Savitasail

Tahiti to Auckland

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 14:00:28 GMT

From Tahiti we continued the Pacific crossing and reached Auckland via Fiji.

Panama to Tahiti

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 13:55:35 GMT

After a month of Corona Quarataine in Panama, Shelter Bay, we passed through the Panama channel and continued our journey towards Tahiti.

Trans-Atlantic and the Caribbean

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 17:25:47 GMT

Crossing the Atlantik Ocean from 16 November to 2 December 2019

Starting from Sal in Capeverde this trip led us to Martinique in the Caribbean. We were five on the boat, watch our story here.

From Martinique we continued our way to Dominica, British Virgin Islands and Bahamas. Here's the documentation of our path.

Cabo Verde 10/2019

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 15:24:53 GMT

Friendly people, great fishing and diving opportunities

On our way from the Canaries to the Capverdes we caught another fishernet. We were sailing, no motor on and the net was abandoned and free floating in the middle of the ocean. When we caught the net the boat suddenly turned quickly and we first thought the autopilot was broken. Later we saw the net trailing behind the boat. The weather was calm and all crew members helped with the diving, so we were able to get free again.

Coming from La Caleta on Tenerife we first arrived in Mindelo on the Capverdes with a broken rudder. Luckily this marina has a skillful ship chandler who was able to fix it, so we were able to quickly continue our way from Mindelo on Sao Vincente to Palmeira on Sal where we had to bring Isa to the airport, because she had to fly back to the Canaries. The funny tank car you see in the video was in Tarrafal on Sao Vincente where we spend a night on anchor on our way to Sal.

On the south coast of Sal there is a beautiful beach named Santa Maria and further south is the island Boavista. Both offer great fishing and diving and we spend quite some time on anchor on both places.

We made friends with Mario, a local fisherman who showed us how to fish here.

Next step after Cabo Verde is the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean which will be covered in the next blog entry.

La Caleta beachparty + future plans

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 12:05:08 GMT

Thank you my friend Hussein for organizing this wonderful party

When we visited La Caleta in June we met Hussein who has lived in La Caleta for over a year. We became friends quickly and he offered to organize a beach party. We set the date on September full moon, Saturday, 14th of September. Friends came from different places, planes were booked and everybody was picked up to join the event. Getting all the food and people the boat to the beach through the waves was an adventure and the night was magic. Next morning the guests had to swim back through the waves to get back to the boat. They will remember the night for long. During the next days the after party continued with water games.

This is some rough planning of our tour:

16.11. Departure from Kapverdes to Martinique
15.2. Nassau, Bahamas
15.3. Havana, Cuba
7.9. Papeete, Tahiti
24.9. Avarua, Rarotonga
November 2020 Australia
May 2021 Kumbha Mala in Haridwar (by plane)
End 2021 South Africa - Brazil

... and have a look at https://www.pumpen-peters.de/blog/post/Segelboot-Katamaran-Nautitech-auf-Weltumseglung-mit-12-Volt-U...

Azores July 2019

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 12:05:03 GMT

Great fishing opportunities

On our way from the Canaries to the Azores we caught a beautiful Mahi Mahi. Watch the video to see it.

Left to right: Siddh, Joris, Lorenz, Ganesh. Wonderful crew, lots of fun.

Unfortunately our Gennaker broke on the way. It happened during a gust of 23 knots which is within the limits of this sail. Still, sails are hard to get guarantee for, so we will have to pay for it and try to later get the money back from Nautitech.

In Praia da Vitoria Eva came on board.

We made an interesting hike for the volcanos.

All over the Acores bathing is big danger because of the medusa-like Portuguese man o' war (Physalia physalis) that can kill a man if not treated quick enough. Also in this video: Watch Siddh climing up the mast to repair our wind indicator and see us catching more fish.

In case you want to experience a 6 minute relaxation here's a sun rise video:

La Gomera June 2019

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 04:48:01 GMT

In June we passed two weeks between the Canarian Islands and saw lots of interesting wildlife.

With two children and two couples on board we had much swimming, snorkling and sun bathing time and very little wind.

We had an impressive view on Teneriffa and it's Mount Teide.

