Ep 35 Talisman Leaves Scotland for France. Heading South to the Med.

[@BillColeExperience]

Never ceases to amaze me that sailing is really another name for boat repair. And this boat was some real coin.

[@evanofelipe]

Great to see you finally ‘hit the water’ and thanks for sharing. It would be good to see clearer visuals of your navionics and route setup, charts etc. Look forward to your follow ups. Beautiful boat and it’s clear you’ve prepared her well.

[@myz113]

Yes!!! This our first time seeing Talisman all cleaned up, organized, and in her element. That interior is sooo nice!!!!! Well done on that navpod setup also. Congrats on a successful first major passage.

[@SailingTalisman]

As viewers know, Myers bought Alfie, the Tayana 52 we viewed in Antigua. I always thought the interior of Alfie was one of the stronger attractions of the boat, and I mentioned much of what I saw in the video. These 15-25 year old versions have a lot of teak and other hardwoods in the interiors and a lot less of the cheaper veneers that you see in today's production boats. You really see it in the fiddles, where the wood is 1/2 to 3/4" thick and rises 2", often with a recessed groove on the back side so you can get a firm grip in heavy weather. We've been caught out twice now in really big seas and I swear I felt like an orangutan swinging through the salon, hanging on to the ceiling mounted handrail on the way forward. Talisman is doing well in her own right, slowly getting all the little details that make for a well kitted cruiser done right. We can't wait to see you guys, which I'm sure will happen in the next couple of years.

[@SeanMcChannel]

Great maiden voyage! All the tech installed is wonderful. The electronics nowadays is such a great benefit. Having sailed the Atlantic Cape Town to USVI back in 2003, please remember that nothing beats old tech EYEBALLS. Not every boat has AIS especially smaller fishing boats etc. Enjoy your voyage. Looking forward to your videos. Oh the Tach sender normally part of alternator output and charge controller like Balmar controllers setup.

[@N7CX]

Absolutely love your channel. Especially appreciate your devotion and serious approach to sailing in blue water. So many portray ocean sailing as a big party. It is as serious as life and death. Hope to meet you someday.

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks for the kind words. Wait till you see some of the footage we filmed along the Spanish coast.

[@owenmcghee8837]

Great to see you out at sea, enjoy life and may all your passages be safe.

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks Owen.

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks Owen.

[@SailingTalisman]

Will do Owen.

[@donaldsmith7877]

Sailing Yacht Talisman 0

[@hazegreyghost]

Outstanding job, good luck to you both. Far Winds and Following seas.

[@billiardsandsnookervideosn8319]

The boat looks huge when you are inside it, from the outside I can't believe all that fits in the hull, great KZbin videos, very neat to watch. N

[@SailingTalisman]

Indeed. Boat design is art as much as engineering. You get with one hand and give with the other. But Holman and Pye, the designers of Talisman, did a great job.

[@travelingtimothy]

Great adventure thanks for sharing with us. You are in a spectacular journey!

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks Timothy.

[@jimmilligan5407]

Great to see you out on the water. Nice video. Wendy needs more air time.

[@SailingTalisman]

We're working on that. She's a bit shy sometimes.

[@cliffjamerson3107]

Glad to see life vest on wish you guys best of luck

[@SailingTalisman]

We're getting more religious about it, especially during docking which statistically is the most likely time to go overboard. Knowing this is half the battle, by the way. We try to warn our guests in advance that being recovered after MOB is always something less than 100%. And if you go overboard in Scotland, you might as well be in the Bering Sea. We already have rules for offshore that say that neither of us ever leave the cockpit (even tethered to jacklines) without the other there. This means waking the other up out of bed if need be while on watch, which we've already agreed to not allow ourselves to get upset about. We wear PFDs at all times after dark, and we tether up at night if the waves and swells warrant it. Believe it or not, getting pitched out of a center cockpit boat isn't that hard to do.

[@SailaboutDotKiwi]

Congratulations with getting on the water and sailing. We look forward to your vids.

[@MrJackwork]

I'm happy that you shopped around 'til you found a gem of a boat. And I like the fade between clips.

[@SailingTalisman]

Cool. We're happy to have you.

[@garyg315]

such a super clean production! you are surely living the life, pinch yourselves!

