Sailing Cambio

Author: admin

  • Help Wanted!! Crew

    Help Wanted!! Crew

    Looking for an adventure of a lifetime? Do you dream of sailing the open ocean and exploring new and exciting destinations? Look no further! We are seeking a crewmate to join us on an extended cruise on our 41′ Cheoy Lee sailboat, Cambio, departing Lake Ontario in August and arriving in the Bahamas in December.

    As a crewmate, you will have the opportunity to experience life at sea, learn valuable sailing skills, and explore new destinations along the way. You will work alongside an experienced captain and crew, sharing in the responsibilities of navigating, maintaining the vessel, and daily life on board.

    After reaching the Bahamas, the adventure continues as we set sail for the US Virgin Islands and surrounding areas. Then, in May 2024, we will make our way to the Azores. This is an incredible opportunity for anyone looking to gain experience in sailing, expand their horizons, and create unforgettable memories.

    The boat’s name is Cambio and you can find out more about our vessel and the journey at our website sailingcambio.com. We are looking for someone who is hardworking, adventurous, and passionate about sailing. So what are you waiting for? Join us on this amazing journey and experience the thrill of sailing the open ocean. Apply now to become our newest crewmate!

  • Toronto Boat Show

    Toronto Boat Show

    I went to the Toronto Boat Show with a couple of friends this past weekend.  I couldn’t walk so far or so well so I was focussed on what I wanted to see.   

    • Solar Panel system
    • Ports Book for Ontario
    • Liferafts
    • Limited lookabout

    I’ve gotten a Starlink, a couple of laptops and all rechargeable lighting and other tools.  I’m also preparing to spend more time away from shore power and anchored out away from docks.  This suggests that my 190W solar panel from 2007 needs to be upsized.   I’ve decided to shop for an 800W system which hopefully will fit on the current arch.  I’d take the current solar panel off and replace it with 2 rigid panels.  I’m unable to measure the current arch for fit but I hope I can use it as is.  Otherwise there’ll be some welding/bolting to do.

    This implies a bigger MPPT and may demand more or bigger batteries.   I’m not sure I’m ready to go to lithium yet but my 4 6 volt golf cart batteries may not hold enough charge.  I haven’t done the inventory of usage yet.  Before all this I acquired a 1000 amp inverter to replace the current 300 amp inverter and this tempts me to use bigger 110v power than ever.  I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but there it is.

    The back up system, in case house batteries discharge, Is the 95amp alternator on the motor and starting batteries and windlass batteries to start it.  

    So I’m shopping for a larger, entire solar system.   

    Toronto is on Lake Ontario, far from the ocean.  I should not have been surprised that there were lots of dinghy sales booths but I did not see a single life raft company at a Toronto boat show.  But I was.   I’ll have to google life raft companies and spend the time on my butt reaching out to them. 

    The big win for me was the new edition of the Lake Ontario Ports book.  It came out this month and lists every port on Lake Ontario:  descriptions of each club and marina with information on getting there, phone numbers, repair shops, and town essentials.   I happily bought it and over a beer, checked out the places I’d been in 2022 and brought back memories.  I am planning to cruise the hell out of Lake Ontario this year before heading south and this is the ultimate planning guide for me.

    I remember in the 1990s sailing my 24’ Shark in company with another Shark (Lady Carol’s Aquarius) from Kingston to Niagara on the Lake.  

    These Sharks had a compass and nothing else, but Lake Ontario is fairly easy to navigate.  If you are on the west end, you can take a sighting on the CN Tower in Toronto.  If you are on the East end, follow the shoreline.   There aren’t many rocks and one Shark sailor (Miss you Bo) used to sail up to the shore and ask anyone mowing their lake shore lawn which way to go.  

    Carol had the official chart of Lake Ontario and I had the Ports book.  I’d follow her to the entrance and she would follow me into the harbour. 

    What did I learn during that trip on Sharks from Kingston?  Drunken olives are made by draining a jar of olives and pouring in vodka to replace the olive juice.  Place in bow in the morning and it is ready for consumption when you dock in the evening.   And a few other things.

