Cruisers Forum
 


Reply
  This discussion is proudly sponsored by:
Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on Cruisers Forums. Advertise Here
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 07-09-2012, 05:35   #1
Registered User
 
Drilith's Avatar

Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 16
The Maiden Voyages on the New Jeanneau 57

Hi All

I am leaving for an around the world trip where i will live on the boat for the next 3-5 years

I just returned in port after the completion of the maiden voyage, i'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but here is the summary from the maiden voyage

The Maiden Voyage

Les Sables-d’olonne to Copenhagen,
Length 1040 Nautical Miles (1926 km)
Duration 7 days
With Henrik Pedersen, Thomas Cilius and Ulrik Scheibye

The Maiden Voyages has for many years been a trip to test the boat to see if a boat could float and if it was leaking water. The new boat was well afloat all the time but leaking water… well more about that later….

Les Sables is a coa...stal city facing the great Atlantic ocean 1.5 hours south of Nantes and 3 hours north of Bordeaux, it’s a famous tourist destination for the French. I arrived one week before the estimated departure date in order to begin preparation for the trip. The feeling to prepare for the trip is the same feeling as moving into an empty apartment, everything is required from toilet paper and towels, to pots and pans, plus the needed safety equipment of course. Later in the week Thomas and Ulrik arrived from Paris and we began filling up the ship with food for the trip. Looking back we might have bought a little too much food, so now i have food for many weeks to come

Once Henrik arrived and the registration of the boat was in place we sat sail on Wednesday at 16:00 in the afternoon.

The Atlantic ocean didn’t give us a very gently welcome, it was blowing a high gale with wind up to 18 m/s and with long big waves, but this is the Atlantic so this is what we had to work with. We put up the sails and trimmed them to a course of 330 degrees, which we followed for the next two days.

I have never in my life been seasick but after the first 10 hours the ocean won and I gave in. I was sick for the next 2 days and was completely exhausted and without energy. Every time I ate something I threw it out to the fish a little bit later. During these 2 days I was starting to questioning myself, “why have I taken this decision”, “feeling sick is not fun, this was supposed to be a fun trip”, “was this the right choice of boat” etc. but when the seasickness wearied off I concluded that it was the right choice that I had taken, and learned always to have sea sickness stickers so you don’t get seasick

It was impossible to cook during the first days due to the hard weather and the angle of the ship. We learned that next time we need to have sandwiches or premade food which can be heated in the microwave so as little time as possible is needed below deck. It was also during the first couple of days where we soon realized that there was several small leakages from the scepters on both side of the ship. It wasn’t much water, but enough to make the madras wet and leave a lot of salt stripes on the inside of the interior. During the night the Lantern gave us problems when they stopped working. We realized the next day it was just a bad connection causing the problem, we fixed it with some duct tape and the lantern was working again.

One morning we made a bad turn which made the Genua (the front sail) break our radar and deck light in the mast. Ulrik who have been hauled up into a mast before volunteered to be sent up to fix the problem, and again duct tape was the solution. Lesson learned, never leave port without 2-3 rolls of duct tape.

On the third morning we entered into the English channel and the weather and sea was much better. We had speeds (over the ground) up to 13 knots when we were sailing in the Atlantic but we still maintained a good speed of between 8-10 knot in the southern part of the channel. Later on the wind turned west and we were unable to maintain our good speed. We turned on the engine and ran with this on and off depending how our course was compared to the wind.

On day 5 the wind decreased to only a few m/s and we packed away the sail and started the 140 HP engine. We sailed to Dan Helder in Holland where we had a 1 hour stop to refuel. We continued nonstop with the engine still running to the entrance of the Kieler Canal. Sailing through the canal was wonderful. It was like driving through parts of the Danish country side, but instead of driving we were wailing a boat. There was small township alongside the canal with ferries taking people and cars across, only interrupted by the huge tankers cruising through the scenery.

We came out of the canal, turned east and once we passed Gedser we turned north with a course straight home. We arrived in harbor in Copenhagen at 12:00 on Wednesday 7 days after we set sail from Les Sables. We opened a cold beer and cheered to the maiden voyage we had just accomplished.

It was a wonderful Voyage even with many unexpected problems underway. These problems will now be taken care of before the departure on the long trip. There are also many other feature which will be prepared on the ship such as installation of a water maker to make fresh water out of salt water, installation of a wind generator and installation of a new genakker (big front sail)

The time is now focused on the upcoming VHF exam, preparing the last details on the boat and finding the remaining crew. The departure date is still set to be the 1st of October, but may be postponed depending if the boat is ready or not

I want to thank my crew on this first voyage for an excellent trip with very good food and company onboard, I hope that I will see you again on the long trip

Christian (Drilith)
Drilith is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-09-2012, 07:22   #2
Registered User

Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,594
Re: The Maiden Voyages on the new Jeanneau 57

Congratulations on the maiden and good luck...

I've NEVER been seasick and I am in awe of folks, like yourself, who get sick but don't quit..

I'd quit in a heart beat...
__________________
Randy

Cape Dory 25D Seraph
rtbates is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-09-2012, 11:24   #3
Moderator
 
noelex 77's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Jul 2007
Boat: Bestevaer.
Posts: 14,678
Re: The Maiden Voyages on the new Jeanneau 57

Don't worry about the seasickness it take a couple of days to settle down typically. Living on board you will rapidly develop a much better tolerance.

Their are many factors that would have contributed to seasickness on that voyage such as fear, apprehension and exhaustion.
noelex 77 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-09-2012, 07:22   #4
Registered User
 
Zanshin's Avatar

Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Caribbean
Boat: Jeanneau 57
Posts: 2,269
Images: 2
Re: The Maiden Voyages on the New Jeanneau 57

That's a great story for your first J57 adventure!

My first voyage with my J57 was similar, with hefty weather at sea but fortunately we had the gulf stream and later the warm southern north-atlantic waters to make it easier. My 2 friends as crew unfortunately were seasick after the second day and I admire their stamina and endurance in surviving their misery with not a single word of complaint to me (I got to drive the boat the whole way).
The lady crewmember is a gourmet cook and she had planned each and every meal and done a lot of preparation and freezing food for later thawing. On our last shopping trip I grabbed several handfuls of instant-Ramen and other prepackaged noodles and she almost mutineed on me - she said she was responsible for the food aboard and that she wouldn't let such junk aboard. I just smiled and said if we didn't east it I could keep it for later.... She'd not done an ocean crossing before...

When the storms abated for about 400 miles to the NNW of St. Martin I got them out of their lethargy and fed them with instant ramen with eggs mixed in and they ate almost all of my rations The upside is I had a lot of gourmet frozen food for the next month aboard after they'd returned to their boat.
__________________
Zanshin sailing
Zanshin is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
jeanneau

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Advertise Here


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 22:57.


Google+
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Social Knowledge Networks
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.

ShowCase vBulletin Plugins by Drive Thru Online, Inc.