Well, as many of you know, we're going cruising in Baja, specifically the Sea of Cortez (aka Gulf of California).
First, many of you have been unfamiliar with the term "cruising." This is a type of traveling by boat where the goal is to visit interesting locales, both inhabited and uninhabited. One can go great distances, such as a circumnavigation, or sail in a small area, like around the Monterey bay. It is distinguished by the other two main types of sailing: daysailing and racing.
But it is a long way and sometimes rough passage to get to the Sea of Cortez ("The Sea") via the open ocean. If we were to sail straight there, we would need to travel 1,250 miles across open ocean just to reach Cabo San Lucas. Then we would need to turn the corner and go north to head up into the Sea.
That would take long enough, probably 10 days without stopping. Throw in stops for food, fuel, and shelter for bad winter weather and we'd probably take 3-4 weeks. That's long enough, but the return is against the prevailing wind and currents and might take twice as long.
Rather than spend 2-3 months getting to and from our cruising grounds, we decided to take advantage of a handy feature of our boat: its trailerability. Only 26ft long and less than 5000lbs, we can take our boat wherever we can drive, and at 55mph!
So, we are trailering the boat to San Felipe, Baja California, at the northern end of the Sea
where we'll splash it and take off on our nautical journey.
But first, we needed to do some overdue maintenance on the trailer. Many components were in a sorry state so we spent a couple of days overhauling and replacing the axles/bearings/brakes/suspension: basically the entire undercarriage. Below is a time-lapse of a couple of days of us working on it. alas, much of our work is not visible, but check out the old axles and brakes on the left.
First, many of you have been unfamiliar with the term "cruising." This is a type of traveling by boat where the goal is to visit interesting locales, both inhabited and uninhabited. One can go great distances, such as a circumnavigation, or sail in a small area, like around the Monterey bay. It is distinguished by the other two main types of sailing: daysailing and racing.
But it is a long way and sometimes rough passage to get to the Sea of Cortez ("The Sea") via the open ocean. If we were to sail straight there, we would need to travel 1,250 miles across open ocean just to reach Cabo San Lucas. Then we would need to turn the corner and go north to head up into the Sea.
That would take long enough, probably 10 days without stopping. Throw in stops for food, fuel, and shelter for bad winter weather and we'd probably take 3-4 weeks. That's long enough, but the return is against the prevailing wind and currents and might take twice as long.
Rather than spend 2-3 months getting to and from our cruising grounds, we decided to take advantage of a handy feature of our boat: its trailerability. Only 26ft long and less than 5000lbs, we can take our boat wherever we can drive, and at 55mph!
So, we are trailering the boat to San Felipe, Baja California, at the northern end of the Sea
where we'll splash it and take off on our nautical journey.
But first, we needed to do some overdue maintenance on the trailer. Many components were in a sorry state so we spent a couple of days overhauling and replacing the axles/bearings/brakes/suspension: basically the entire undercarriage. Below is a time-lapse of a couple of days of us working on it. alas, much of our work is not visible, but check out the old axles and brakes on the left.
This is the first time I've been excited to watch a video of a stationary trailer:)
ReplyDeleteWell done!