Ep. 59: Sailing offshore from Vava’u, Tonga to Fiji, Vanuatu, & New Caledonia with Linus Wilson, Season 4 of Slow Boat Sailing’s Part-Time Around the World Trip

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-csin2-b5995a

Linus Wilson talks about season 4 of his part-time around the world trip where he sails his 31-foot Island Packet from Vava’u, Tonga to Suva, Viti Levu, Fiji. Then he and his volunteer crew member sail to the home of the active volcano Mt. Yasur, Port Resolution, Tanna. Finally, the Slow Boat arrives in Noumea, New Caledonia after the third offshore passage in less than a month. That is the 15th successful multli-day offshore passage that Linus has captained in the Slow Boat since purchasing the sailboat in 2013. He summarizes seasons 1-4 and talks about the offshore passage strategy and execution.

The Slow Boat Sailing t-shirts and mug are at

Support the videos at
http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing
On the Slow Boat Sailing Podcast Linus Wilson has interviewed the crew of Sailing SV Delos, WhiteSpotPirates (Untie the Lines), Chase the Story Sailing, Gone with the Wynns, MJ Sailing, Sailing Doodles, SV Prism, Sailing Miss Lone Star, and many others.

Get Linus Wilson’s bestselling sailing books:
Slow Boat to the Bahamas

Slow Boat to Cuba

https://gumroad.com/l/cubabook
and How to Sail Around the World-Part Time

https://gumroad.com/l/sailing
have been #1 sailing ebook bestsellers on Amazon.
You can get the full audiobook of Sailing to Treasure Island by Captain John C. Voss. at

http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing

SAILING TO TREASURE ISLAND: The Cruise of the XORA (Annotated) by Captain J.C. Voss
The paperback at

or
http://www.lulu.com/shop/captain-jc-voss/sailing-to-treasure-island-the-cruise-of-the-xora/paperback/product-23887731.html

or the eBook at
http://www.lulu.com/shop/captain-jc-voss/sailing-to-treasure-island-the-cruise-of-the-xora/ebook/product-23887490.html

or audiobook
https://www.audible.com/pd/B07LC35H18/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-136779&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_136779_rh_us

Get the paperback or eBook
Sailing the Ogre: The Log of a Woman Wanderer (Annotated)
by Mabel M. Stock
at

or the audiobook at http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing
or audible
https://www.audible.com/pd/B07N7LT2DQ/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-140980&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_140980_rh_us
Associate Producers Larry Wilson, Kevin Yager, and Rick Moore (SSL).
Sign up for our free newsletter for access to free books and other promotions at http://www.slowboatsailing.com
Copyright Linus Wilson, Oxriver Publishing, Vermilion Advisory Services, LLC, 2019

Ep. 57: Van Den Heede speaks about his pitchpole and win in the 2018 GGR Golden Globe Sailing Race to Linus Wilson + the future for the podcast & YouTube channel

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-7zusm-a68dc4

Jean Luc Van Den Heede shatters Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s Sunday Time’s 1968 Golden Globe Race record by 100 days finishing first in the 2018 Golden Globe Race. Hear his story of his broken rig in the Southern Ocean. Linus Wilson talks about the plans for year 4 of the Slow Boat Sailing Podcast and YouTube Channel.

The links for SLOW BOAT TO THE BAHAMAS on Audible are

US

https://www.audible.com/pd/B07N7QFNJR/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-141382&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_141382_rh_us

UK

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B07N7RGCWK/?source_code=AUKFrDlWS02231890H6-BK-ACX0-141382&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_141382_rh_uk

FR

https://www.audible.fr/pd/B07N7S63DF/?source_code=FRAORWS022318903B-BK-ACX0-141382&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_141382_rh_fr

DE

https://www.audible.de/pd/B07N7QRZFK/?source_code=EKAORWS0223189009-BK-ACX0-141382&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_141382_rh_de

 