[@SailingTalisman]

We do every day. Thanks for watching.

[@alanjohnson6733]

Hi Wendy and Kevin!!! Marci and I just finished watching your vid over the Apple TV. We loved it. Hope you are having the adventure of your lives! Cheers!

[@SailingTalisman]

Hi Allen. It's great to hear from folks back home. Perhaps you and Marci can come join once we have the boat and the cruising life figured out.

[@thordehr]

Outstanding to see you out on the water.

[@SailingTalisman]

Yeah, it's been great. Boats can become project boats pretty quickly if you don't get everything , or at least most things, done in the beginning.

[@jorgelsanchez4388]

Super extra mega beautiful boat.Congratulations!!! 😎👍

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks Jorge! We love her.

[@sunshinerae811]

This is amazing, Aunt Wendy!

[@SailingTalisman]

Hi Jess. Glad to have you.

[@jeffc6038]

Great video always great quality and sound

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks Jeff. We appreciate it.

[@mitchcopeland8693]

Awesome video thanks for sharing ! Can't wait for the next

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks so much Mitch. Glad to have you.

[@THECARKUS]

Lovely to watch.

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks for having us.

[@RichardEricCollins]

Great video, thanks for sharing.

[@SailingTalisman]

No worries. Thanks for watching.

[@TheMonkeyrock77]

I love your dive hole. It's such a pretty boat.

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks so much.

[@svgitana2499]

Congratulations on your maiden voyage! Boat looks beautiful! Crappy fall weather but I’m guessing you’re heading south to the warmer side of the med

[@SailingTalisman]

Yeah, we're in Gibraltar now, having come down through France, northern Spain, Portugal, and southern Spain. We're out of the Schengen zone here, so killing time with maintenance tasks and trying to decide what to do in the coming months. We like Gib a lot. There are a ton of friendly cruisers here and you don't pay VAT on supplies. Prices on alcohol are ridiculously cheap, like 7 euros for a bottle of Absolut vodka.

[@svgitana2499]

Sailing at 9000 nice!!! If and when we get to the med, my wife and I have always wanted to go to Israel!! 😎👍🏻

[@bill4nier]

Awesome video, thanks for sharing!! ⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵ 😊👍

[@SailingTalisman]

You bet.

[@R.E.HILL_]

That setup with the radar one can set proximity alarms? Very nice boat, congratulations on your purchase... ☺

[@SailingTalisman]

Yeah, between radar and AIS you can really start feeling comfortable about what's around.

[@billcookson2919]

Guys just enjoying themselves not trying to hard to make a video really good enjoyed it

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks Bill. We appreciate that. And sorry for the lack of recent episodes. We'll have some new ones up soon.

[@normanboyes4983]

Wow that's quite a leap! Last video you ripping it apart wires everywhere and carpentry adaptions - then this video you have inserted the dithium crystals and are at warp drive heading south!😀 Well you certainly have tested the iron genoa and exposed any weaknesses. For what it is worth - if those belts and spares have been on the boat for 7 years - the rubber component will have degraded and will not behave like a 'good' belt. Nice work on the instrument pod in the cockpit and at the chart table. I wonder how much value the previous owner lost keeping the Oyster on the hard for seven years. Good to see you are putting such a capable boat to proper use.😀👍⛵️

[@SailingTalisman]

Hi Norman. Thanks for the kind words. It is true what you say about the belts, and I have witnessed the accelerated degradation that you speak of. It's also true that I hit it as hard as I could to get on the water. You really have to do it like this or you'll get bogged down with procrastinating on the more difficult tasks. I was not going to let this be a project boat and be kept in Scotland over the winter. We loved the Scots from the bottom of our hearts, but winter in northern Scotland is something I did not relish. Every time I check the weather I keep Scotland in the upper corner just to keep track and it always seems wicked around now.

