Dyneema #3: How I made my rigging strong!

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I received a comment (rather harsh to tell you the truth) about my failure to use the correct toggles in my Dyneema installation videos. Well, turns out the guy wanted to help, and sent me a whole box of goodies.

We went back and forth for over a month, with measurements, drawings, ideas, and here’s the culmination of that work.

Watch how I took my synthetic standing rigging to the next level! I explain everything I did to upgrade my synthetic rigging, what tools are required, and where to get them. Then a step-by-step installation process.

Special thanks to Kraken Structures for the equipment and instructions. I think we’ll be seeing more of Kraken …

Contact Kraken: facebook.com/SeaMonsterStrong

New chart table is coming

Currently we’re in Bahía de Caráquez (Ecuador), taking Zingaro apart! All of a sudden we’ve got quite a bit of space here. We removed the fridge and gave it to the local dockhand. He didn’t have one.

Now we’re going to design a chart table / editing table that fits in right where the fridge was. We have to find a very space-economic design for a desk with an integrated chair. We only have about a meter of space. Any ideas?

Space for a chart table

Sailing Zingaro | We’re taking our boat apart! All of a sudden we’ve got quite a bit of space here!

No fridge anymore … ?

Seriously, a propane fridge is a horrible idea for a cruising boat. It’s hot (in an already hot place), it’s heavy (extra parts for the propane system), and the #1 reason: it uses an entire 20lb propane tank in 2-3 weeks. Usually on cruising boats a tank of propane lasts 3 months. Plus when you ran out of propane there was no warning, everything just went bad, water all over the floor …

Unfortunately there are no 12v fridges in Ecuador, and a 100% import tax – it would cost around ~$2000 to get one here. Not having refrigeration sucks, but we’ll deal with it. We are happy it’s off the boat!

Soldering the VHF Connector

My boat was broken into and someone cut my radio cables when he tried to steal my radio. Fortunately the guard caught him just as he was trying to escape and he dropped it. I needed to re-solder the antenna cable, so used this opportunity to make a video to show YOU how.

Not many people know I used to work for an audio/video company in LA. They specialized in equipment rental for commercials, and I was their only tech. So I did everything: Cables, building circuit boards, repairing resisters, all of it. I learned a ton on that job…

…and I’ve soldered a few things in my life.

Soldering my PL-259 connector to RG-8x cable was super easy. And I think this is an essential skill to have on a cruising sailboat, you need to know how to fix your radio.

Hope it helps. Much love!

-James

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Turtle Rescue | Sailing Zingaro shorts

What we found 130 miles out to sea will shock you. While sailing to the most remote island in Central America, these sailors come across a turtle caught up in a fisherman’s long line. We jump in to help the little guy out.

Join us on our longest journey ever! 1,000nm from Costa Rica to Ecuador via Isla Del Coco …

Please make sustainable fish choices. Go here: Good fish guide: mcsuk.org/goodfishguide

Become Part of the CREW via PATREON: patreon.com/svzingaro

-Kim & James

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Crazy sailing to mainland Panama | Sailing Zingaro Ep27

This episode we finish our charter, say goodbye to our new friends, and explore mainland Panama. We really liked it here, and stayed for quite awhile.

When we left the beautiful San Blas, we got caught in some serious weather on our passage to Puerto Lindo.

We’re running out of food, fuel, and sanity on this most difficult passage. We’re here to tell you, this is not a passage for the feint hearted, we saw lightning right next to the boat, waterspouts, and rain rain rain. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel, we made it to Panama on a beautiful day.

Thanks for watching! Hope you like!

-Kim & James

Get the Zingaro CREW t-shirt: www.bonfire.com/germaid

¡Adios Cartagena! | Sailing Zingaro – Episode 25

Dancing, with tears in our eyes… ¡Adios Cartagena! We’re leaving this dirty, cheap & wonderful place. But not without cruising the streets at night one last time.

Of all the places we have been on our journey so far, Cartegena stands out. So much culture offer during the day & the night and so many young people that build up their life just the way we do in Berlin or California, withstanding the troubled past and presence of their country.

So proud and so free.

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The ONE time a catamaran SUCKS

When trying to find a place to HAUL OUT on the pacific coast of Central America.

