First Sail

Since this is basically a recap of last years short season, because we didn't get the boat until late February, I am going to do kind of a recap of the season in just a few posts. That way, all the super exciting stuff happening this year will be more current. We picked the boat up in St Martin in February, and spent a few weeks adding important stuff like a watermaker and some solar panels. We also added another battery to the house bank to up the storage capacity. Then we were ready to go. So we thought. Our plan was to sail 90 miles West, to the BVI's, and spend a few weeks there before moving South. The trouble was, it was crazy windy. Winds were 35 knots and higher, almost enough to blow you off the dock! It finally started to decrease and we made our way through the bay and past the draw bridge out of Simpson Bay. Early the next morning, we set sail for Virgin Gorda in the BVI's. This was our first sail on the boat, and it was wild. The winds had increased again, and we were showing 30 knots apparent wind and we were sailing 9 knots with the wind at our back. The passage is called the Anegada Passage, and is notorious for big confused seas. Lucky for us, we were going downwind. The swells were sometimes breaking, and were huge. We made it in one piece, and the boat was great. The BVI's are the sailing capital for a reason, and they didn't disappoint. We had a great time with friends and family, and soon it was time to start South.

Go to the new blog at S/VDiscoVolante.blogspot.com

The Blog Is Back... But Is Moving

We are re-starting our blog, but it is moving to Here is the first post at the new site, that is still a work in progress cause we are in Grenada and the internet is really slow. What in the world? Where have we been all this time? Well, a LOT has happened to us in the last year or two. It all started at the Miami Boat Show in February of 2016. We like the show, but never considered that we would be buying a new boat, we liked to look and that is all. But, we saw a boat and almost as quick, we decided to buy it. Our new catamaran is a Lagoon 42, and the boat we saw was hull number 2. It is a new design and we put an order in right after we saw it.

When you buy a new boat, the builder puts on it exactly the things you order with it, and the process of building the boat takes a bit of time. In our case, it took about 8 months to hit the water, and a couple more to sail it from France to St Martin where we took posession of her. This gave us some time to sell our Manta catamaran, and the first couple that saw her bought the boat. Suddenly we didn't own a boat for the first time in years. It was weird.

We considered keeping the name Saltrun, but decided something new would be better, and would keep the memories of the Manta cat separate. Why did we choose Disco Volante? Well, glad you asked. The name is Italian for Flying Saucer, and catamarans always looked like they are from outer space to me. Also, we have been known to break out the disco ball on occasion, so it was a good fit.

We finally saw the boat in St Martin late February 2017. We spent about 2 weeks getting her the way we wanted, including a watermaker installation, and we sailed to Tortola for a few weeks.