CHANGES while my tall mug of hot tea sits on the salon table next to the laptop I'm typing on. It's as stable as if we were in a slip. We were constantly rolling from side to side when going dead downwind with our monohull. We used our telescoping spinnaker pole to keep the headsail far enough out, but it was still unstable. Furthermore, I absolutely hated flying the asymmetrical spinnaker on our monohull because there was such a limited range where it worked. Either there was not enough wind, in which case I would constantly have to trim because the sail would either collapse or flog in the seaway — and there is always a seaway on the open ocean. If there was enough wind, say 12 knots, that was enough to keep our 140% genoa flying wing-on-wing with the main, and way less trouble. It's completely different on our Quixotic. Because she rocks less, we use the asymmetrical all the time. I don't see any negatives sailing our cat downwind. Sailing upwind. We've found three negatives when sailing Quixotic upwind. Like all cruising cats, she can't point as well as our Tartan 37 did. To be honest, she tacks in about 120 degrees when on the open ocean — just like most cruising cats. Second, the previously mentioned 'bombs' can knock anything off the salon table. Lastly, unless we take the plastic windshield between our hard top and the deck down, we lose almost a knot of upwind speed. Keeping it cool. I finally have a huge in-counter freezer, so it's goodbye to Costco canned chicken and hello, bacon! We had a surprisingly gigantic in-counter fridge/freezer on our Tartan 37, but the freezer part was no bigger than a tiny shoebox, and that part chilled the rest of the cooler. We primarily used it for making a single vertical tray of ice for those very important sundowners. Now I can
QUIXOTIC
The oral display and appetizers can be left on the salon table when sailing downwind. Upwind they'd get banged off onto the sole.
ask Cap'n Lew if he would prefer a steak or leg of lamb for dinner! I also started making frozen smoothie popsicles for snacks on midnight watches. We also have a front-loading refridge on Quixotic. It's tiny and all the cool air escapes as soon as I open the door. Heads up! We have three heads to choose from on our cat. One is a designated shower, but all are lined with gel coat and are thus easy to wipe down. We only had one head on our Tartan, and it was trimmed in wood, so I was constantly wiping away mold and fogging up the main cabin. I dreamed of a separate stall shower with better ventilation on our next boat. My dream came true! Having three times as many toilets, of course, means having to clean three times as many toilets. Actually that's not so bad. What is bad is having to rebuild three toilets! But as Lewis and I were elbows-deep in replumbing the cat, Lewis and I joked that we would much rather have to deal with poo than do more fiberglass work. We are so tired of being covered head to toe with fiberglass dust! More toilets mean more thru-hulls. It's my job to exercise the fittings before and after every passage to make sure they aren't seized up, something that happens frequently. Be sure to carry a Y-valve for your head, as it never gets exercised after leaving the U.S. and before getting to New Zealand or Australia. A man's-man workshop. Yes, Lewis finally has his own workshop. That means that my galley countertop, which had been the only work surface available on our monohull, is no longer used for repair projects. The downside is that his workshop is in one of four cabins in the hulls, and the weight of tools and spares in one place starts to put the boat out of balance. We work very hard to distribute weight equally in the cabins and hulls, keeping the weight as low as possible. Triple deck space! Our cat has bow seats and a lovely trampoline net up forward, as is featured in every ad for the dream sailing vacation. It's hot in the tropics, and the breeze up through the nets makes it the coolest place to lounge. We haven't tried it yet, but we understand the huge amount of deck space is perfect for yoga and folding sails. Unfortunately, there is no shade on the foredeck, so when signaling where to drop the anchor I look like
a grandmother, wearing long sleeves, a giant, stiff-brimmed gardening hat and rash guard pants. Instead of dinghy davits, we have a dinghy crane arm that extends out of the boom. It's sleek, has plenty of purchase, and stows the dinghy with motor on the transom nicely. With a two-to-one purchase on the main halyard and no electric winch, it does take twice as long to grind half the distance, so it feels a if it takes forever to raise the dinghy the necessary seven feet. But it's a good workout. And it's waaaay easier than it was removing the gas can and the dinghy motor, and the dinghy seat and the oars, and using the spinnaker halyard to raise the dinghy onto the foredeck of our Tartan 37. After we did that, we still had to deflate it and fold it into the dinghy bag, then strap it down to the foredeck. We had to do this before and after every passage with Eleutheria. Don't get me wrong, we were very