June 12 2019 – Port Camargue, France. Since I posted the last blog, I have received many emails from friends – Did it launch? Are you on your boat? Yes, BioTrek is launched and no we are not yet on the boat. It will be a couple more weeks before all is finished: electrical, electronics, rigs, sails etc. I have not had time to update the blog because immediately after the launch we attended a week of courses during “Outremer week” and then a 3-day regatta –“Outremer Cup”. The courses were fantastic. I especially liked the 2 days of “Medicine at Sea” with Dr. Vincent Delire see https://www.medidistance.com . In addition to theory, we practiced sewing sutures, intramuscular injections with oranges, as well as what to do in various scenarios (hypothermia, fall from a mast, etc).
I also took course on “Maintenance at Sea” by Loic, who navigated around the world -see http://www.mobyvoyage.com/. In the course on ropes we had hands-on practice making splices and a soft shackles.
The boat launch of a 60 ft catamaran through the streets of La Grande Motte was dramatic, and took about 4 hours. Click here for the Youtube video. Later, I will shorten the video and add drone pictures taken by Mattieu of Outremer.
Outremer cup was 3 days of racing against other Outremer catamarans. Pierre and I were on another 5X, previously called Wildling https://sailwildling.com/ because BioTrek is not yet finished. It was a great way to learn the 5X from experts. The first day we were with competitive racers who really knew the boat (Bernard, an owner of Delta/Incidence sails and Outremer expert Jean-Pierre). The second day with the 5X owner (Jean-Luc – also a competitive racer), and the third day with Dominique, and Mapie of 5X Pom III http://levoyagedepom.com/ . Lots of wind and lots of fun!
I have just enjoyed the last hour with yal. This is so exciting and thank you so much for sharing your adventure. Tiller adds a very interesting tweet to this love story of life. He is growing so fast; cannot wait to see all his “hair styles” .ha, ha,,,It’s perfect that he entered into your life in the beginning of the story and just a plus for the excitement .
Loving what you are doing Congratulations on the launching It all looks like great fun excitement Lot of Lots of hard work