The Gentlemans Guide to Passages South, By Bruce Van Sant

Now available.

We received an email from Bruce a week ago to let us know that he has the 10th Edition of his book out and that it would be available soon. Older copies have been offered on Ebay for as much as $800.00, which we find totally ridiculous. If anyone is looking to purchase the new 10th Edition, you can get it here for $29.95. This will be his absolutely last update. Bruce's website can be found here.




The 10th and last Edition of the popular directions for sailing south
to the Bahamas and the Caribbean

For more than twenty years Van Sant repeatedly surveyed nearly 200 anchorages between Florida and South America. He racked up well over 80,000 sea miles doing it, mostly single-handed. Why? You’ll find some interesting answers in his book of stories, Margarita Cat, but essentially, he did it because he liked doing it.

Sailing up and down the chain of islands so much and so often, he got to looking for shorter and easier ways to navigate between each link in the chain, and he kept refining detailed nav plans for every leg.

He has systematically taken the thorns out of the route they used to call the Thorny Path. For example, he exploits the calming effects on wind and sea which result from land cooling on each side of an inter-island passage. Applying his many methods, both sail and power can make safe, comfortable and pleasant progress even against normally impenetrable trade winds and seas.

Passages South offers an illustrated manual of instruction for specific passages and harbors down islands as well as a cruising guide for the Greater Antilles islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. It has sailed aboard tens of thousands of boats passaging between the Americas. It should sail with you too.
About the Author During his 40 years of cruising the world, Van Sant worked as a consultant systems engineer as well as weriting and speaking in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, picking up six languages along the way. He settled into cruising the myriad islands between Florida and South America. Read more about his adventures in his book MARGARITA CAT.

Available at www.ThornlessPath.com and nautical outlets

Moving The Starting Battery

Our starting battery sits in a nice fiberglass box that is mounted in the front of the engine. The distance to our house bank is about a foot and makes for short cables and easy access to use jumper cables in case the starting battery goes dead. But this is the space we plan to use to move the house bank so that the genset can be installed. It also makes for a long cable run to the starter, requiring large wires. So it is time to make a change in preparation for moving the house bank. The plan is to move it right next to the engine starter and eliminate those long and large cables to the starter.

The spot where it will be moved is another area that has not yet had a fresh coat of paint and has been used to store bits and pieces of spare parts and equipment. These spaces that I haven't gotten to yet are pretty nasty looking and I feel better with each one that finally gets a fresh coat of paint. Eventually, the entire engine compartment will get done.

The first step is to clean everything thoroughly and do a good sanding with 90 grit paper on my orbital sander. The odd corners get hand sanded and everything is wiped down with mineral spirits. The underside of the fuel tank that I can reach is given a coating of  Por15 rust inhibitor.

Next comes two coats of my now favorite best bilge paint from the local Lowes hardware store. This stuff does everything I need it to do except apply itself. And it is dry in about an hour. I like the fact that it really doesn't need any sanding, I do anyway, and it is mold and mildew resistant.

Because of the angle of the bilge here, a "shelf" is needed to keep the battery level, and two supports are epoxied and screwed into the sides of the compartment for added strength to support the battery weight.

Rather than a flat shelf, I used oak strips so that there would be plenty of air circulation in the compartment and the oak gave it plenty of strength. The "shelf" also got two coats of paint. While I was painting, the section directly adjoining was also done. Every time something gets moved a little, more is painted.

With the fresh coats of paint dry, it was time to move the battery. The old cables between the starter and the start battery were removed completely and the connection points on the starter received a good cleaning and a coat of silicone dielectric grease to keep corrosion down.

The battery will now reside in a plastic battery box with built-in vents. The cables from the battery to the starter are now about a foot long. The battery end of the cables and the battery terminals also received a coat of silicone grease. There is still a long negative cable that runs from the starting battery to the house bank and the echo charger which keeps it topped off is also run from the house bank. I did have to add a side support to keep the box and battery from sliding around on the new compartment since it didn't quite fit snugly.

The new box is secured with a strap that came with it. I doubt it will move around even without it, but better safe then sorry. Now the work can begin so that the house bank will have a new home.