Slogging Upwind, We Forgot! (EP 72)

After cruising in the Bahamas a couple months we were completely caught off guard by our little overnight sailing passage upwind, slogging it out and fighting off seasickness. Then it was time to get back in passage mode for the next leg of our trip.
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We have made the transition from full-time software professionals from the SF Bay Area to liveaboard sailing explorers who always keep one eye on the weather and our hearts in a song. Our goal is to complete a circumnavigation and we recently transitioned to a performance catamaran and are madly in love with our Outremer 52.
We are working with Outremer in France (with the help of Google Translate) to launch our boat project and start our journey as sailing vagabonds. While it’s not a race or speed test, we are doing our first Bluewater crossing this year and we are excited to see AWEN stretch her legs and dance on the water.
Join us as we share what we’re learning living without Amazon, (but with Starlink), and attempt this new life of travel and adventure on the ocean. Please be patient with us as we continue to improve our KZbin vlogging skills. Our goal isn’t to make our life a movie, it’s to give back to what others have shared with us.
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✅ About Sailing AWEN.
Holly and Stephane are formerly from the San Francisco Bay Area but have a home in Tahoe. Our 'someday' plan was to sell our belongings, buy a boat, and, with reckless abandon, sail away to visit distant lands, which we did starting in 2020.
You can follow our transition and journey in our candid podcast, Covert Castaway, wherever you listen. You can also follow every stop we’ve made with pictures and blogs and stream our podcast directly on our website.
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© Sailing AWEN

[@earlhunt2815]

Once acclimated to the boat in the open ocean for weeks, going ashore feels odd as my body tries to adjust. Thanks for your videos; I enjoy them.

[@rmkep]

Here's to a world with only beam reaches and down wind sailing. 😊

[@juliazentner681]

Another beautiful, interesting, and sometimes intense video. Your videos keep me glued every time. Your voices are always calm and collected!

[@SailingAWEN]

lol! You don’t hear us off screen 🤣🤣

[@LaurieShannon-gr2ts]

I live for the subtitles inserted here by Holly 👏

[@geniexmay562]

At least it doesn't seem to be a mad noisy boat. That would definitely call for higher meditation abilities. Sailing is so very humbling.

[@SailingAWEN]

100%!

[@catlanticsail]

A couple thoughts after watching the video… A short jackline running fore and aft near the centerline on top of the pilothouse, starting just aft of the jib track and going over the halyards and back to a (new?) padeye just in front of the solar panels should work. Goal is to keep you not just attached to the boat but on the boat! On our boat we have a door from the pilot house to the forward cockpit so don’t use the side decks at sea. For your boat maybe another jackline running on top of pilot house a foot or two inboard of the pilot house edge, again, above the halyards, might be better than down on deck. Again, goal being to prevent you from going over or through the lifelines, not just to remain attached to the boat. Seasickness. We keep transderm scop patches on the boat. A half patch (a full patch produces side effects) works very well and the reason they are like by my wife and various crew is that you don’t have to plan ahead, start feeling queasy, put on the patch and fifteen minutes later you’ve forgotten all about it. This is contrary to the medication’s instructions so YMMV but was a tip a very experienced couple passed to us which has been very consistently helpful. Mast track, clean and spray with Sailkote/Boshield/dry teflon/paraffin film, never silicone or oily spray. You probably know that. I wish my fuel tanks were clear so I could do the visual assessment of fuel quantity, my guages have been good but someday maybe they won’t be. We do record fill quantity, estimated quantity after fill and engine hours so we can work backwards on consumption if we have to. Good luck with the radar, my previous gen B&G failed but my newer Halo 20+ has been great. Keep a smile on and hopefully we’ll see you out there. We’ll be East Coast and New England until October then Bahamas and who knows after that on Emotional Rescue.

[@bishopkinlyside8477]

Hi guys, wow getting seasick is not a fun thing. Hope you get better taking some tablets to try to combat it. Anyway keep up the good work. Enjoy the videos cliff from Australia

[@peerzechmann5253]

Greetings from Germany! i love your content.😀

[@SailingAWEN]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@user-pe6hh4rp6c]

I hope you feel better Holly❤

[@SailingAWEN]

Thank you!

