Sustainable Sailing

Our journey towards Sustainability while sailing on all levels: Environmental, Financial and Health

  • Friday progress #3

    So just finished our 3rd Friday on Vida. We arrived at about 12:30pm (just into Friday) and everything was dry, apart from the ground, obviously been a lot of rain in Beaumaris recently. The first task of the day was to prepare both masts for being taken down. I’ll do separate posts on our plans…

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  • Refurbish or replace: Seacocks?

    There are a couple of boat items that our Rival 38 has in abundance. Windows and Seacocks. Both are really important as means of blocking holes in the boat and so very helpful in staying on top of the water and not under it. Most of us are pretty familiar with what a window is…

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  • A close escape!

    In my post “Vida: A 1977 Rival 38 Centre Cockpit Yacht” I mentioned that the gas installation had been condemned. We removed everything about that from the boat on our first weekend. However, we have always been concerned about the hot air heating system. We were told it didn’t work and the fuel was empty.…

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  • Shampoo, soap, washing up liquid etc

    The problems with modern shampoos, soaps, washing up liquid etc are more obvious when thinking about use on a boat where they will be directly discharged into the sea. Stuff that doesn’t biodegrade, has plastics in it (as well as packaging) as well as many obnoxious chemicals is a very obvious problem (especially when the…

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  • The window challenge

    The window challenge

    So we are going to have to make a decision about our cabin windows. There are a lot of them (14). At least one of them leaks at the moment (many others show signs of having leaked in the past). Fortunately, while the leaky one is in the aft cabin where we sleep, it is…

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  • Tough tools for tough jobs

    Tough tools for tough jobs

    Today’s delivery, what seems to be the industry standard for sewing machines that can handle sail repairs and making all the canvas work that boats need (it can sew through 10 layers of sail cloth). The first task will be covers for new cushions (and by Jane doing that we should save the purchase price).…

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  • Vida: A 1977 Rival 38 Centre Cockpit Yacht

    While Rival Yachts are a well known range of safe cruising yachts the 38 feet long centre cockpit is one of the rarest. We believe only 5 were built. Compared to other boats we might have been able to afford and which might have been suitable for our dreams Vida was unique in combining a…

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  • Finding and Buying Vida

    As so often there is a long and a short story. So here is the short version. We were prompted to look towards our retirement. We realised that one day living on a sailing boat might be possible. We looked at a few boats to check the dream. Vida appeared on a list and changed…

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  • Introducing Sustainable Sailing

    Starting a journey with the purchase of Vida, a 42-year-old Rival 38 Centre Cockpit.Looking to a future for ourselves which is: Sustainable – Our total environmental impact Sustainable – Our health and well-being Sustainable – Our finances Short term goal: Launch in March 2020 for our holidaysMedium term goal: A sabbatical journey to/from the Med…

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