    As I was walking through the many large retail booths a thought struck me. While I liked looking at the shiny new things, I didn’t really need any of them. Cambio is very well equipped. So I looked harder for something to buy and really didn’t find anything. I need some bib sailing pants but that was it. This realization made me feel rather good for the state of Cambio’s inventory for this spring.

  • A Cut Above

    A Cut Above

    In 3 weeks the doctors will cut open my knees, shave them down, and install new knees on both legs.   This has already made me more philosophical than usual but has changed the way I look at my plans somewhat.  They cut in mid February and I’m laid up for some time, getting better every day.  But there’s no “official fix day”.  It is a gradual improvement thing that makes planning a bit tricky.  

    I’m still leaving for the South on September 1.   I plan to have the boat launched about May 1, which is 3.5 months after surgery.   I don’t know if I’ll be able to climb the ladder to get to the boat to do the required pre-launch required tasks.   This might mean changes in priorities or a change in the May 1 launch date until the boat is ready, perhaps June 1.  

    The things I’ve identified as pre-launch priorities are: 

    • Pay Insurance
    • Remove boat cover
    • Change zincs / get spare zincs
    • Replace spreader lights
    • Test all mast bulbs
    • Put up flag halyards
    • Install spreader boots or baggywrinkles

    Most of these have alternative methods usually involving bosuns chairs or snorkels, but let’s do it the safest and easiest way possible. I also want to wash the topsides and buff out the scratches that are proof of my docking lessons, but they can be done afterwards, with more difficulty.

    In the mean time I’m studying, watching youtube videos on sailboat maintenance and lifestyle (shoutout to James, Plukky, Ryan, Sophie, Kika and Dan and all the others who cheer me up in Canada’s winter’s grasp.).

  • On July 20 Storm we had the furler destroyed in 43 knots

    On July 20 Storm we had the furler destroyed in 43 knots

    It has been a year since I committed to buy Cambio.  That launched a furious rounds of planning, building spreadsheets, researching options and outsourcing advice by reading and following sailing YouTube channels.  

    It is interesting to compare last year’s plans with this years plans, now that I’ve been through a season with Cambio.

    Last year my plan was to sail the boat all over Lake Ontario in all kinds of conditions.  I needed to have both me and the boat in good enough shape to leave for the Caribbean on September 1, 2022.

    This year I have the same plan, to leave for the Caribbean on September 1 2023

    I’ve a long list of somber lessons from 2022, some of which are covered in other parts of this log. 

    Had I left on September 1 2022, I would have run into hurricanes Fiona and Ian somewhere between about New York and Norfolk.  This would not be good.  I’m very aware for the 2023 season that I’ve got to remember that angry weather will have to be watched and dealt with (aka avoided).  Will I go out to Bermuda and turn right towards Bahamas?  Will I take the ICW? (I don’t really want to spend a lot of time motoring.)  Will I follow the shoreline 20-30 miles offshore while avoiding the Gulf Stream?  And what will the prevailing winds force me to do?  All of this is determined by the weather in close up observations so at this point being aware of future decisions is all I can do now.

    The critical dates for the fall departure are August 1 (which is the go/no go decision date), September 1 (the departure date), October 15 (The New York canal system closes) and December 1 (The nominal end of hurricane season in the Caribbean)

    Last year I had planned to buy some big-ticket items here in Canada. They included in somewhat priority, Dinghy & Motor, Freezer, Liferaft, Watermaker, Ais transmitter (I have a receiver), Wind self steering, Standing Rigging inspection, Solar Upgrade. 

    In the July 20 Storm, Matt and I had the furler and genoa destroyed in 43 knots of wind and effectively broke the boat for going upwind meant that we sailed 40 miles through the storm and then another 100 miles to Kingston on a broken boat and high wind and waves.

    I had a forced 6 week maintenance period in Kingston where the engine was overhauled, the propeller was repaired, the sail was resewn, the mainsail reefing, lazy jacks, and assorted lines were ‘restrung’, and all the major systems, including the standing rigging were checked.  The furler was repaired in October.   Other than the dinghy and motor, which were bought before the storm, the big ticket items simply were not purchased. 

