LinoCat

The folding bike fits perfectly under the hatch of the engine. Thats another advantage of a catamaran: You have 2 engine hatches for 2 bikes :-) The solar panel was fitted but not yet wired. The now reinforced stainless steel frame leaves a strong impression but of course has not seen any rough seas. It will get 2 more supportlegs on Monday (hopefully). On Monday also the electrician and the rigger should come. Lets wait and see. The good news is that the work they do looks good. Just the reliablity sucks completely.

This 9 LED warm white 12 V bulb replacement kit is great. At least for the first day :-). It is from www.marblu.de and called BluLed 10-30V V G4-9 warmwhite. 9 LEDs produce enough light and it draws considerable less power than the standard G4 Halogen bulb which you can also see in the picture. Also the service from Marblu is quick and reliable and the pricing ok with 14,90EUR for such a replacement. I will let you know about the long term experience and we will keep the dining area of the saloon with the old Halogen. Only the working part will be LED now and over the chart table i have plain white LED. I will keep you updated.

In the morning i went with the folding bicycle to the boat yard. Linocat was standing on the dry and they were about to fix the solar panel. It showed that it needs to be reinforced and so everything came of again. But the boat will be put in the water and then the rest will be done there. I am not particularly happy about that but since the hotels are so expensive it makes sense. After a short ride LinoCat was back in the marina and i want to thank Dieter from the Flying Kefi who helped me to put it in the water and drive it to the marina. It made life much easier. Lani would have been an excellent coskipper of course. At least she has this command-tone-attitude very well :-) And she can say "wadder" which means "Wasser" in german and is her favorite element.

View from the Tivoli Marina Hotel. In the back you can see the reception pontoon. All boats usually stop there and then get a berth in the marina assigned. I spoke with them and they gave me direct berth H69/70 for the next day. Yes, you heard it right, the 29th of July we should be back in the water. Lets see!

The cover of the saildrives are not fitte yet. Also the welding work for the 3 solarpanels is not done. Well besides the watermaker not a lot was done. Ok, it was only half a year since i gave the OK, but i am really disappointed that things have not even moved the last weeks. On the other hand the guy who was reponsible left for good back to the UK and the new one is still not fully settled. Another worker had a bad ear infection and could not work due to that. And so Linocat MIGHT be getting in the water tomorrow. To extend the hotel stay they have increased the price to 185EUR per night. CRAZY! The car rental company is not able to extend our rental and so we have to go shopping tomorrow morning before the haul in, then store the stuff in the hotel room and put it on on the boat later. The remaining work will be done when LinoCat is in the water. Weather is still amazing, with a nice and cool 19degrees Celcius at night and sunny blue sky during day with a bit more than 30Celcius. Wh...

Which prem is good to take on a sailboat? We had a look at foldable strollers which can be reclined. This ruled out the solid built Quinny. The moon fit was a good choice. It is around 7kg and can be folded easily and compact. With a click you can also remove the wheels. It was very important to be able to recline the seat so Lani can sleep when going out for dinner outside the boat. Our old mosikto net also fits this one and we added a sunshade from Teutonia instead of an umbrella. In windy areas the umbrella do not withstand a wind stronger than a lite breeze. We also wanted to have a small storage net for drinking bottle, food and some books and this was also standard as you can see on the left. From above there is a window so you can have a look at your little one (and the other way around :-) ) The bigger the wheels the better. Then the stroller can be used in rought terrain also. This wheelsize is the absolute minimum. Folded the unit can be transported easily with one hand and a...

The flight departed at 14.05 from Frankfurt with Lufthansa. It was on time but they have done a gate change quite late and so we had a nice run to the gate after getting out of the Lounge. Lani had potato-salad in the lounge and liked it a lot. The car from Lagorent was there as always, it was a Renault Megane. I think some engineers need to have their hands cuffed because they produce really stupid solution. Like the Renault Megane or i am not getting the french way of building cars. It was a 25Min drive to the Tivoli Marina Hotel and the room was already reverved via HRS. It was 116EUR per night including a very nice breakfast. Expensive but very convinient since the hotel is built around the marina. After we met with Dieter from the Trimaran Flying Kefi it was time to sleep. No cloud, 32degrees and wind with force 2-3 from NW. A great start!

