Thanks for the congratulations, but it is quite easy, just point the boat
west and wait 22 days.
Seriously, I had 2 spinnakers and several headsails which we messed around
with, but after the third day we ditched the lot in favour of a very
traditional wing on wing rig. We had a huge Genoa (nearly 500sq ft), poled
out to port and the main (often double reefed) held out to starboard with a
preventor. We had found that the boat was rolling so much that keeping the
spinnaker filled required just too much effort. We had paid a fair amount
for a Parasail, which is a spinnaker with a big slit/wing in the middle. It
is supposed to reduce rolling and stay full for longer. After I finally
managed to unwrap it from the inner forestay and main forestay it went back
into its bag and I can't see it coming out again!
Several of the smaller boats ran with twistle/twizzler rigs and had nothing
but praise for them; they also made very fast passages. Next time I do a
long downwind passage I will definitely rig one up.

The most essential/useful items were

1) Hydrovane wind steering
2) The Fridge
3) SSB transceiver
4) Iridium phone and PC for Grib WX Files and email

On the Solar panel front, we had 250W of Kyocera panels but they didn't
perform that well, partly as we had a lot of cloud on the passage and when
the sun shone by early afternoon it was in front of us and shielded by the
sails. We found that putting a bulk charge in from the engine in the morning
as the sun rose, then letting the solar panels trickle charge the batteries
to max during the day worked best.

Paul C
S/V Lady Stardust, Liverpool UK
www.lady-stardust.co.uk
http://blog.mailasail.com/ladystardust

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-baba-l@ballreich.net [mailto:owner-baba-l@ballreich.net] On
Behalf Of Paul Braschi
Sent: 18 January 2007 01:48
To: baba-l@ballreich.net
Subject: RE: [Baba-L] ARC 2006

Great news . . . congratulations . . .

For those who hope to follow in your wake . . .

What gear / advice did you find invaluable and what can be left on the
beach? Sails, rigging, chafing, etc. etc. ???

Thanks,

Paul Braschi
Wandering Star
Baba 35

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Received on Fri Jan 19 06:04:21 2007