Why? Because I want to copper-epoxy the bottom of the boat. It’s greener (no ablative paint to fall all over the coral), it’s easier to clean (no ablative paint in our skin), it’s stronger (no ablative… you get the picture).

marina-pez-vela

Marina Pez Vela, Costa Rica | (c) Sailing Zingaro

BUT it’s been the biggest PITA! Listen to this BS:

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Aid project with a Colombian school | Sailing Zingaro – Episode 23

This is a very special one for us. After we visited the family farm (Ep 22) in Colombia, one of the brothers set us up a special show at a local school for inner-city kids affected by the drug cartel.

In this school a big part of the learning is art – specifically the native songs and dance to Colombia. We got to see how they make their instruments and got a great example of their talent. The costumes were all made or purchased by the students themselves or their families.

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Sailing Zingaro Live from Costa Rica

Want to sail around the world? It’s not as easy as it looks …

Cruising is HARD!!! In this stream we talk about the hard parts of cruising, our sailing plans for the next months, and we have a special interview with another captain that sailed with us for two weeks, a Q & A, & we also respond to some YouTube comments at the end of the show.

[Streamed live on Jun 25, 2018]

You like our content? Please don’t forget to like, subcribe and share!
… or spend us a cold one on PayPal and become landcrew on Patreon.

We tour a farm in Colombia | Sailing Zingaro – Episode 22

Do you see the SIZE of that thing?! There’s something in the water in Colombia … 🙂

We get invited by a local to his family farm, so we leave the boat at anchor and take a water-taxi, car-taxi, & 4wd jeep to one of the most biodiverse places we’ve ever seen. Wow they sure do grow everything mega-sized here. Join us on our private tour of a Colombian finca.

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Livin la Vida Broka (5): Rigging with Dyneema | Sailing Zingaro

How to install synthetic standing rigging on a sailboat, how to splice a deadeye, and discussion of the pro’s and con’s of steel rigging vs synthetic.

In this series of Livin la Vida Broka, I take you step-by-step through changing out my 1×19 steel wire rigging for synthetic Dyneema rigging.

You can’t find this anywhere on the internet, it took me a long time to get all this information, then put it to use, learn from the mistakes, and ultimately make this video.

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Made it to Costa Rica!

So, the journey up to Costa Rica was… LOUD. We motored more in three days than we have in the last 3000 miles combined. Started off beating into 15kts – Zingaro was doing great! We were moving at 8kts or so for the first 4 hours, storms forming all around us as we headed out and they headed in towards land. Got some really cool videos of that.

Then… dead. 3kts for the next two days. We had to motor so long I ended up freaking out at 5am and we drifted for a couple hours as I contemplated buying a trawler. 😀

We shut the motors down to eat, and sunsets, but we basically had to motor the whole way up here less 7-8 hours. It was a 52 hour journey.

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Costa Rica – the world’s first decarbonised country?

Carlos Alvarado, Costa Rica’s new President said: “Decarbonisation is the great task of our generation and Costa Rica must be one of the first countries in the world to accomplish it, if not the first.”

The small country in Central America is well-known for its environmental commitment: Costa Rica already generates more than 99 percent of its electricity by using renewable energy sources.

That`s great!

Read more about: www.independent.co.uk

The most populated island on earth | Sailing Zingaro – Episode 21

Join us as we discover the small, packed, island Santa Cruz del Islote (Colombia) – the most (or second-most) densely populated island on earth! We meet the local leader of the youth environmental club, meet some of the people that live here on the island, and see what there is to see on this small crazy place.

You’re in for a surprise too, Kim and Lucie made a music video at the beginning of this episode.

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Goodbye Panama! Off to New Shores!

Today we are leaving Panama for Costa Rica (this time for real!). We are looking back on 8 months full of adventures, doubts & challenges. The last weeks and months we couldn’t wait to get out of Panama to see different countries, but when we checked out we asked ourselves if we really had seen enough … All of the sudden it seemed as if we had so much more to do here!

And YES, there are tons of places yet (by us) unexplored places even here in this relatively small country. And yet it is time for us to leave, because there is a whole world to be seen. I guess it is like that with traveling. The more places You get to know, the more places you learn to miss.

Ahoy!
-James & Kim