[@Coleen_West]

Watching Again is great! -- QUESTION -- Kevin, this walkthrough tour at the begining is so great! it seems like all sailboats tend to have floors that make a squeek in certain spots when walked on... Not sure why that is.. could you stop it if you wanted to with "rubber pads" on the floor boards or something? Is that possible or worth doing?? Bit of a pet peeve on my "imaginary" dream boat build :)

[@SailingTalisman]

Yes, I believe an application of self adhesive Velcro loop side tape would do. You wouldn't want anything too thick as you'd raise the floor panels and create a step between the sole and the adjacent wood around the edges of the room. Our panels are very quiet, and the squeeks, such as they are, mostly come from the vertical gap where panels meet. We also have rubber-bottomed carpets sets, which we bought new this year at Kohls of all places, and they've been superior to the ones we got at Target a few years ago. These absorb a ton of sound, especially from the generator. They also protect the wood. I just took a walk around the boat and found almost no squeeking. It might be something impacted randomly due to humidity, but the Oyster stringer system that the floor sits on is solid as a rock and a far cry from what you see on production boats.

[@Coleen_West]

@@SailingTalisman ..been binge watching this series from Scotland forward. Not sure if you are aware of this, but your series of videos might be the most complete set of videos on the entire sailboat purchasing and ungrading experience. Others have bits and pieces, but you took as along the entire process. Very cool!

[@tinilovin]

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. Love the videos my friends!

[@SailingTalisman]

So great to hear from you!

[@cliffjamerson3107]

Congrats that's one of my favorite yachts

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks so much.

[@edboatman2725]

When you get around to it, I would find useful an order of magnitude budget of the main costs of refitting and modernizing your boat, just in case anyone would like to follow in your steps.

[@SailingTalisman]

Hi Ed. For insurance I recently had to put together a list of improvements to the boat with pricing. Over the 3 years (going on 4) we've owned Talisman, I've spent around $80k in improvements. These are hard costs that are material and memorable. There has to be a minimum of $30k in small purchases along the way too, plus marina and docking fees. Labor has been almost entirely by me and Wendy, and we don't count any of that. It sound like a lot, and it is. This is not an inexpensive life by a long shot. Admittadly, most of those costs won't ever occur again and since we aren't paying rent or mortgage or any of that, we manage okay. Hell, just getting rid of cars and insurance really removed a lot of cash outflow. We own a home outright that pays rental income and have no credit card or other debt. I know this isn't exactly the budget you were looking for, but I hope it helps.

[@drjohn5801]

Great video and the electronics installation part was well done. I totally understand your frustration, been there and done that a few times myself ;-) QUESTION: Did you have to declare yourself to French customs and immigration? I did not see mention of this in your video, hence my asking. Keep up your filming and pay no attention to negative commentary, as I suspect the majority of which is from "fire-side sailors" !

[@SailingTalisman]

They found their way to us before we found our way to them. Usually, you don't have to formally clear in when arriving from another EU port, but to the degree that there are formalities the marina office usually handles them during check in. Invariably you get your passport, boat docs and insurance photocopied and sent off. In our case we arrived after office hours and I came back from the marina office the next morning to find 6 customs guys sitting around the salon table looking through our paperwork. They asked to search the boat but actually just wandered fore and aft looking around. They asked if we had guns (all the Europeans think Americans are always armed). We told them no to that, plus the questions about whether we were drug smugglers or terrorists. The second the main guys got to the page with our "VAT paid" docs he slammed the book shut and announced that they were done. Handshakes all around and off they went.

[@mmanut]

Looks like the boat performed well. Great video, what was the problem with alternator belt, just stretched out or something else? What is your eventual destination? Stay safe, please keep us up to date on your travels. Thank You, Vinny 🇺🇸

[@SailingTalisman]

I'm still keeping an eye on it, but it's down to two possibilities. We're talking Yanmar branded belts here, but ones that are many, many years old. The new one is now a bit loose again, and they're either stretching, or more likely the steel drive pulleys on the engine have rusted along the sloped portion of the pulley (due to the boat being on the hard for so long), causing them to act like sandpaper. I posit this possibility since there seems to be a lot of rubber dust along the inside of the insulated panel that covers the engine on the front side (behind the companionway). Pretty soon, in the next week, I'm going to pull the panel and do another inspection. Belt tension is something of a science. Too tight and you will burn out alternator bearings. Too loose and you'll start getting slippage and charging voltage will drop. Like I say, no telling until a reinspection.