Find out how JLVDH did it from the start to finish of the toughest race in sailing, the GGR2018. Eighteen sailors got to the start line, but only five remained by day 212 of the fiftieth anniversary GGR 2018. Van Den Heede led most of the way as Are Wiig, Abhilash Tomy, Gregor McGucken, Loic Lepage, and Susie Goodall’s sailboats were dismasted. This retro race for 32-to-36-foot sailboats runs through the stormy Southern Ocean and even Van Den Heede could not escape unscathed. His boat was pitchpoled a few thousand miles from Cape Horn and he contemplated dropping out. His shrouds were damaged endangering his mast. Vandenheede was able to enact a repair and sailed on more slowly allowing Dutch sailor Mark Slats to almost catch him south of the Azores High. A tactical misstep of motoring though the center of the high instead of sailing more quickly to its west cost Slats any chance of taking the lead short of disaster as Van Den Heede stretched his lead to over 400 nm. This video features commentary from Sunday Time’s 1968 race winner English sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who was the only finisher of the original race in 312 days. Van Den Heede says he was inspired by his contemporary sailor Bernard Moitessier. Jean-Luc Van Den Head was the oldest entrant in the 2018 GGR. The race is his 6th circumnavigation of the Globe. Besides holding the GGR race record Van Den Heed still holds the record for the fastest east to west solo-circumnavigation of the globe. His 36-foot Rustler yacht is named Matmut after his main sponsor.

Video from VNR/PPL/GGR and Mark Slats was reproduced with the permission of the GGR 2018.

The Slow Boat Sailing t-shirts and mug are at

https://teespring.com/slow-boat-sailing
https://teespring.com/slow-boat-sailing-mug
https://teespring.com/women-s-tee-slow-boat-sailing

Support the videos at
http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing
On the Slow Boat Sailing Podcast Linus Wilson has interviewed the crew of Sailing SV Delos, WhiteSpotPirates (Untie the Lines), Chase the Story Sailing, Gone with the Wynns, MJ Sailing, Sailing Doodles, SV Prism, Sailing Miss Lone Star, and many others.

Get Linus Wilson’s bestselling sailing books:
Slow Boat to the Bahamas
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018OUI1Q2

Slow Boat to Cuba
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MFFX9AG
https://gumroad.com/l/cubabook
and How to Sail Around the World-Part Time
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B0OFYNW
https://gumroad.com/l/sailing
have been #1 sailing ebook bestsellers on Amazon.
You can get the full audiobook of Sailing to Treasure Island by Captain John C. Voss. at

http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing

SAILING TO TREASURE ISLAND: The Cruise of the XORA (Annotated) by Captain J.C. Voss
The paperback at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1790302390
or
http://www.lulu.com/shop/captain-jc-voss/sailing-to-treasure-island-the-cruise-of-the-xora/paperback/product-23887731.html

or the eBook at
http://www.lulu.com/shop/captain-jc-voss/sailing-to-treasure-island-the-cruise-of-the-xora/ebook/product-23887490.html

or audiobook
https://www.audible.com/pd/B07LC35H18/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-136779&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_136779_rh_us

Get the paperback or eBook
Sailing the Ogre: The Log of a Woman Wanderer (Annotated)
by Mabel M. Stock
at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MB8BF3C/
or the audiobook at www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing

or Audible

https://www.audible.com/pd/B07N7LT2DQ/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-140980&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_140980_rh_us

Associate Producers Larry Wilson, Kevin Yager, and Rick Moore (SSL).
Sign up for our free newsletter for access to free books and other promotions at http://www.slowboatsailing.com
Copyright Linus Wilson, Oxriver Publishing, Vermilion Advisory Services, LLC, 2019

Ep. 51: Sunk by Hurricane Irma and Stranded by Maria, Sailing Mischeif’s Ariana Czaia Interviewed by Linus Wilson

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-yuwri-965d05

Ariana Czaia and Christian Hightower just bought and outfitted the perfect cruising boat Mischief in Grenada. They were just getting the hang of sailing it when engine problems forced them to put into St. Martin. A few days later the category 5 Hurricane Irma destroyed St. Martin and sunk their boat. They were airlifted by the US Government to Puerto Rico. Then, another catagory 5 storm Hurricane Maria hit. You have to hear this story!

You will likely be also seeing it featured on Sailing La Vagabonde soon…

Check out their YouTube Channel Sailing Mischief:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxS3_tghsmY7NmygVq7uMiw

We also hear from our episode 23 guest Captain Annie Dike, author, videographer, and blogger extraordanair from Havewindwilltravel.com read from her first sailing book SALT OF A SAILOR. Hold onto your cosmos!