    However, there is a new list.

    • Liferaft.   My advisors tell me this is not negotiable and I tend to agree.
    • More power by installing new solar panels.  I think I’ll be going from almost 200 watts to 900 watts.  Among other things it provides greater redundancy to power the autopilot which is a critical system.  The alternator produces 85 amps when the motor is running.  The batteries may need to be upgraded.
    • Starlink (already purchased)
    • Go Pro (already purchased)
    • Drone
    • Items that are no longer on this year’s budget, if ever, include Watermaker, Wind self-steering, Freezer, AIS transmitter.   I either have enough redundancy planned or don’t need them this season.

    So it has all been about risk management, limited resources (people and money) and building redundancy, all program management concepts that hold over from my previous career.  And the same tools, budgets on Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, even the dreaded PowerPoint. 

    It’s January 3.  I only have 120 days until launch. 

  • Christmas Day and Sailing is on my Mind

    Christmas Day and Sailing is on my Mind

    We are nine months out from heading south.  (“we?”  stay tuned for a crew announcement), and 12 months out from Christmas in the Caribbean.  I feel I should be dreaming about Margaritas on the beach and warm sand and clear waters. Instead, I’m developing project, budget, and maintenance plans just as if I were working in my previous career. 

    I wonder when this ‘work’ which I enjoy very much, especially given the goal, will turn to sailing goals that occupy my thoughts.   I suspect that budgets and maintenance will always be top of mind while travelling, but I hope that project plans will mainly become whims, ad hocs and what-ifs.

    Now the major milestones are looming.  

    May 1 is the target launch day. 

    There is an amount of work I want to do or must do in April before launch day, like replacing zincs, adding a couple of parts to the new propellor blades, cleaning and buffing the topsides.  The topsides show the marks of my learning how to dock a new boat. April will be a busy month. 

    May will be busy too.  I recall swarms of midges last year that made working with one’s mouth open impossible.  But May will be cleaning, organizing the deck and more.  We’ll also begin practical training for new and existing crew will resume on the water. 

    August 1 is another critical date, where we decide to go/no go, but this year we will be better prepared and smarter, I hope.  Last year was a great learning experience and the no go decision on August 1, 2022, was the right one.

    Having made the decision on August 1, then September 1 is the planned start of the trip south.  We’ll go slowly, ahead of the frost to arrive in Bahamas or USVI or somewhere after the December 1 nominal end of hurricane season.   I’m still not sure how to avoid any big storms like Fiona or Ian that hit the eastern seaboard in 2022, or how to go South into a usually south wind and Gulf stream current. 

    My Christmas present from the boat is a Starlink unit.  Iridium Go just won’t cut it for the next 18 month’s cruising and the prices of each are similar.

    I hope you are having or had a great holiday season, whatever flavour of celebration you subscribe to. 

  • Winter Is All About Planning And Logistics

    Winter Is All About Planning And Logistics

    We are past fixing up the boat. It is cold and blustery, even under the cover, and the list of things to do in April is growing. It is basically a list of Before Launch & After Launch and both lists are long. Only most of the items are critical.

    The featured item in the picture above is the switch that has so far confounded me. It will be April before I get a warm day to spend a good amount of time figuring it out. It should be simple, but it isn’t.

    Before launch items include:

    Replace spreader lights
    Test all mast bulbs
    Install spreader boots or baggywrinkles
    Change zincs / get spare zincs
    Put up flag halyards
    Replace sewage drainpipes
    Check leak in head sink
    Replace plotter
    Fix pelican latch on boarding entry
    Fix toilet seat
    Varnish toerail
    Varnish rubrail
    Pay Insurance
    Remove boat cover

    It’s probably a few day’s work, but finding a toilet seat might be a problem. I hope April is a nice, dry, calm month.

    On the social media side, there are lots of plans to start posting YouTube video in March but that has to be shot in January and then there’s a learning curve to develop my editing skills, which are sadly lacking. The fact that I shot no video last year, particularly during the storm, means a lot of talking heads video. But the folks I’m shooting are lively and interesting and I’m looking forward to it.

