A New Series Of Videos
Having set a precedent with our refit video updates, we continue to record our adventures post refit aboard Esper. These new videos will be more entertaining, both for you to watch and for us to make. We’re no longer restricted by the confines of the boatyard so now we’re able to take you on some great adventures and show you both life afloat as a live-aboard and life ashore with local people, warts and all.
In our first post-refit video Millie takes a first look at Esper’s exterior, we go up the mast to inspect the halyard wrap, and then take an entire day just to complete a simple job. And then we miss the tide…
Esper At Anchor
As you can imagine, when we dropped the hook in Bass Harbour, Langkawi, 25 miles away from PSS Shipyard, we did absolutely nothing for a whole week. It was bliss.
It didn’t last long though. The list of post-refit jobs were piling up and there was no avoiding them for any longer.
Halyard Wrap
For the uninitiated, a halyard is a long rope that runs to the top of the mast and holds a sail aloft. One issue we’d developed, however, was the foresail halyard wrapping itself around the forestay (cable). This prevents us from furling and unfurling the drum as the rope turns with the drum (it’s supposed to remain stationery on its swivel).
It didn’t take long to come up with a solution, which was to make a ‘bullseye’ or guide to pull the rope down and away from the cable, but it was a good excuse to get up the mast and take in the surroundings of Bass Harbour.
We’d made the point of going up the mast first thing in the morning, before sunrise, to avoid both the heat and the swell created by the ferries moored up nearby. It was hard work for Liz, not least because Jamie weights *$%?kgs.
Esper’s Rum Fund
Followtheboat has been posting up travel and sailing-related stories, photos and videos since 2003. The content is, and always will be, free. If you like what we’re doing and feel like helping us out, however, we have set up a rum fund. We’re really keen to spend more time and effort on our videos, and to improve the quality and production of them.
Each video takes a whole day to edit, is approx. 1.5Gb in size and cost us £5 in internet connection just to post up on youtube. Other fees include website hosting, music-rights, subscriptions to back-up services and cloud storage. That’s the boring stuff. In order to improve our videos and make them more exciting we’d really like to get hold of an underwater camera (for all those sub-aquatic shots), an external microphone (so we can climb the mast and not get drowned out by the wind), and a drone (for those aerial shots of Esper under sail). These tools would help us take our videos to the next level.
If you don’t wish to donate anything, no worries, our content will remain free forever. If you do, great. It will go towards us improving our content for your viewing pleasure. Over the next few years we plan to visit some weird and wonderful exotic locations which we’d love to share with you. We also promise to show you the tougher side of living on a boat.
Click here to contribute to Esper’s Rum Fund
Thank you.
If you like our content and would like to support us, we will give you ad-free access to our videos before they go live to the public, discounts in our shop, access to Jamie’s iconic full-res photographs, and supporter-only blog posts. Click our ugly mugs for more info!
Hi, I have been enjoying your videos, especially your refit in Satun. You said early on that you would let us know the final tally on your refit, but I have been unable to find it in your videos? How much was it?
Thank you and I look forward to more videos!
Fair Winds!
Hi. Nice timing as we’ve just published an exhaustive look at our refit including a complete breakdown of every cost as a video. It’s available to anyone signed up to our Patreon scheme, which you can find here : https://www.patreon.com/followtheboat
Excellent stuff! (I have found a catchup evening) Great to meet your new friend Lo Tide (he he) x
Lo sends his regards
Jamie,
We are enjoying the wonderful videos you and Liz make and are looking forward to you moving on and showing us more. We are on our third water pump since setting off and it seems to be a problem that happens a lot. The bearings are a pain to remove but put the shaft in the freezer first and you can pull them off.
Keep the amazing videos coming.
Mark and Angelina
Hi Mark and Angelina, hope you are all well aboard Cygnus3. Yes, our water-pump can be a pain but it’s a reminder to stop using the engine so much 😉
Esper’s looking great and we are pleased that Millie still has her throne. Please don’t torture us with food scenes of Penang since here in the Maldives there isn’t much positive to say about the food. The resorts have not been very welcoming so we get to try the local csfes which are abysmal! Except for the Seagull cafe in Male.
We are just starting the refit on a St Francis 50 catamaran. I’d like to get your thoughts and lessons learned, if possible. Here is a link to my blog where I discuss our refit process.
https://becomingasailor.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/planning-and-budgeting-for-sail-boat-refits/
Hope to hear from you, thanks – Lorraine
Hi Rain, thanks for the link. My first piece of advice to anyone looking to refit is… live on the boat first and go sailing on her for a couple of seasons. Don’t rush into until you really know your boat, warts and all. Many of our refit decisions were based on years of experience on the boat, knowing what worked and what didn’t, what needed to be improved, what should be upgraded and what could be left alone. Without this experience you might find yourself a year down the line saying “I wish we’d done it that way”. Good luck with the project and fair winds.
Well done Jamie, congrats for getting rid of that problem…Good move to order a new one,keeping the old as spare, change that old bearing too when its possible…Water pumps are the most important since the engine overheats & burns, a filter before the pump is also essential…You never  know what climbs up through the pipe getting through the siv at the hull aspecially in tropical waters..
You both look healthy & well,millie too….Wishing you good luck & all the best from Bodrum….
Hey Yener, thanks for the kind words (of wisdom, of course). Yep, you hit the nail on the head once more. Wishing you well and sending our love to you and to wonderful Bodrum. We miss you!