You can get that book in print (but not audio) at 

https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sailor-origins-durable-not-so-dainty-ebook/dp/B00T7YGKJU

We use a Mantus Anchor and swivel on our boat. Get all your Mantus gear at
http://www.mantusanchors.com/?affiliates=15
Mantus Anchors is the title sponsor of this podcast.

On the Slow Boat Sailing Podcast Linus Wilson has interviewed the crew of Sailing SV Delos, WhiteSpotPirates (Untie the Lines), Chase the Story Sailing, Gone with the Wynns, MJ Sailing, Sailing Doodles, SV Prism, Sailing Miss Lone Star, and many others.

You can get over 40 bonus episodes and up to 3 audiobooks by supporting the podcast and videos at

http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing

Get Linus Wilson’s bestselling sailing books:
Slow Boat to the Bahamas

Slow Boat to Cuba

and
How to Sail Around the World-Part Time

have been #1 sailing bestseller on Amazon.

The eBook of AROUND THE WORLD SINGLE-HANDED: The Cruise of the Islander by Harry Pidgeon is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C3THFZV

AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR: Volume 1, 2017 Edition by Nathaniel Bowditch

Slow Boat to Cuba

https://gumroad.com/l/cubabook

and

How to Sail Around the World-Part Time

https://gumroad.com/l/sailing

You can watch the Slow Boat’s round the world adventure and other videos about the most interesting cruising sailors in the world at

http://www.youtube.com/slowboatsailing

have been #1 sailing bestseller on Amazon.

Associate Producers, Anders Colbenson, Kevin Yeager, Larry Wilson, and Ted Royer.
Sign up for our free newsletter for access to free books and other promotions at http://www.slowboatsailing.com
Copyright Linus Wilson, Vermilion Advisory Services, LLC, 2018

 

Ep. 48: Gone with the Wynns’ Jason and Nikki Trade Their RV for a Sailboat Interviewed by Linus Wilson

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-b22hr-924a0d

Jason and Nikki Wynn of the Gone with The Wynns YouTube Channel and Blog speak to Linus Wilson about their transition from travel by RV to sailing catamaran. They talk about outfitting their 10-year old boat, sailing offshore, and exploring the Bahamas, Panama, and Ecuador in a sailboat. They discuss the life of successful digital nomads, and (spoiler) it does not involve four-hour workweeks.

https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/gonewiththewynns

 

Host Linus Wilson is podcasting from the Slow Boat in Bora Bora, French Polynesia. He discusses the new sailing movie Adrift based on the true story by Tami Oldham Ashcraft originally in the book Red Sky in Mourning and the AMC series of the Terror based on a novel by Dan Simmons about the lost sailing ships and men from the Franklin Northwest Passage expedition and its lost ships the Terror and Erebus.

You can get this audiobook and three others at

http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing

 

The eBook of AROUND THE WORLD SINGLE-HANDED: The Cruise of the Islander by Harry Pidgeon is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C3THFZV

 

 

AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR: Volume 1, 2017 Edition by Nathaniel Bowditch

 

 

We use a Mantus Anchor and swivel on our boat. Get all your Mantus gear at

http://www.mantusanchors.com/?affiliates=15

Mantus Anchors is a title sponsor of this video.

Support the videos at

http://www.Patreon.com/slowboatsailing

 

On the Slow Boat Sailing Podcast Linus Wilson has interviewed the crew of Sailing SV Delos, WhiteSpotPirates (Untie the Lines), Chase the Story Sailing, Gone with the Wynns, MJ Sailing, Sailing Doodles, SV Prism, Sailing Miss Lone Star, and many others.

Get Linus Wilson’s bestselling sailing books:

 

Slow Boat to the Bahamas

 

Slow Boat to Cuba

https://gumroad.com/l/cubabook

 

and

How to Sail Around the World-Part Time

https://gumroad.com/l/sailing

 

You can watch the Slow Boat’s round the world adventure and other videos about the most interesting cruising sailors in the world at

www.youtube.com/slowboatsailing

 

have been #1 sailing bestseller on Amazon.