[@jonathansmith6390]

Yanmar probably buys re-branded belts from a manufacturer like Gates if you are lucky or a Chinese maker if you are not. Rubber dust indicates old rotten rubber or misalignment. Rust on a pulley would wear smooth almost immediately. It would take a lot of dust to loosen a belt. Stretch is more likely. Replace with a new high quality OEM belt. Double check size of the cross section in your manual. The one on the motor may be incorrect. An indication is the belt is sitting down recessed in the pulley grove.

[@SailingTalisman]

10-4. That's great advice and I will keep all of it in mind when I get to checking later this week. The 24v alternator is an Oyster thing that isn't part of the Yanmar stock power plant. Oyster even fabricated their own brackets, so it's something that Oyster would need to confirm. I'll do so later today or tomorrow. OE or OEM products are almost universally what I buy, and I agree with you that stretch is the most likely culprit. I can remember back to the days when belts failed and/or needed adjustment quite often. This is something that's seen major improvement over even the last few decades and even no-name belts seem to do okay in light to medium duty service. Recently, the raw water pump belt on our Fisher Panda generator went bad (all the belts in both engine and genset have shown cracking and stretching). We were in Cascais, Portugal which is a fairly large city, but off the beaten track of the marina chandelries nobody spoke anything other than pigeon English. The chandelry guys called an auto parts store and had them order the belts and I got two, under the belief that an imperfect spec was better than no spec at all. I've subsequently searched for an OEM version, but they're impossible to find here unless you special order, and that takes forever. However, I checked the belt earlier today and it appears to have seated in nicely and has maintained adequate adjustment. We've discussed this before I believe, and as you know I really don't like over-tightening belts. It's a sure way to burn out the alternator bearings.

[@patrickhogan4196]

this is cool, Congrats.

[@patthompson2810]

In reference to your radar, they are contacts not targets, they are not the enemy, we hope, and you are not going to fire at them, again we hope, lol , another good video.

[@SailingTalisman]

Thanks Pat. You are correct, and I'll see about changing my verbiage. Sometimes I do want to fire at them though.

[@natemcdaniel2139]

A great looking boat! About the running out of fuel, what is the capacity of your boat? I was just thinking that such an upscale boat would have decent size tanks. I have an old salty Colin Archer, but it can motor about 1,500 miles if needed. I look forward to following your adventures!

[@bendixon2898]

Must be great to out on the lumpy stuff after the lows of all the work.

[@aidanhill]

Whats your opening song called? I like it BTW. Started following you, watched right from start and am up to this Ep atm.

[@SailingTalisman]

I think it's called Pioneers. Thanks so much for being with us. It's great to hear from the viewers.

[@jasonkoslow4174]

I have watched a bunch of your videos, and I must have missed it. What is sailing at 9000?

[@SailingTalisman]

Yeah, it's in the channel description, but we originally started the channel when we were doing lake sailing on our Catalina 22 in the high Rocky mountains near Winter Park, Colorado (Lake Granby). Once we had several thousand subscribers it seemed a waste to start over with a new channel, so we just kept the name. Lake Granby is at 9000 feet of elevation.

[@alburns7278]

Great videos looking forward to many more, tell me are you related to michael chiklis?

[@SailingTalisman]

Not related. Thanks for watching Alan.

[@gregorywells9777]

Looks like a great boat. What was the cost of the boat?

[@cobraverde68540]

Nice video..

[@richardscudds4753]

hey , I never noticed any fishin rods hangin from the stern , whats the go there ???

[@SailingTalisman]

Hi Richard. We installed two pole mounts while we were in Spain, and then I found a single offshore rod and trolling reel, but had every fish I got on the line somehow either break the line or pull the lure off. By the time I had everything upsized enough, we got into the eastern Med/Ionian Sea area around Greece and it became a fish desert, with almost no fish to be caught. The local fishermen use nets and this seems to be the only way to reliably catch fish. We suspect the area has been way overfished for many years, and every Taverna specializes in locally caught fish, so lot of demand. Two weeks ago we were rafted up to an adjacent boat and somehow the rod got lifted and lost in the anchorage. I could have swum for it had I known, but we were way up the coast before I realized. I'll find a new one once we're back in the States.