Only on 2 days out of six we had some wind for sailing and we used it to pull up the lighter and bigger Parasail. A great sail I am happy to have on board.

We visited the hippie village of La Caleta on a day with beatiful sunset.

Here's a roundup of the trip with many wildlife sightings.

Madeira in May 2019

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 21:31:43 GMT

From Las Palmas to Madeira and back

From Las Palmas to Madeira it is 280 nm. With a fast ship you need - depending on the wind - 2 days. Luckily we experienced again that the SAVITA is a fast ship. The crew consisted of Jens and me and of course the autopilot and the radar of SAVITA. We had the wind against us and hacked, barely we left Las Palmas, on starboard tack with 8-9 knots into the waves. Jens had terrible pains in his back as the waves tortured his stomach. He cursed the day when he had started sailing, and decided to stop as soon as possible.

We arrived in the middle of the night in Funchal, Madeira and put down the anchor in front of a steep rock that looked terrifying in the night. When we woke up in the morning, we were surprised when we discovered that the cliff face was overgrown with green. Roosters crowed and goats moaned at sunrise.

In Funchal, not only nature is beautiful, but also the girls.

In Funchal the famous Fest da Flor was taking place and we enjoyed our time.

Here's some pictures of a walk from Ribo Frio in Madeira's moutains. Something you don't want to miss in life.

Out next stop - and only harbour on entire Madeira that had a berth for us - was Quinta do Lorde. Pictures look pittoresque, but reality is cruel: This village was build in the middle of nothing to attract tourists, the company was bancrupt last year and the entire village is empty and dead. Make an effort to miss this experience.

Going around the north coast of Madeira is interesting because of the many steep rocks in the water. Coming to the weastern edge the wind picked up very quickly from 15 knots to 30. We still had the Gennaker up and for 10 minutes we feared it would break. It didn't and the wind dropped to 0 once we had made it around the corner onto the south side of Madeira. I had underestimated the jet effect that builds up as the wind howls around big rocks in the ocean.

On the south coast we anchored in front of the port of Calheta. The marina was destroyed by rockfall. Looks dangerous, is dangerous.

... but the village is beautiful by night:

Next anchor place was Faja dos Padres, a plantage at the foot of a steep mountain that grows many exotical fruits like bananas, avocados and mangos.

The water was clear and we found some time to clean the hulls underwater. Only the barnacles that had grown on the propeller in only 3 months are impossible to clean of without force. We have think of a way of getting them clean again.

Back in Funchal we met by accident our old friend Alexey who was anchored in front of the harbour. We had chartered catamarans 2 times in 2017 and 2018 from him.

In the night we set out to experience some real Fado in Funchal.

In the Fado bar we wondered how they had managed to make such a nice portrait of Eva without ever seeing her.

Sabor a Fado, Travassa das Torres, 10, 9060-315 Funchal. Reserve a table, Tel 00351 925612259 or saborafado@hotmail.com. Very authentic experience.

Next day we visited the market. This is the typical scabbardfish that is cought with lines from a depth of 1500m. Looks so ugly that we didn't want to try it.

Tuna is the other type of fish they sell, nothing else.

We got two huge chunks of tuna and fried it in the evening. You have to take it out of the fridge some hours before frying it because you fry it so quickly that otherwise the inside remains cold.

We didn't know how many types of maracuja exist.

On our way back to Las Palmas we passed by the Santa Maria de Colombo, an exact replica of the boat Columbus used to cross the atlantic ocean (only this one has a motor as serves as a tourist attraction).

With favourable winds we pulled up the Parasailor and surfed the waves.

Half way between Madeira and Gran Canaria some rocks in the ocean are called the Salvagem Islands. The only inhabitants are rangers in a solar driven station and thousands of birds.

The rangers showed us around on the island.

In the night we were attacked by wild birds.

The way back to Las Palmas was easy and fun.

