S/v Convivia

What an exhausting, fulfilling, and significant weekend. We purchased all of our major safety systems this weekend, and deferred the water maker for another day. We got the kids to sit for at least 20 minutes of Zac Sunderland’s talk and Ruby even admitted that she wanted to hear more (but just couldn’t sit still). We saw 2 boats (a Lagoon 400, and a Morris 36) and completely lucked into getting a free, two hour ride (with marine biology mini-class) sail on the 82’ steel schooner Seaward. ...

So much fun at the show today. Merileigh took care of the kids (awesome!) while we went on our annual date. We picked up our life raft, wind vane, epirb, foulies, keel cooler, and met our New England Ropes contact. Friends are coming over in 10 for margaritas so I’ll leave you with the photos. We’re headed back tomorrow with the kids in tow.

“Olive, what was your favorite part of today?” “Anchoring out. Don’t you think it’s everyone’s favorite part? I bet everyone in the world loves anchoring out.” We almost didn’t anchor here. The Cruising Guide to San Francisco Bay, had more caveats than usual for this anchorage— Don’t even attempt if it’s foggy; you might get sucked right out the gate as you approach; the Coast Guard won’t take nicely to your presence on their side of the anchorage; etc.. After calling ahead (another recommendation from the guide) we were told that we were more than welcome to anchor, but there was a lot of surge, a few other people had called that day, and there was a pile of flotsam tied to a mooring out in the middle of the harbor that they were worried might work itself loose. But sure, come on down. ...

…I’ll have your HAM darling, I LOVE it. I passed my HAM Technician license exam on Saturday. I finished it in something like 10 minutes and aced it. They practically forced me to try for the General as well, which I did… and bombed (50%). I didn’t even think I would bother with the General, but now I’ve got to pass it so I started studying today. After the test I took the kids for a walk in Muir Woods (the test was in Mill Valley). It was pouring rain, but we had a ball splashing in the puddles and doing the treasure hunt. After the kids got worn out we loaded back into the car and headed over to the Ham Radio Outlet in Oakland (by way of Blue Bottle) to pick up my new set. We got an iCom IC-7000 with an AH-4 antenna tuner and a Signalink sound card modem (for email). ...

We just got the word from the contest organizers. s/v Convivia will begin her circumnavigation with all new running rigging provided by Dyneema and their partners. This prize is doubly sweet for our crew. First it provides us with an outstanding spring board of safety and performance for our round the world trip. Second our old lines, which still have some life left, will be outstanding backups. Extreme disasters notwithstanding, we shouldn’t need to buy new lines before we cross our path. ...

It’s 2:30 PST and the majority of the tsunami seems to have come and gone. Reports from around the Bay seem to be marginally more severe than what we experienced but still nothing serious. We observed 2’ walls of water moving at several knots parallel to the Golden Gate Bridge. Just before the tsunami surge hit our breakwater the standing water receded and left the muddy bottom bare. Then the wave(s) hit and created a ton of turbulence, kicking up mud and causing an impressive flotilla of water foul to stream by in parade. ...

Conserving water has been one of our biggest worries lately. With only 110 gallons of water tankage (plus whatever we can fit in cans on deck), we have a good reason to be concerned. The average Pacific crossing for a boat of our size is ~21 days. Conservative water consumption for 4 people (adults) is 2 gallons per day per person (or 8 gal/day total). We have been using about 17.5 gallons/day since we moved aboard. At that rate we would have just a little more than 6 days worth of water (sans Jerry Cans). ...

Writing two blogs is stressful. Trying to balance content, cross linking, updating those plugins on both sites, it sure takes a lot out of a guy. So when Cindy of Zach Aboard suggested merging the two sites, I didn’t have much of an argument. So it is with great pleasure that I announce Forgeivia. Just joking. I’m going to keep the Forgeover “brand” as the primary because it’s more established and more general. I’ve split all of the s/v Convivia content out by Category and you can filter out the Forgeover stuff (and see just the sailing content) by clicking on the s/v Convivia link in the Navigation bar. ...

Just got the email, the contest is closed! First, thank you so much to everyone that helped Team Convivia to reach the Top 10. It was so amazing to see our tribe come together in support of our dream like this. Truthfully, that was worth more than the re-rig. But since we’re in the top 10, I don’t have to choose. So without further ado here is the final scores for the Top 40 contestants (numbers may change slightly if they still allow activations). ...

We’re on our new anchor for the first time. When we started telling everyone that we were leaving this year for our cruise the sailors around us came out of the woodwork with offers of help to make things happen. Over the past few weeks we’ve purchased and installed our Rocna 33, our Lewmar V3 Windlass, and 300 feet of G40 HT 5/16" chain. We bought our anchor used, as a return to the store, for about a third of the retail price. The windlass and chain were also purchased at excellent prices. Still, for the cost of all of this ground tackle we could have stayed in a marina for a long long time. But staying in a marina is not our plan. ...