[@MarcStjames-rq1dm]

Did you motor the whole way? only motor sailing if the sails were used?

[@SailingTalisman]

Hi Marc. It's complicated, so I'll explain. These were our first and second legs as new boat owners in a strange land. And Talisman had been on the hard for seven years. Nobody involved was sure there wouldn't be problems. So we hired Iain Hunter (Hunter Yacht Deliveries) to join us and show us what to look out for. And boy did that pay off. Iain was a pro skipper aboard an Oyster 61 for many years and knew all sorts of things that would have taken me years to figure out. And we were leaving late. Generally, you want to get out of Scotland by early September if you're heading across the Bay of Biscay, which is something like the 5th or 6th most dangerous stretch of water in the world. And it was the first week of October and we still hadn't left yet. But it was a late summer and Iain was willing to make the crossing. We left early in the morning from Troon and motored in little to no wind all the way to Camery Sur Mer, near Brest, along the French coast. Seeing the rocks in the channels I was glad we had no real weather, although we were motor sailing with some wind by then. Iain wanted to get into port and get some new weather reports as soon as possible. Iain's big concern was that you get two choices as you enter the winter storm season. You either sail it what might become substantial storms or take doldrums between the systems. The time between systems decreases the later you depart, and it's a 5 day passage to get to A Curuna, Spain. We motor sailed with the mainsail deployed as a staysail to help counter rolling. Iain left to go home once we got to Bayona and we continued on with no major drama until our mainsail furler failed in Portugal. By then we had a pretty good handle on the boat. So to your question, yes I believe we either motored or motor sailed the whole way. It should be added that transfer skippers will want to minimize passage times always since they have other clients waiting. Hope that wasn't too long of an answer.

[@davidinperris6290]

Kevin, is that noise your genset or are you motoring? Does refrigeration take that much power. I ask because yours is the first channel I have seen that didn’t address large battery banks. Great content.

[@SailingTalisman]

Hi David. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I suspect you're hearing the engine just based on which video you're commenting on. We had to motor sail almost the entire way from Scotland to northern Spain. This was fine for us as we had big weather systems both in front and behind us all the way. Unfortunately for us, our refrigerator is an older 230VAC unit that requires either our genset or being plugged in to shore power to work. At sea or in places where there's no shore power (most places in Greece) we have to run the genset 1-2 hours in the morning and again in the evening. I'm seriously looking at upgrading to a 24VDC system over the winter, but they are not easy to swap out. Our house battery bank consists of eight 6 volt Trojan Gel batteries wired in series/parallel to produce 420 amp hours of 24 volt DC power. With all of our lighting being LED, we have over 10 days of battery life under normal usage, and our 85 amp Mastervolt battery charger can recharge our batteries from 85% to 100% in about an hour and a half. Very impressive.

[@davidinperris6290]

Thank you for replying, Kevin. I grew up with my stepdad having power boats. We started with a 16 foot Glaspar and ended with a 35 foot TC trawler, with about 6 boats between. We spent s lot of time at what he called the 9 mile bank, and the Coronado Islands. He loved to fish, I loved the boat rides. My Father bought a 44 foot sailboat, but I never got to sail on it. I had a bias against sail until recently, when I started following you and several other cruising/live aboard channels, and so far my favorite saying that I picked up is “Cruising, boat repair in exotic locations.” Dave

[@mikemartin6790]

Just wondering about your ensign and courtesy flags?

[@BillColeExperience]

Landlubber question: is it normal to have engine running while sails are up?

[@SailingTalisman]

Yes. They all it motorsailing and especially having the main up helps keep the boat from rolling side to side. As we've told some others, since Scotland all the way to about halfway down the Portuguese coast we felt like we were just running from weather. Now that we're in calmer climes we are relaxing and sailing more. We'd definitely prefer not to run the engine if we can.

[@bobaquaplane1679]

It depends on what you are doing. If you have to get somewhere in a given time, you make best speed motoring if necessary. I friend of mine did the same passage, Scotland to Western France in a season, not a few days, and sailed more, but I'm sure they motored some too. The other extreme is another friend who will go out sailing towards somewhere and if he can't sail due to lack of wind will go back to home port, he doesn't like to motor.

[@jeffwhite9001]

No solar or wind generator?

