SHAULA 3

At last!

It's been a lot of work, but finally I managed to finish updating our web-site with the story of our circumnavigation, complete with photos.

While I was at it, I also changed the site's appearance, which was not to my liking anymore; I hope you will like the new looks as well!

Have a look, if you wish, at the following address: http://www.shaula3.ws

In the coming weeks, I plan to add some pages in the "technical" section, and later to tell the story of sea-voyages we did after the circumnavigation (including Cape Horn and Antarctica).

I'm also thinking of a "Pilot Book" section, where we could provide info about the itineraries we followed and give some hints to those who will sail in the same areas.

Stay tuned!

I realise that I never touched a subject that is very debated in all books about long-distance sailing: the shift system!

Also among the Rally crews, this was a popular subject.... before the departure!

In fact, everybody soon found his ideal solution and the subject was forgotten entirely.

The Husband-and-wife crews had little choice: one sleeps while the other is on watch, trimming the sails or the windvane from time to time.

The only question is the shift duration: we settled on 3 hours shifts, strictly enforced by night and more flexible by daytime. The one off-duty at eating-times (me!) had the job of preparing food, and at the time of the daily roll-calls we exchanged roles so that I could attend the radio (just for language problems).

While in the past we used 2-hour shifts, we opted for 3-hours because is was a better compromise between the sleep-resistance of the person on - a very boring - watch and the ability to have a meaningful rest, having to waste a good half-hour to undress, perhaps prepare a hot drink or something, and then dress again at the end of the period.

When the weather - or pilotage - conditions required the two of us on deck, we slept in the cockpit, fully dressed; hardly a good rest, at our not-so-green age, but often we had no choice.

The crews with more than two people had the possibility to play with all variants of the "2 hours at the helm, 2 hours on watch and 2 - or 4 - hours off duty" method, although there were exceptions, like crews where the lady of the boat was exempted from the night shifts or the skipper spent the whole night on watch, but these were special cases, due to personal preference.

Whatever the method adopted, two things were certain:

- there is ALWAYS somebody on watch, even in the middle of the oceans, and

- no, while on passage we do not anchor for the night! (you cannot imagine how often we have been asked this question!...)

I just realize that we never talked about the laundry: during a short summer cruise this is seldom a problem, in most cases you may need to was some bathing costumes in a bucket, or you can wait until you go back home, but in a 20-month voyage obviously you need to tackle this problem!

Every time we reached a mooring equipped with fresh water, all the boats were soon covered by laundry drying in the breeze: some boats even were equipped with much-envied washing machines (although they gave a lot of problems with incompatible shore-power due to a voltage or frequency mismatch); all the others were making do with buckets.

Availability of fresh water was a rarity though, usually available only once every several weeks, but local laundry services would then come to the rescue. Quite often you did not even go around searching for a laundry, but entrepreneuring locals were going around the boats offering their services.

Unfortunately, quality of the laundry services turned out to be very variable, both concerning price as well as timeliness, cleanliness and the returning of all your stuff! It did not happen to us, but several boats had their laundry mixed-up with that of other boats or simply lost!

It's not easy to give advice on how to choose you laundry service: we had excellent and cheap service from local women doing the washing at their own home, and mediocre service from washing-machine equipped shops which seemed much more professional.

Only advice, when in port ask around between the boats that came-in before you, you may spare yourself some trouble.