Here are some pictures from inside LinoCat. I decided to leave most of the stuff in boxes because next week there will be a BIIIG cleanup session and then the stuff will be unpacked and stored. Nevertheless i am scared about the amount of gear and especially the weight. Catamarans are very sensible to weight and so maybe i have to get rid of 10kg at least to compensate for that :-) The shower is cramped with boxes and so is the salon bench. The carpenter has done a great job and so LinoCat has a new cupboard in the owners cabin and a new table outside.

There was the need to bring some heavy stuff to the boat which can not be carried on the plane. So i had to drive the 2600km (one way) to Portugal. Good that my dad agreed to help me and good that Chritoph offered me to use my old van which he has purchased from me 2 years ago. So we loaded the bus with the portable generator, food, diving gear, clothes, maps, laptops and other equipment. On Sunday night at 23.30 we started via Paris and then to the atlantic coast at Bordeaux. After crossing France we entered Spain near Hendaye and then we crossed Spain and reached Portugal. Our course was heading into direction of Lisboa and then south. Diesel (gasoline) in Portugal was only 93 Cent, fairly cheap. We arrived at the hotel Tivoli Marina in Portimao at 2 in the morning and slept until 8. After a nice breakfast on the terrace with a view on the marina we drove to the boatyard. Some was work was already done, like the new layer of marine coating but most of the work was delayed. Amazing af...

One part of the preparations was a cooking course. YES, a course on how to prepare fish. The course was held by a renown cooking school in Mannheim and held by Timo Beckert. The course was about "Steinbutt", Seawolf, Lobster and Jacobsmussel. Also Salmon and Tuna was covered. We started with a Carpaccio from raw Seawolf and Tuna followed by a pasta dish called Ravioli filled with Lobster. The next course was the "Steinbutt" made in the oven. The course started at 18.30 in the evening and went on until midnight. Interestingly one participant will move to Mumbai in India for a few years from the 1st of October onwards. A small world isn´t it? Lobsters are killed by putting them in boiling water alive. Cruel but it is the only legal way to kill them in Germany. If you want to have a lobster carpaccio then this does not work out since the meat needs to be raw. You then have to kill him with a method where you find the weak spot at the shell behind the ne...

From the old to-do list in this blog http://linocat.blogspot.com/2009/02/equipment-planning.html many things are done: Honda 20i Generator 2000W approx. 1800EUR (DONE) Bauer junior dive compressor with Honda 4 stroke engine (i have it already at home) DECIDED NOT TO BRING IT Watermaker Spectra 200 AROUND 6000eur DONE LED navigation light with anchorlight (Lopolight) on the masthead (580EUR) DONE LED strobe light (82 EUR) NOT YET stronger alternators (from 60 to 80A) with smart charger (Sterling) WILL BE DISCUSSED Halyards and other running rig parts (480EUR) DONE Add 2 more 210Wp solar panels to the existing Sanyo 210Wp (1000EUR) IN PROCESS Change the stainless steel frame for that (400EUR) IN PROCESS repair bow net and some gelcoat work (400EUR) (DONE, needs to be checked) For the HONDA Generator i also purchased a carrying bag and a 12V charger cable. On Sunday night i will drive to Portimao by car. It should be around 2600km and will go via Paris to the atlantic then south to Bilbao...

Today 92 boxes arrived in an oversea container. They arrived from Pune via Mumbai, Horn of Africa (the famous pirate area), Suez canal and the Mediterranean sea through the strait of Gibraltar (where we have been sailing already) and then around Portugal north via the Biscaya, English channel into the river Elbe to Hamburg. From there it was transported via land. We have put up “no parking” signs the night before and at 9 in the morning the boxes arrived via truck. They have been reloaded into a smaller truck for easy transportation. The truck was equipped with a hydraulic platform and so we could start unloading. Being back in Germany there was no crowd of Indian helpers but only two workers from Schenker for unloading. So my father any myself helped hauling the boxes down to the basement. Then they get sorted into “boat, “unpack” and storage.