[@SailingTalisman]

We bought Talisman in Scotland, where you will never see a solar panel (no sun). We did eventually purchase a solar charging system and we have about 490 watts on the bimini. As you get into bigger boats, solar and wind turbines start giving way to generator power.

[@philippechevereau9818]

You have a great motor boat! ... oh, you have a mast too? And sails? Must impact negatively the speed under motor doesn’t it?

[@hunsadersrockinranch]

Are we going to be sailing anytime soon or just trolling? lol

[@SailingTalisman]

When you're trying to get south across the Bay of Biscay after the August weather window you have two sea states. You're either looking at flat calm or force 7-8 gales. Take a look at windy.com for the next week to see what I'm talking about. Totally different weather from one day to the next. We're about a month and a half late on our videos, and I have to say that most of the early trip was a lot of motor sailing, but that changed when we got to southern Spain. In fact, our sails are off the boat and at the sail loft being repaired due to the weather we sailed through on the way from Lagos to Rota and Rota to Gibraltar. Had we gotten an earlier start I think we could have sailed the "Portuguese Trades" comfortably down the coast. Thanks for watching and it's nice to know people want to see sailing rather than just sightseeing.

[@hunsadersrockinranch]

Thank you! Makes more sense now. Iloved your shoping for sailboats Vids. as well. Very much appreciated. I'll be shopping myself in the next 3 years.

[@whiteboi3818]

Camaret sur mer is the name

[@SailingTalisman]

Camaret-sur-Mer per Wikipedia, but I forget exactly how I spelled it. Thanks for watching.

[@mayflip]

Totally agree with the comments below. Very good video but constant fade in/out annoying.

[@SailingTalisman]

Okay. Will see what I can do.

[@darrenmoorehead]

Hi guys - nice boat and video. I’d encourage you to avoid using the “fade” between clips - it is a dated cinematography method and distracts the viewer. Simply easy cuts with music overlay until you get to the speaking clips.

[@liongod1000]

+darrenmoorehead I've mentioned it to this guy SO MANY times but he's either Thick Skinned or is just to stubborn to take advice from us out there. I think his attitude is "If you don't like, don't watch"

[@RichardEricCollins]

I trained as a chef, we were taught to cook food the way we liked it as that way we'll be consistent. The people that liked the way we cook would come back. Trying to second guess the 'customer' never works. This is how they like to make their videos. I don't mind it and I like to here what they have to say.

[@Valden23]

+darrenmoorehead Hi Darren. I'm happy to have their videos any way they make them, even with both kinds of music in the background - country and western. :-) Vive la difference! Regards, Rick.

[@darrenmoorehead]

Well I tried to be helpful and lead them to KZbin success. I feel that if someone sees a way to improve another human’s level of success, they should share it. Substantiated opinions are useless until shared.

[@mahilamaseli415]

Yes darrenretardhead because it is obvious they are shooting for youtube success... they are hard at it making content that will LAUNCH THEM INTO THE STRATOSPHERE and join Casey crab face Nessant.....but I doubt it... they are making pleasant to watch informative videos covering the purchase of an older yacht far from their homeland...so stfu and go watch some slick up to date doof doof covered slick transition 4k UHD content..

[@zubenzenubi]

This is a somewhat tedious motor sail to the incorrect spelling of Camaret sur Mer. Running down to a couple of hours of fuel is poor seamanship. What if the weather had been less than placid.? There is no views of the tremendous scenery off of Ushant.

[@liongod1000]

+Noel Casey That's what happens when you're a "Credit Card Sailor" (Fail at Seamanship, oh well let's just motor along... who cares there's stax of money in the bank and so what about climate change)

[@normanboyes4983]

Noel Casey You clearly were not paying attention they had plenty of fuel in reserve jerry cans stored in the cable locker.

[@carlray7224]

@@liongod1000 Bob always on the lookout for fresh sailing content - your site is where?

[@SV-DEDICATED]

Oyster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@kreoloskar9805]

why You stick with a oryginal name of the boat ???

[@SailingTalisman]

It's unlucky to change a boat name! When you do there's a big procedure involving alcohol and such to convince her (the boat) that the name change is necessary. For us, we just liked the original name so no worries there.