[@mountaindweller9118]

The Thorny Path is a long upwind slog to the BVI. Hang in there!

[@lilam1447]

My husband and I just went to Outremer and looked at the 52 & 55. Why did you chose the 52? Is it enough space? I personally liked the 52. My husband really wants to do what you guys are doing, but I’m still not sure. I’m not an experienced sailor so it feels a bit scary. Your videos really help me to envision what reality is like living on a boat. Thanks for being so real and honest in your videos. I wish you both all the best. Happy Sails🏝️

[@SailingAWEN]

The 52 is more than enough space for two people living aboard. We have too much stuff and still a lot of empty space now. To us, the 52 is a more manageable size. Second, if you buy a new boat, you will have 2 years to learn to sail and safely operate the boat if you go to the Oweeks and take some sailing classes where you live if you can. As long as you have an earnest interest to learn and look at sailing as a sport, anyone can do it. That's not the hard part, the hard part is learning to work together as a team. Happy to jump on a call to understand your program and answer questions if you want. The reason we do these detailed videos is so people can really understand the day to day specifics because it's not all rainbows and dolphins. :-)

[@lilam1447]

@@SailingAWEN Thanks a lot for your response. I really appreciate it. I think it’s amazing that Outremer offers those courses. I was really impressed how their philosophy is to really make sure their clients are happy. We are still in the beginning stages of our process, but if I or my husband have any questions, I will reach out. Until then all the best!🌊

[@tinamenefee6340]

We enjoy you videos. We have been learning from you. We have been in the process of purchasing an Outremer 51. We hope to meet you sometime

[@SailingAWEN]

Yes! Stay in touch!

[@fabricecolleu6464]

Your disert about jack lines so interesting

[@dc1544]

They are still selling those junk solar panels. When yours need replaced get Cigs/Yuma panels. Shading on part doesn't shut them down, it will lower a bit but not much and they last 25 years since they are military grade. Also they have different sizes and watt output. IF you buy a 200 watt you get 200 watts output. Those ones I see on your boat are rated for 5 years I believe and that is a huge waste of money. Just thought I would give some info to all who read this.

[@SailingAWEN]

Thanks, we'll look into it. Ours work well right now.

[@jerrymacvaldosta]

thanks dry days will come soon!

[@codegame027]

did you ever install a NEMA2000 Flowrate sensor? You talked about it on your passage to DR back in January. You would be able to optimize fuel efficiency in real-time this way to optimize for range if you are close of fuel. Many boats have this. It would be well-within Stephane's ability to install something like this IMO. And it isn't very expensive, especially for peace of mind.

[@SailingAWEN]

Thanks for the tip!

[@codegame027]

​@@SailingAWEN basically it is a sensor that senses the (Gallons/liters per hour) but will also divide by Velocity Made good right on your chart plotter. IF your NEMA2000 fuel level sensor is calibrated correctly you could have (x = hours) until empty or Distance until empty, too. Relatively speaking, these sensors are not prohibitively expensive ($200-300 each sensor) and probably an afternoon to install.

[@robmalcolm1965]

Being seasick is so debilitating. Two handed down to one, and no one's fault. 24-hrs into the wind with squalls and nasty short chop. The wind direction and length of the passage doesn't seem too bad when you are passage planning, but perhaps PredictWind's seastate is the overriding factor if you have someone prone to seasickness aboard? It's not always possible to have everything in your favour (virtually never in fact!), so working out the trade-offs between you must be a constant balance. You guys are very analytical so I'd be really interested to see how you rank all the factors when planning. As you title the episode, "We forgot!", I'm guessing that there is a revised checklist now! And then a day of solid rain! Wow, that's a combination of "sneaky-bad" events that make for a few tough days at the office. You're still talking to one another - and the camera - impressive! I really love your candid style with massive self-awareness - both of you - Chapeau! If you have a moment, a few technical questions, with the one reef and self-taking staysail. beating into 15kts of true wind: (1) what point of sail (true wind angle) do you find best to optimise your VMG? (2) what boat speed (STW) and average VMG did you get in those conditions? (3) And then, what true wind angle could you reasonably sail in those conditions - if you had to, e.g. to get around a headland without a tack? Thank you and keep up the great work!

