First Overnight sail with Proasis

The night is just a day without light- from the physical point of view this quote from Michael Ende’s “Momo” is correct, but sailing at night is still feels very different. The wind always seems to be twice as strong, the waves humongous, and every noise sounds like the imminent failure of hull, rudder or mast. We finally got our first night sailing experience with proasis past Wednesday. Coincidentally that was half time of the Kiel Sailing Week and we could enjoy the spectacular fireworks in Schilksee on our way out. Sailing went very smooth and we could test our navigation light setup under real conditions.

Singlhanded to Denmark

My new job started later then expected so I (Henrik) spontaneously took Proasis out for a single-handed trip to Denmark. Some friends already anchored with their boats in the lagoon of the small island of Skaroe for wing foiling, so the first destination was set. Getting there was quick, despite the distance of 50 nm, due to lots of wind. Proasis was doing an average of 7-9 kn, sailing double digits on a regular base. At one point I had to slow her down to 7 kn because of nasty waves, and reef the sail. As reported previously, the zipper reef works, but it takes to long to reef and unreef for my taste. As soon as there is some spare time we will trial different reefing techniques. The way back home was less spectacular but more enjoyable due to light and warm weather!

Proasis Relaunched

We’ve successfully relaunched proasis last weekend, thanks to numerous people of our local sailing club who helped to push her down the beach. After assembling everything and carrieng countless boxes of very important stuff down the beach we enjoied a very nice 15 nm sail home to our anchor bay. Highglight of the trip was our first catch ever, a huge garfish!

All the improvements were well received, especially the wet box for the anchor and chain. Unfortunately the electric installation is not finished yet so we coudnt test the navigation lights.

Spring Refit Finished

The spring refit is finally completed! We’ve done many small things to improve Proasis, the bigger projects include:

  • Repair of old crash damage (not our fault!)
  • Additional front and back windows for 360° vision from inside the cabin
  • New leeboard
  • New leeboard mount
  • Wetbox for anchor, chain, fender etc.
  • Toe rails
  • Rudder handles
  • Longer mast for less sweep of the sail and better upwind performance
  • Ne electrical installation including navigation lights
  • New bottom paint

Spring Refit

In preparation for the upcoming season we are busy with the typical spring refit and some updates we were planning for a while now. Aside of a new bottom paint and the repair of a dent left by a yacht 2 years ago we finally get a larger leeboard! In addition we cut another hatch in the bow compartment and built in a wet deck for the anchor, chain and other stuff. The wet deck is much like a self draining cockpit, the floor is well above the water line and drain holes allow any water to flow back into the ocean. Because of that the hatch cover does not need to be water tight and is therefore much easier and cheaper to build.

Proasis will get navigation lights (not as easy as it sounds for a boat that travels both ways, maybe this will become another post!), a fully reworked wiring and two additional windows for 360° view from inside the cabin. We hope to hit the water by mid of may.

Now larger leeboard mount. The size of the old mount can be seen by the interrupted black stripe (carbon tow). The old cord length was 300 mm, the new is 420 mm.
Cutting the opening for the anchor hatch. The cut was done extra careful because the cut-out was repurposed as hatch cover later on.
Uncomfortable sanding inside of the bow compartment: Christian is actually hiding inside the hull equipped with a grinder and vacuum cleaner to prepare the sides for the wet deck.

Green Shipping Conference Hamburg

Had the opportunity to present a research paper covering the effort under the GIZ funded Low Carbon Sea Transport Project (LCST) in the Marshall Islands at an academic conference hosted by KLU University Hamburg. Was great to meet the colleagues from Hochschule Emden-Leer, GIZ and all the other folks from the green shipping family.

Pit Stops in Fiji

The way from the Marshall Islands back home to Germany is very long, so it was time for a stop in Fiji. The time there was used to meet a lot of people from the canoe building and green shipping sector and do some research at local museums and archives.

One interesting project going on right now is the work Rob Denney (HarryProa) is doing with CATD (Center for Appropriate Technology and Development) right now. He has an 80 ft (?) cargo proa under construction and is setting up a boat building course to build more smaller ones.

Huge cargo proa under constuction

Another interesting meeting took place with a group of traditional fijian canoe builders. It was a pleasure to share some experience from the work on the Marshall Islands for the GIZ implemented Low Carbon Sea Transport project (LCST).

Giving a short presentation at a meeting of traditional Fijian boat builders