Bryan Rolfe

I get all my epoxy online. You can order the Totalboat stuff directly off Amazon if that's what you decide to use. Okoume may be hard to find locally in general, but I'm not familiar with the ATL area. You may have to order a stack and have it delivered.

Yeah every new technology has its hiccups, and it's too bad e-propulsion doesn't have replacement cables/connectors, as I do see that as a vulnerability too. Gas outboards have been around a lot longer and improved over decades to (mostly) be reliable and low maintenance. That said, I've had to re-build carbs in many exotic places. We're leaving the option open for a gas outboard, preferably a small 2-stroke, but we're going to give the electric a shot until it stops working, or proves itself incompatible with our needs.

Is it really $35/day now? I think when I was there it was $10/day, but I honestly don't remember having to pay it. That could be because my boat was only 27ft, and someone had a private mooring that was a little closer to shore that they very kindly let me use (there were no moorings available when I arrived). That is kind of one thing I didn't like about Bonaire, is that there were so few moorings and they were basically always all taken, that whenever you wanted to go day sail somewhere else on the island you had to "reserve" your mooring with your dinghy. I did enjoy it much more than Curcao though. Curacao is a more useful place to be, as it has the stores and ammenities needed for our boats. But Bonaire is quiet and cute, unless there's a cruise ship on the dock.

Though I waffled back and forth on this for a while, I decided ultimately to go with an electric outboard, at least for now. If we feel like we need a small 2-stroke, I'm confident we'll find one 2nd hand very cheaply once we're in Mexico. I took it out for a little 5NM stroll through the estuary where our boat is kept. Was really satisfying, I can't believe ho quiet these things are. In fact, the noise the water makes against the hull is far louder than the motor itself, especially at the speeds I was running it (100-230W for 3-4kts). I do need to come up with a bracket for it to mount on. Today I used some plastic material so I wouldn't damage the relatively soft wood. Unfortunately the rudder gudgeons are bolted through basically right where the bolts need to be for the engine mount, so I think I will just 3D print something with ASA (UV resistant) that slips over this bit on the inside, and maybe a thin metal plate on the other side. Or I could swithc to screws... I thought there was a good reason I through bolted them, but I really can't think of the reason given the force on the rudder is so minimal.

Yeah I'm wondering if I should add a reef to my sail for the trade winds. Sometimes I forget how it's just constantly blowing 15-20kts there. Hope you got to spend some time in Bonaire before Curacao. Both have their advantages, but Bonaire is really hard to beat from the standpoint of how beautiful the water is in comparison. You should also head over to Klein (little) Curacao, makes for a fun little trip. And when it times to depart further west, assuming that's your plan, there are a bunch of nice littel spots along the west coast of Cuarcao to anchour outside of Spanish Water.

Yeah the reef passage to Le Phare Bleu would be risky under sail the the daggerboard down. Were you removing sections of the mast on the fly? That's something I haven't figured out how I'll do yet, if it ever becomes necessary. I'm not sure we'll make it back to the Caribbean with our Spindrift, but if we go west long enough we might. I am excited to explore the atolls of the south Pacific with one though, I think that could be a lot of fun.

Wow, I'm impressed you've seen so many! Kudos to the guys without any oar locks, not sure if they're crazy or just really competent. Have you guys been sailing your dinghy very much? When I was in Grenada, I would row my inflatable a mile every morning to shore (I was in Woburn Bay overy by the Hog Island bridge). But sometimes I would need to go over to one of the adjacent bays, which is quite a long trip to row -- but would have been a blast to sail.

I ended up glassing before cutting in half since it made the actual glassing easier, since I could just do each side in one go. But if your temperatures are such, or you resin is a fast curing resin, it could be nice to cut it in half first so you have more manageable surfaces to glass in one go.

Hope you're enjoying the islands, and getting some time to go north before the hurricane is fully upon you. I really in enjoyed Dominica -- not the best anchorages, but it's a fantastic island to explore and much less developed than some of the other ones. Also if you haven't already, the Tobago Cays in the Grenadines are absolutely worth visiting. Might be worth adding a bow eye or similar that you can attach the chain to instead? Going over the hull like that I think you'll get chafe. When I was in St. Martin, with an old dinghy and a 2.5HP outboard, I walked up on a guy trying to cut through my chain and confronted him. He straight up tried to tell me it was his dinghy. Like you, I'm sort of hoping that a hard wooden sailing dinghy is not a desirable target for thieves, but the outboards surely are.

That's very flattering! I had a sailing YouTube channel a while back, so I definitely have been knee-deep in this before. But I wasn't really planning on documenting this at all, and so I leaned heavly on a lot of phone footage which isn't the best. I think the shots that are most "Leo" like are the ones I shot on my DSLR though, as they are much more deliberate, controlled, and provide both dramatic lighting and depth of field. Yeah and the plywood might have been more affordable back then, or more available at least. I really couldn't even find reasonably priced marine plywood of the right thickness around here, so there would have been added costs of shipping or ferrying it from somewhere else. I don't know how much time I saved, but it was probably substantial and there's enough work to do still that I don't feel like it was cheating at all.

Well I compiled all the footage I had of the build process and put it into a very long video if anyone is interested!

I need to decide how to fender our Spindrift too. I also am concerned about mildew though with the fabric/weave of some of these solutions. Is there not a rubber-like/UV-stable plastic version that has a foam interior?

Seems like a fun little project! In all seriousness, how epic and ambitious -- how much solar is on that cabin top? Looks like maybe 1 kW? We're considering putting a Beta 35/38 in our Westsail 32 as well, had a smaller beta on my last boat and it treated me well.

We finally got the dinghy to the boat today, which was an important milestone since we had never test fitted it on our boat other than with a 3D print I made earlier. I think we like it best under the boom, as its out of the way there compared to the foredeck. We'll have to mount some wooden blocks on deck and then probably strap things down. We also got out for a sail which was lovely. Sailed down to a restaurant not too far from where our boat is docked and got some tacos to celebrate.

Any time you store energy in a confined space, be it gas, diesel, or various battery chemistries, and design that stored energy to be "easy" to release, there's a risk of that energy releasing much faster than you intended. Gas is probably the most dangerous, followed by LFP maybe, and then diesel. Usually the bigger risks with any battery system is the wiring not being properly protected, and a short causing a fire that way. Off topic: Will Prowse has really good when he sticks to the subject matter he knows well: batteries and solar. However, he has in recent years chosen to share some of his pseudoscientific views, particularly about drinking alkaline water and chemicals in our clothing causing health issues (which is why he is always wearing a merino wool shirt in his video). Neither of which are supported evidence-based research. I just find it interesting how people can use data-driven analysis rigorously in one aspect of their life, and would probably poo-poo anyone making claims about batteries that are not supported by data, but are willing/able to completely ignore it in other aspects of their life -- or more likely, they just don't trust it if they didn't do the testing themselves.