http://BlueWaterCruising.com/index.htm Sail the seven seas, an adventure of a lifetime en-us Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST gslabbert5119@gmail.com (Gavin Slabbert) gslabbert5119@gmail.com (Gavin Slabbert) http://BlueWaterCruising.com/images/headmain.jpg http://BlueWaterCruising.com/index.htm http://BlueWaterCruising.com/annapolis2008demoday.htm I have just added the write up on the Annapolis 2008 Demo day, where Lesley and I demo and sailed the Lagoon 380, the Leopard 40 and the Lagoon 420. All three yachts are fantastic, but we can only buy one. Below is a short clip from the page, happy reading. Immediately I could feel the difference, this yacht is faster and lighter, better, maybe and maybe not, but it is so hard to tell in such light conditions. The Leopard 40 was essentially built for the Caribbean charter market so she is geared towards the tourist, as a result she has tons of storage and the aft deck area and saloon are designed around sunset dinners on the deck with family and friends. There is little or no separation between the the saloon and aft section of the boat. It is however designed with the aft deck closed off with a walkway that can be closed off to stop the toddlers wondering off. Well to a point, young ones have a way of getting over, under or around things, but we don't have any but this was still pointed out to us. Anyway about half way into the sail the skipper says to me to furl the jib, center the traveler and tack through the wind. So we furl the jib and so on and tack through the wind on the main in 5 knots of wind and I will be damned if the yacht deals with this without a problem at all. Really easy, and no motors, now I am impressed. We sail along and sail past the Lagoon 420 which tacks away and we have a royal time in 5 knots or less of wind. Still not great conditions for sailing but the yacht handled the conditions better than the Lagoon did. Why, well as mentioned she is lighter, and has less beam than the Lagoon 380 and thus does not need all that additional weight. I ask well how does she handle big seas and heavy winds, and the skipper says that he sailed her over from South Africa dodging Hurricanes, Gustav, Hannah and Ike. Great story but I wasn't there so I have to believe him. We thank him for his time ... Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST http://BlueWaterCruising.com/annapolis2008demoday.htm http://BlueWaterCruising.com/domainnameannounce.htm Our Domain name has changed to BlueWaterCruising.com ... We are excited to announce that we have obtained the domain name of BlueWaterCruising.com. This domain better reflects our website and that we will be spending most of our time sailing and diving in the deep blue yonder. It also does not have any of the stereotypes attached to it that our previous domain name had. We have also finally completed the Announcements page which has more information on why we changed our domain name, how and why we chose the name of our yacht, and lastly we have some very cool T-Shirts for sale with a custom designed Sailor-dog logo on it. Lastly we have finally figured out how to make our RSS feed work correctly so go to the website and subscribe to RSS feeds and be notified of any updates and postings to our website. Take a look at http://BlueWaterCruising.com Recent Announcements Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:03:00 EST http://BlueWaterCruising.com/domainnameannounce.htm http://BlueWaterCruising.com/annapolis2008.htm News, reviews and reports from the 2008 Annapolis boat show... I have posted the Annapolis Boat show 2008 page which can be viewed at Blue Water Cruising Annapolis 2008 page. You will find the link to the page on the left side of the index page and there are tons of photos of catamarans to be seen. Here is an excerpt from that page... Well the 2008 Annapolis boat show has come and gone, and much to my surprise there were throngs of people all weekend. Boat sales from what I can gather from the salesman were brisk but down from last year, if the sales people are to be believed. I seriously doubt that there were a lot of sales but I do personally know of 1 as I happened to be present while the negotiations were going on. During the dealings I hear some serious concessions were made by the sellers as they too are feeling this market. We arrived at the Show on the Sunday, went and confirmed our demo sails on the Lagoon 380, the Lagoon 420 Diesel and the Leopard 40. Though we have been leaning toward the ... Read the rest of the article at http://BlueWaterCruising.com Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:37:00 EST http://BlueWaterCruising.com/annapolis2008.htm