[@SailingAWEN]

I'll let Stephane answer these because he'll be more thorough, I'll just say 55T, upwind crappy waves 5.5-8 SOG in 10-15 knots. I'll let Stephane answer (3). I'm usually not seasick at all, a bit tired the first day but that's it. I think I was just used to sitting at anchor and at the beach or something. Not sure, it completely caught me off guard. When we left Great Inagua I took some seasick meds before bed the night before and I've been fine.

[@SailingAWEN]

Hi Rob, I very much go by feel of the boat in those wavy and variable conditions (incl. avg angle with waves), 50-52 TWA works well, at times I go down to 55TWA to punch through and keep some momentum. Glancing at our log we averaged 49TWA over few hours (37-38 AWA) doing 6.8-7.0 knots under this setup for 15-16 TWS. Not sure how much higher we could reasonably sail as we didn't experiment with this configuration. Hope that helps...

[@SailingAWEN]

Keep in mind this data was taken during a multi day upwind passage with 2 people with full tanks (water + diesel, so an extra ton on board), and this particular data point was recorded at night. It can definitely be optimized but not our objective.

[@robmalcolm1965]

@@SailingAWEN Yeah because you have certainly been in some sportier conditions without ever mentioning seasickness. Good you are better.

[@robmalcolm1965]

@@SailingAWEN That's very helpful, thanks. I'm guessing that you wouldn't have achieved anything like that on your previous production cat right? Many thanks for checking your logs

[@user-ku9wf3si5c]

My experience of people who are seasick is not to have them inside, but have them sitting in the open cockpit this is on a monohull. I know this would be difficult with the configuration you have, at least it was only for a short passage Thanks for the update fair winds.

[@SailingAWEN]

Great tip! I tried it all but I think my body just shuts down. I was completely useless.

[@mountaindweller9118]

@@SailingAWEN Holly- Curious if you have ever tried Stugeron for sea sickness? I spoke with a couple last year in the Bahamas that has 36K NM in a monohull. The wife gets very sea sick and has literally tried everything. She said that it's the only thing that works for her and it doesn't have the side effects of some other meds.

[@SailingAWEN]

Yes, I did that this week before we left to Turks. I have a bunch on the boat for other people, I don't usually get sick. I did take it the night before we left and I'm fine now.

[@mountaindweller9118]

@@SailingAWEN That's great to hear! 👍

[@user-ku9wf3si5c]

Yes Stugeron is good 1 tab the night before and 1 in the morning if it’s really bad

[@rogerirwin8878]

Well done video as always. You guys rock it!. However I am confused... Holly mentions the target is the BVI and Stephan (sp?) mentions Martinique. Clearly the croissants are better in Martinique. BTW, the wiring above the headliner looks like a complete sh$%t show. Outremer! you can do better, really!

[@SailingAWEN]

The goal is to get to Trinidad by hurricane season so right now we have a couple hops. First big leg is to get to BVIs, the upwind slog. Then we can wander down, stopping in Martinique for some warranty work and then to Trinidad by July 1.

[@SailingAWEN]

BVI is our next logical stop to recover from the Thorny passage (just learned the name from one person's comment) and inspect the boat before we continue but I always run some routing straight to Martinique just in case there is a great window to Martinique via the Mona Passage (between DR and Puerto Rico). At this moment we're passing north of the Mona passage, sailing E/S.E so definitely a stop in the BVI before continuing to Martinique by early June and Trinidad by early July.

[@bryanboissoneault2851]

You'll enjoy Trinidad. Tough upwind work getting to Martinique but easy after that.