Associate Producers, Anders Colbenson, Kevin Yeager, Larry Wilson, and Nelson Pidgeon

Sign up for our free newsletter for access to free books and other promotions at

www.slowboatsailing.com

 

Copyright Linus Wilson, Vermilion Advisory Services, LLC, 2018

Why Cuba?

Cuba was in the way. Open up a map or a chart and any boat coming from Florida or the Gulf of Mexico has Cuba standing between it and the Panama Canal. If you want to head south and sail around the world by way of the Panama Canal, as I did. You must work your way around Cuba.

The most popular tactic for sailors from the Gulf Coast of the U.S.A. or Atlantic Coast of North America is to head down the “thorny path.” The thorny path involves island hopping. That means slowly going east against the steady trades until you land in the eastern Caribbean. Once there, instead of motoring and beating into the wind, you can have a beam reach until you reach the Trinidad and Tobago. After 2,500 nautical miles up-wind from New Orleans, my home port, a boat will have to stop outside of the hurricane zone. It will surely have taken six months (or likely more) to get there.

Then, the crew still has a 1,000 nautical mile downwind sail across the whole length of the Caribbean Sea. On this downwind sail, the boat almost surely will have to sail through near gale or worse conditions past Colombia. There is a permanent Colombian low that often stretches from the Caribbean coast of Colombia to Jamaica that makes for a rough passage for most boats bound for the Panama Canal from the Eastern Caribbean. 3,500 nautical miles is a huge distance especially when you are mostly tacking upwind on a boat that is lucky to make 3 knots dead into the wind.

If all goes well, I would stop in the Eastern Caribbean after I had circled 90 percent of the globe. Right now I wanted to take the shorter path of about 1,500 nautical miles from New Orleans. That path went through Cuba.

I did not have the luxury of time. I was sailing around the world part-time. My wife and I decided that we did not want to quit our jobs. Since I taught, I had summers off. I could sail during the summers and my wife and my five-year-old daughter could join me for part of the summer cruise. My wife worked a more typical schedule. She only had a few weeks of vacation per year.

The earliest that I could sail was May. That was just one month before the start of hurricane season. I did not want to be living on or sailing on a boat in the most dangerous part of the hurricane belt during the height of hurricane season. June is historically the least active month of hurricane season. My new insurance company, Lloyds, required that I had to be out of the hurricane zone by July 1. Panama is outside of the hurricane belt. That meant I had May and June to get to Panama. If you factor in weather windows and going upwind, bypassing Cuba was out of the question.

In theory, you could just sail around Cuba, but the trade winds make that very difficult. Tacking on the bay is very different than beating in two-to-three meter (6-to-10 foot) swells in the Caribbean Sea. Plus the Yucatan current is stronger than the Gulfstream and it pushes a boat north at speeds of around three knots. Strong currents are prone to creating dangerous waves when wind opposes current. Thus a fair wind in the Yucatan channel west of Cuba would mean dangerous waves. If your boat’s top speed is 6 knots like mine, sailing upwind in such a strong current is almost impossible.

Being able to rest and refuel in Cuba would make sailing to Panama so much easier. We could use the barrier islands on Cuba’s south coast to break up the trade winds and swells much like sailors use the Intracoastal Waterway ICW on the eastern seaboard to make progress south to the Bahamas. The problem with the Cuba strategy was the half-century old embargo. The Cuba embargo prevented American sailors and U.S.-flagged vessels from visiting Cuba.

When Janna, Sophie, and I were sailing in the Bahamas during my sabbatical from teaching, the U.S. policy was changing on the executive level. These changes raised the prospect that I could legally sail to Cuba. This change upended fifty plus years of sailing orthodoxy that said that sailing the entire 1,000 mile east-west distance of the Caribbean Sea was the best way to sail to Panama. This orthodoxy was not brought about by good sailing directions, but in large part by the failed 50-year embargo that prevented U.S. sailors from visiting the largest island in the Caribbean Sea. We were prevented from sailing to the island that lay due north of the Panama Canal and due south of Florida. Sailing to the eastern Caribbean is sailing east to go south. It makes no sense except in the prism of the Cuba embargo.

This is a preview of Slow Boat to Cuba which will be available on Amazon in late November 2016.