  • Cambio’s Web Site & Social Media

    Cambio’s Web Site & Social Media

    I didn’t plan to spend so much time on this website but by now it has done a few great things for me.

    • I’ve enjoyed spending the time fixing up the log and publishing it. It reminds me of what a great, and adventurous summer we’ve had.
    • I had to organize the entries, including the ones from a previous life where I was traveling without a boat but still with a wit. More great reminders of previous life.
    • It has me thinking about what I want the Cambio social media to look like and how the long list of available applications will work together. I didn’t take many images underway and almost no video so last summer’s stories are told in the log.

    I plan a lot more video and logs for next year and the focus to depart for the South around about September 1, 2023 will be in everything we do, whether it be training, improving the boat, planning, developing social media, and getting the boat and crew in shape.

    And it won’t all appear at once. It will be a migration of serial improvements that will introduce Cambio and crew logically and lovingly.

    The web site is baked, and filled with content. And additions need to be made over the next few months.

    The Instagram page is at www.instagram.com/sailingcambio.

    A Facebook page lives at sailingcambio

    YouTube page is at, you guessed it, Sailing Cambio, but it will be a while before I get some reasonable content into it.

    I’m still evaluating Twitter and Linkedin. I have personal accounts there but haven’t done much with them.

    I have to figure out the workflow for all of this and it will be good January & February work when the days are still dark. We are near Niagara Falls, Ontario and it will be it’s too cold to do anything but drive down and look at Cambio.

    And now back to hacking WordPress, or editing some of the images I took of beautiful models on Cambio last summer. One seems like work, the other doesn’t.

    -Phil.

  • Planning the Cambio dream

    Planning the Cambio dream

    This is the first version of the Cambio Dream, from Lake Ontario to Batumi Georgia with stops along the way. Google measurements say it is 17,700 kilometers long, which is 9600 nautical miles. Cambio can do perhaps an average of 100 nautical miles per day, so this is, in total, 96 days, or just over 3 months of straight sailing. Geez i hope my math is right. I expect to take 2 years to get to Batumi, and while I’m sure that the course will change over time, this means there’s about 20 months of sightseeing, lazing around, maintenance, sitting on the anchor and enjoying the scenery. I think that’s a great ratio of sailing versus tourism, and I think tourism may not be the right all inclusive word.

    If you are reading this and have suggestions, please leave comments. This is a high level view of the voyage and it ends 9900 nautical miles from home, so clearly this is only part one.

    So lets start:

    Lake Ontario to New York. Because we have to get to the ocean and sailing seasons are short. I want to get south before it gets too cold, and may have to dodge storms if we leave on Sept. 1.

    Norfolk A great starting off point to test offshore. Also a great naval history (yes, I know I skipped Lunenburg and Chesapeake with their great naval lore)

    Bahamas What a great place to stop for December and drag the keel around interesting islands.

    Turks and Caicos They look like a great place to take a break.

    Monserrat and St. Martin Probably as far south as we can go, but I’d like to see them both. If we arrive in Bahamas in December we have 6 months to mess around the northern part of the Antilles before heading to Bermuda.

    USVI and Puerto Rico Just looks like great cruising. Maybe head to BVI as well but the whole area looks good.

    Bermuda Get out of Dodge before hurricane season starts. There’s no point in trying To Reason With Hurricane Season. This would be sometime in May 2023

    Azores Horta looks like such a cool place to visit. It is the first big crossing and hopefully we’ve learned important white water lessions on the 5-7 day trip from Puerto Rico to Bermuda.

    Morocco I’ve never been to Africa so Casablanca has to be on the list. Hopefully we can take the Marakesh Express ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TYq9RjdYYU ) and visit Tangiers and Gibraltar as we head for the Mediterranean.

    Malaga, Cartagena, Valencia seems like nice places to go and they named an orange after Valencia. How cool is that?

    Barcelona It’s on the list because of the architecture in Barcelona, and a friend I’d like to take to dinner.