Equipment changes, current defects, future plans

Mon, 20 May 2019 20:48:42 GMT

Planned equipment changes

With Alisios Sailing in Las Palmas I have found a good partner to equip the SAVITA for the crossing. I am planning to glue some of these thin flexible solar panels to the hard top and to get a Watt&Sea hydrogenerator to have sufficient electricity available without running the generator several times a day. When the radar is on the SAVITA uses over 20 Amperes of energy also running the autopilot, 2 fridges and 2 of the 3 chartplotters. This equals 240 watts of power and brings the batteries down to 50% in half a day, so good electric supply is essential. I will also add more batteries, hoping that after a sunny day the systems will get over the night without running the hydrogenerator. On the other side the hydrogenerator can deliver over 600 watts giving us enough electricity for cloudy days.

For online communication outside WIFI and GSM areas a satelite communication system is planned. Iridium has finished the launch of their new Iridium Next satelites. With this new network data speed is now good for online communication and device size has decreased to a level that is great for mast installation.

Current defects

The defects have been reported to the boat vendor Yachten Meltl in Germany. They are in contact with Nautitech to find a solution.

All side hatches let some water in when the boat is sailed in heavy waves. It's not very much, but definitely more than one would expect on a new boat. As all 6 hatches are leaky it must be a general problem of the used hatch type und thus finding a solution might be difficult.

When running the generator to produce electricity the charge controller must reduce the battery loading speed to avoid heating up the batteries.

It starts loading with nice 48 A at 70% of battery.

But after a few minutes of loading the charge controller quickly reduces the charging current only 5 A. With this current the charging of the batteries would take all night. Rebooting the board electronics makes the charging current go up to 48 A again which clearly shows that this is a failure in the loading logic.

The core problem of the boat still is the integration of battery, water, diesel, pumps and lights control in the chart plotter with a software extension to the B&G chartplotter software named Naviop. By now I have seen 3 classes of problems: Freezing of the chart plotter, crashing of the chart plotter and freezing of the chart plotter with automatic reboot. While the first two classes are very annoying the third one is outright dangerous as it randomly stops the autopilot without any warning.

In my opinion the only way to solve this problem is to remove the Naviop software from the chartplotters and instead having separate gauges and switches to control the board electronics. The B&G chartplotters should run only the original software they are delivered with and no boat specific extension. I have proposed this solution to the vendor Yachten Meltl and they are discussing it with Nautitech. As this is the third time they try to solve the problem it is according to German law their last chance to find a solution.

Future plans

Here's a rough idea about our sailing plans for the next months:

June-September 2019: Equipment changes and defect fixing, Island hopping on the canaries
October 2019: Cape verde Islands
November 2019: Caribbean
January 2020: Panama
February 2020: Galapagos

Tangier to Las Palmas

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 12:19:08 GMT

Transfer of the SAVITA from Tangier to Las Palmas for the naming ceremony

I found this great crew on findacrew.net. We met in Tangier and planned to start 4. April, but things come out different ...

The boat wasn't able to start in La Rochelle because of the problems with Naviop (see previous blog article) and arrived in Tangier with 10 days of delay. We spend the days in the Medina of Tangier. It's a wonderful international city, but the streets are mostly populated with the male inhabitants.

The first night after leaving Tangier our propellers got tangled in a fishernet around midnight. The night was dark with clouds and no moon, so we were drifting with no motor in the dark.

The fishermen came in a very old wooden fisherboat, drove extremely close to our stern and shouted a lot in Arabic. One of them even hopped on the SAVITA and tried to cut free the net. After several close approaches they finally managed to crash their side into our bathing platform and we heard a big crash. I was very relieved when I saw that the old wooden fisherboat had a hole in it's side, but we only received a scratch.

After some time I managed to cut us free from the net although the rest of the net was still tangled in the propeller. We had that fisherman on the boat, but they had that hole in their boat and started to return to land. They did not take their man back on board and left. We set our jib and also started to get away. We told that fisherman that we are going to Gran Canaria. After about half an hour he was picked up by another fisherboat. I have no idea how they managed to find us again in the middle of the night as these boats have to VHF and no AIS.

After he had been picked up we continued sailing with main and jib knowing that both propellers were still blocked. And in that night we got tangled in a second net. Until today I have no idea how we could have avoided this as those nets were not marked and drifting on the surface. Maybe you have to go out of Tangier in a straight line until you reach 10-15nm distance from land where it should be safe from these nets.

Next morning I used the brand new freedive diving compressor to dive down and cut us free from the nets. What a great device!

