Duer Family Cruising Adventures

                                          Bahamian regatta boats practicing for the Farmers Cay Regatta.  Well I rowed our dingy for a few days, a sailing rig as above would be much better. We had a dinghy with sailing capabilities a few years ago but that did not make the cut for this adventure. Our outboard engine was a 15HP 2 Stroke Yamaha - one of the most reliable and durable engines in the world. We had purchased this engine on our previous cruise - so was put into service early in 2009. The engine had served faithfully since - all the way through the Caribbean and Pacific, then as a work horse on the Spokane river as we installed and removed our club slalom course each year and finally got us off and going on our current cruise. I am not sure if my service was up to date - the simple things like clean fuel filter, plugs, lower unit oil, grease points w...

The Bahamas provide a great training ground for working on sailing skills, whether knocking off the rust, learning new skills or learning a new to us boat, well for us all of the above. The winds generally have an east component while the islands roughly run in a NW/SE direction so there is always a sailing angle. We have been sailing on the banks the past month, thus seas are 1-3 ft chop so very stable and easy conditions.  We have never used a spinnaker or asymmetrical spinnaker on any of our previous sail boats. Tenacious came with an asymmetrical spinnaker. We had brought this on deck in Annapolis to see if we had the bits and pieces required. We had a nice down wind run in the past week that gave us the perfect sub 10 knot winds to give the spinnaker a try. We were able to make 4-5 knots with an apparent wind of 6-8 knots. The sail was reasonable easy to handle with a sock to pull down/dose the sail. The sail is big and all 3 crew members were fully engaged to manage her....