    Corsica and Sardinia They are on the way to Rome and I bet I can find some older guys to play backgammon with on either side of the straight that separates theml.

    Rome I’ve never been there, despite a classical education, so it seems like a great place to start the trip down the western coast of Italy, stopping at interesting places.

    Calabria Here in Canada I’ve met a lot of Canadians of Italian descent and most of them seem to have come from Calabria. My barber, my tailor, my other barber, and a host of others have all been decent people, who are proud of their heritage so this is an opportunity to see the land that birthed such honorable people.

    Messina Messina splits Sicily from the Italian toe and it’s a great way to take the shortcut to Malta.

    Malta was the gateway to the East during the Crusades and an undefeated country during World War II. I’m looking forward to seeing ancient buildings and meeting an island full of indomitable spirit.

    Thera I hear the South of Turkey is a wonderful place to spend the winter, if time on the Med must end for winter. But how can we miss the island that houses Santorini? So it is on the list.

    Limnos and Lesbos Two Islands that have some interesting things going on. Limnos produces a wonderful dessert wine that I’ve tried once and loved. It is also known for its natural ingredients,  almonds, figs, melons, watermelons, tomatoes, pumpkins and olives. The main crops are wheat, barley, sesame, honey, and oregano. And I want to try their cheeses. They also say jokingly that the tallest tree on Limnos is oregano.
    Lesbos, despite the jokes (“You aren’t a lesbian unless you were born on Lesbos” – The Mayor of Lesbos), has a million olive trees and so is quite different from Limnos, although it is only a few miles away. Both islands are on the way somewhat to Istanbul.

    Istanbul I was last in Istanbul in 2011. I met some fantastic people, like Simsek and Orhan and Levant in the Grand Bazaar and Deniz, the security guard out by the airport. I had a fabulous time in Istanbul and would love to dock in the shadow of the Galata tower, if they’ll have me.

    Black Sea From Istanbul, the Black Sea opens up. We would want to stay south, away from conflict and explore the more conservative southern shoreline of Turkey until we get to Georgia. I’d like to visit an old friend, Timur, and see the modern architecture of Batumi and Tbilisi, and the ancient Kakheti wine regions. I think it might be nice to winter over in Batumi.
    It is too bad that I’ll likely have to miss the Northern Black Sea like Hungary, Odessa, and Crimea. Whatever time of year we are in the Black Sea I’ve been warned to be off the Black Sea by September 1 due to storm season.

  • Plumbing the Electrical System

    Plumbing the Electrical System

    November 25, 2022, Saint Catharines

    It’s late November and having the boat on the hard is depressing.

    And there are a number of problem with her, mostly that the power is not working. The solar panel should be charging the batteries, allowing the fan to circulate the air inside. The solar panel is not working. The shore power is also not charging the batteries.

    So there’s something wrong with all the batteries at once, or something wrong with the fuses between the charging unit and the sources of power, or the charger itself. There may be multiple chargers.

    Tomorrow should be 10 degrees and sunny so I’m spending the morning tracing current and checking fuses. Matt, who rode the dragon with me in that July 20 storm will be there to help.

    Another thing that may be related is that the disco lights that light up the engine compartment are not working. They weren’t working before the batteries died, so that may be a clue. Stay tuned.

  • He discovered that the forestay core wire was broken

    He discovered that the forestay core wire was broken

    I’ve got lots to enter in this log and not so much time to do it.  But I stole 30 minutes to update and will go back and fill in the smaller adventures we’ve had since leaving Kingston. 

    Yesterday Keven Piper of Bay Sails installed a new furler.  It looks beautiful in pieces and hopefully today I’ll get down to the marina and check it out.  

    As he was taking the forestay off he discovered that the forestay core wire was broken.  At some point the forestay was twisted and broke the core.  Before he took it apart a visual inspection would have said, “This is Perfect”.  Not so!!  Good catch Keven.

    Remember that the genoa looked like this for 24 hours In very heavy wind so it is no surprise that the forestay was going to be highly stressed.   Part of a new furler is a new forestay, which is a very good thing.