With 25 knots of wind and the Gennaker up we managed to make 15-20 knots of speed and reached the Canaries quickly. We were one day early took some some time for sleeping and bathing anchored in front of La Graciosa that nice little island in the north of Lanzarote.

Saturday morning we reached Las Palmas just in time when the first guests of the naming ceremony arrived.

Viewing the boat in La Rochelle

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 12:19:05 GMT

Beautiful views and crashing electronics

It was a 12 hour ride from Munich to La Rochelle. We started on Monday 4. March in a Volkswagen Crafter full with 30 boxes containing everything I could imagine we would need on board. This included for example 2 guitars, a printer/scanner and 4 deck chairs to prepare for many guests on board.

Seeing the boat for the first time I instantly fell in love.

Our catamaran is Nautiech's 40 Open number 145.

We sailed a little tour in the Pertuis d'Antioche with light winds and sunshine.

Eva took the chance to show some of her best sides.

Sebastian came from Switzerland to introduce me to the boat. Thank you so much Sebastian for this day of teaching me all the details. Your experience with boats and especially catamarans was great help to me.

Apart from a list of smaller problems the two biggest failures of the 40 Open seem to be built-in to all of them.
For some strange reason the railing touches the sprouts breaking the raling and weakening the sprouts within months. We agreed to cover the raling with a lather sheath which will need to be replaced every few months.
The other big problem is the computer system. The original B&G Zeus³ chart plotter software was extended with a system named Naviops. On a regular ship you find a big panel with lots of switches and gauges to turn on and off navigation lights, deck lights and pumps and to view diesel and water levels. Naviops makes all of these analog switches available in the chart plotter's menu, so instead of turning on the anchor light on an analog switch you now follow a path of 3 clicks on different screens of the chart plotter's touch panel (try this with wet hands in heavy swell ...). Furthermore Nautitech not only decided to use Naviops to control the ship. They found it a great idea to completely abolish those ugly analog switches and put the crew fully into the hands of Naviops. During my first time on the boat the system crashed twice. Nautitech brought the Italian developers to the boat to find a fix, delivery had a week of delay, now Nautitech comfirmed they have full confidence into the system. I will check closely and keep you updated.

Abschiedsparty

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 12:19:02 GMT

Brasilianische Rythmen und Gstanzl

Am 23. März 2019 haben wir in meiner Münchener Wohnung Abschied gefeiert. Joaos brasilianische Rythmen und das leckere Buffet haben für die richtige Hitze gesorgt. Hier ein paar Bilder des Abends und ein Video:

Mein persönlicher Höhepunkt des Abends war Ulrichs Vorstellung. Vielen, Dank, lieber Ulrich, das war toll! Hat jemand einen längeren Mitschnitt als diesen?

Mein Star des Abends war - wie so oft - Eva:

Herzlichen Dank an alle Gäste für die wilde und ausgelassene Stimmung. Es war toll, mit Euch zu feiern!

Naming ceremony

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 12:18:52 GMT

Naming ceremony of catamaran SAVITA in Las Palmas

The evening before the naming ceremony we had 13 guests on board plus two cooks to feed us.

Angelo from my preferred Munich restaurant Bellini has given us this bottle to make a picture of it on the boat.

Of the 13 guests 11 slept on board, so some had to sleep in the cockpit.

Before the name was given to the boat we heard a poem from my mother.

My daughter Savita did the throwing of the bottle ...

... hoping that the mechanism for crashing the bottle works ...

... and hugely relieved and excited when it finally worked out!

The rest of the bottle was mounted on a board and given to my daughter to thank her for giving her own name to my catamaran and to remind her of this exciting moment.

Here's a picture of the entire party group.

Next day we did the maiden voyage on the newly named boat.

Paul and Helen cooked a wonderful meal for us.

On a neighbor boat the forestay needed a fix.

A restaurant in Las Palmas.

Thank you to everybody who made this event possible and such a wonderful success.

Invitation to the catamarans naming ceremony

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 11:18:48 GMT

Finally we were able to fix the date and time of the naming ceremony of our new Nautitech Open 40. We would be happy to celebrate with you.

The naming ceremony will take place on:
14. April 2019
in:
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria