiscent of last year's trip, the crew arrived to Port Denarau, Fiji - with the expectations that we would be patient for weather, and leave when it was time to go. My hope - find a window that we could stomach to sail SE 420 NM to Minerva Reef. This is not an easy request as the trade winds typically come from this same direction. It was a long shot, and we were not holding out hopes. We began by a brisk provis...

Keeping track of Field Trip can sometimes be a 'Needle in a Haystack.  With limited connectivity, our sometimes rapid pace, we've decided to do a much better job on keeping our readers up to date on our location.  While Facebook has been updated fairly regularly, especially our float plans on longer trips, we are going to be keeping our blog up to date as well. There are two primary methods we are using beginning this week. SPOT .  We have not used spot to keep track of Field Trip since our long passage from Brazil.  It has gathered dust.  We are now committed to log each and every anchorage when we arrive .  So, you will be able to click on our ' Track Us Here ' tab to see exactly where we are. Google Maps .  We are also logging our actual sailing routes and keeping a full history of every single overnight anchorage of Field Trip.  It's been painful, but we've now updated this new map for the entire trip since December 2011.  Ther...

We all grow up.  Some faster than others.  That was the sentiment from our recent fishing/diving trip.  Three of my Tau Kappa Epsilon pledge brothers joined Field Trip in Nassau Bahamas.  Times change when 20+ years fly by.  Marriage.  Careers.  Kids.  All very good.  What doesn't change is our fraternal friendship, memories and ability to laugh at each other and everything around us. It's very hard to find a time and place to get together.  Even harder when it involves a sailboat in a foreign country coupled with everyone's busy schedules.  A special thanks to our families for letting us have some guy time on the water.  It was fantastic. Everyone arrived late New Year's day in Nassau.  Early the next morning, we got up, provisioned the boat and left the marina.  It was a fast pace, but we wanted to get away from the city, and head to the remote islands of the Exumas. It was the first time sailing on a large...

We’ve crissed and crossed the gulf stream 4 times. Notorious for being challenging and at times down right dangerous – we made our best crossing as a family. The challenge? We set a date and place – Nassua Dec 22 for flights to Nashville. Never set a date and place far in advance when sailing. It almost always adds stress and causes potentially unnatural decisions to make the ‘date and place’. The key?  Patience & flexibility. We stayed in North Palm Beach for almost 2 weeks. 12 days longer than planned. Plans change. Our watermaker died and the weather was persistent out of the NE, E.  The good news, Beard Marine was excellent. They found the problem – our ‘Energy Transfer Device’ ($4,500) died. The better news, it was covered by warranty and Sea Recovery upgraded our entire unit to the new model a no charge. The new model is supposed to be more ‘bullet proof’ than the old design. We were thrilled. We also took the time to connect for drinks with ...

Here we sit, in a marina in North Palm Beach, Florida, to get our watermaker back on track.  It is only one of many things we are doing before making the leap to the island life once again.  Mark and I were remembering what it was like the first time we set foot on the East Coast of the US, after being in Argentina and the Caribbean for months.  We still plainly recall how it felt to walk into the nearby Bed, Bath, and Beyond store.  I'm sure everyone wondered what rock we'd crawled out from under as we rejoiced about all the choices and the good quality along every aisle!  Our cries of excitement formed a chorus of "oohs and awes"that caused other shoppers to stare.  We had walked blocks and blocks of Buenos Aires, searching for bedding and linens that paled in comparison to the walls of fabrics offered in this monstrous consumer smorgasbord!  Thankfully, we'd rented a car, so we could pack it full of all of the indulgences that America offers, unlik...

We apologize in advance for our belated blog entry.  We've admittedly relied on FaceBook to keep up to date our most recent moves post Hurricane Sandy. Our spot in the Dismal Swamp was perfect.  We were behind the locks, tied securely to a wall and waited out the storm.  We saw 30-35kt gusts, and that was it.  Lots of rain.  We met a lot of new folks and met another kid boat from Canada. While we were holed up with rainy days, I was able to work on a new method to record our logs.  More details later when I get this off the ground.  Going to be a really neat and efficient way for boats to keep track of everything regarding 'boat life' on the iPad. After the Dismal Swamp, we booked it through the ICW to Moorehead City, NC and sailed non-stop 'outside' to Charleston, SC.  Here we hooked up with our buddy boat Equilibre (Catana Catamaran with 3 kids aboard) and had a lot of fun catching up post Hurricane Sandy. Field Trip alongside wall ...

After an exciting day going through the locks on the Dismal Swamp Canal (worrying the entire way that we'd not be able to find a place to "hunker down" for Sandy), we found a wonderful group of mariners tied up along a wall right between the South Mills Bridge and the South Mills Locks in North Carolina.  There was just enough space left for us.  At least 4 men and women welcomed us warmly by taking our lines and promptly informing us of all the nearby attractions in the booming town of South Mills - the grocery shop, Methodist church, and pizza joint all within walking distance!  Then, one very organized mate gathered our contact information so that we could all communicate without having to step out into the rain and storm.  Brilliant. We are in good hands. Field Trip sits at the end of the line! So, now here we sit while it rains and rains and rains.  The winds are set to come in later tonight, so we feel very lucky to have found such a place to wa...