"Houses are but badly built boats, so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable, not the animal, world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place." - Arthur Ransome

What's cooking on Baloo?

Baloo has a great galley. Here's Cindi at the propane stove and oven. It's gimbaled, so that it stays level, even when the boat is heeled up.

Across the room is our cute propane fireplace heater, that used take the chill off the cool nights up north, but just sits there in Mexico.

Freqs on Baloo

On Baloo, We use a variety of HAM, marine Single-SideBand, and VHF nets to receive weather forecasts and keep in touch. We got an antique radio off ebay, but it seems to work great.

Here's the groundplane for the SSB. Boy, it sure makes the zincs go away fast!

Which Way, Baloo?

Our favorite crew member on Baloo is Flem, the servo-pendulum windvane. Flem steers a straight course for days without a rest, and consumes no food or electricity. Here's to Flem!

Here's a video of Flem steering in following seas.

Here's a video of the tiller pilot pushing Flem.

Watts up on Baloo

Here's Cindi reeling in dinner while she makes power. Baloo now has enough solar panels to keep us comfortably powered indefinetly at anchor without the noise or expense of fossil fuels.

We have four 30 watt panels mounted on top of the hard dodger (which tend to get shaded by rigging), plus a 85 watt panel on the rail. Here's a shot of Baloo from above, before the rail panel.

The fridge is by far our biggest consumer of electricity. However, it's sure nice to have a cold beverage when you're watching a movie at the end of a hot day. Here's Baloo's LCD TV/DVD player.

Tender to Baloo

I think we have the littlest dinghy in the fleet. Baloo's dinghy is tiny, but it is easy to store on deck in front of the mast or deflate and put below. It has a high-pressure inlatable floor and a rod holder. We call it the Offshore Fishing Machine, or OFM. As you can see, a couple scuba tanks in it and it's not going anywhere real fast with the 3 hp outboard.



It even has flip-down wheels in case you forget and get standed by a low tide!

Bathing on Baloo

Baloo has a seperate shower stall, rare for a 38' boat of her era. If we have had the engine running recently we will have 6 gallons of hot water. In warm anchorages, we like to use the solar shower up on deck.

Power to Baloo

On Baloo, we try to keep the power usage down by using people-powered machines when possible. Here's Baloo's manual coffee grinder, blender, and french press. A pressure cooker saves propane.

Even the sewing machine has a hand crank so it can be used without electricity.

Land Tender

Well... after 17 years and about 270,000 miles, we finally had to replace Baloo's Land-Tender.

She was still working perfectly (and looking pretty good too) but the New Crew demanded a backseat for his carseat, so we are now on Totota #2.

#2 looks a whole lot like #1, it just cost three times as much and gets worse mileage.

BUILDING THE SERIES DROGUE

If things really get ugly at sea, we plan to toss out this drogue line of little cones (that were tediously all attached to a gigantic line) and take a passive approach to storm survival.

So far, it hasn't come to that, and we've mostly struggled with where to store this huge piece of emergency gear.

NICK WRESTLES WITH THE COUPLING

CREW MAINTENANCE- CUT THE WEATHER ROUTER'S HAIR

NEW TOWER WITH RADAR, GPS, TV, VHS ANTENNA, AND A LIFTING CRANE

NEW STAYSAIL DINGLEBERRY

Once we have more than about 30 knots of wind, we reduce sail to just the staysail and Baloo loves it. She's very well behaved and well balanced with just this little sail, set on a removable inner forestay. Plus, the ride is a lot easier on the crew!

CINDI' S NEW ROD, "THE MAHI SLAYER"

SOLAR PANELS INSTALLED

MATTRESS REPAIR- NEW FOAM

V-BERTH MATTRESS REPAIR

NEW CUSHIONS

Hey! We're having a baby! Why did we get WHITE cushions???

GRINDING OUT SOME BLISTERS

MOVE THOSE FILTERS WHERE YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY CHECK THEM

FIGURING OUT HOW TO PUT THE PROP BACK TOGETHER

FIRST PAINT IN THE NAV. STATION

PAINTING FINISHED AND RADAR INSTALLED

SEWING PROJECT- SHEET BAG

This was one of Nick's first sewing projects (with his cheap ebay sewing machine) and it came out pretty good. It holds all of the lines that are led back to the cockpit.

Future sewing projects included: a mainsail cover, dorade box covers, a cover for the binnacle and covers for the portable fuel cans.

REPLACING ALL THE THRU-HULLS

BALOO GOT A NEW SEACOCK ON EVERY THRU-HULL

SOME MORE NEW SEACOCKS

ADJUSTING THE NEW SHAFT SEAL

ADDING GROUNDPLANE FOR THE SSB-HAM RADIO

NASTY MOLD IN THE V-BERTH

RIPPING UP THE V-BERTH

NICE NEW FOAM IN THE V-BERTH

FINISHING THE NEW CABIN SOLE

CABIN SOLE INSTALLED

PAINTING THE BLUE STRIPE

NOW THAT'S A BACKING PLATE!

TRYING ON THE NEW STAYSAIL

LEVELING OUT THE BILGE

BILGE FINISHED (WITH NEW PUMPS)

WHO BROKE THAT WINDOW?

REPLACING THE WINDOW