Anchoring Zeewind

Changes of pull on an anchor, by tidal forces or wind shift, can flip the anchor out of the bottom. Full chain, or a kellet (weight) may prevent nasty consequences, but for longer stays I prefer 'bahamian'. I.e. two anchors opposite each other with the rode or warp from the boat exerting forces on the grouns tackle in between both anchors. Various alternatives to this 'bahamian moor' are practised..
My particular approach on 39' Zeewind consists of a primary Fortress 37 anchor on a chainlead plus nylon rode. It is dropped the usual way, but on twice the scope. After reversing to set the anchor, my secondary Fortress 23 anchor (with rode equally prepared) is dropped from the stern, then leading the rode forward outside the rig.
At the bitter end of the rode a snatchblock is connected, which I clip over the primary rode outside the bow. After the scope of the primary rode is brought back to normal, this block rides up and down the primary rode avoiding chafe. This because of the dynamic changes in direction and pull of the boat.swinging round on it single warp. All the time, whatever the direction and pull, the anchors are drawn together with the only effect being to dig in better.

My 39' boat Zeewind

Item I like most

I consider my iPad2 the most valuable item I have on board. Through its inbuilt GPS it will give me my position whereever I am on my Navionics maps. Be it in detail within a harbor entrance, or at large at sea. The iNav app from Apple offers basic navigation tools, while the X-traverse Navionics maps give me worldwide guidance even if ever I plan to visit remote areas. I keep the iPad in à plastic cover and in what I call my 'dry box', in which the bottom is covered with a thick layer of moisture absorbing crystals in bags. 
Feeding the X-traverse maps into the iPad should prefarably be done in a Wifi environment, because of its bulk. That may far exceed the costs of the iPad and charts, which as such kept me somewhere in the region of 1000 euros. However, my KPN provider allowed me three months free loading as a newcomer.  X-traverse allows for an ample period to load the charts, if direct loading would prove inconvenient.
The only drawback so far - you cannot use the iPad in direct sunlight.

Others on sailing

Having a boat that might go anywhere rouses  a lot of peculiar comments. Sometimes quite unexpectedly. While my boat is not finished to any industry standard, some passers-by say that she is beautiful. These remarks mostly come from older sailors, who apparently look at the general shape and outfit.
Other comments come from people who have not seen my boat at all, but insist that I must GO! To make sure, that I will, they also want a Date of Departure. Probably this category already thinks of sailing a boat around the world. They may have heard saucy stories by that special brand of sailors who must earn money by sailing. Colourful storytellers I assume, but not always that helpful to the common sailor.
One not unusual approach to this problem has been practiced by staging a fake port of departure and a suitable date. Especially, if there are sponsors to be dealt with. After the visit to such a goodbye port, leaving waving people behind, a proper port is used again to make final preparations, and above all to wait for suitable weather to arrive, whenever. That is, if one really has long distance plans in mind. One might also have completely other thoughts on the subject of future sailing and start pottering around.
This entire issue needs some elaboration as it is very tricky and prone to the wildest speculations. If you state that you are interested in Antarctica, for instance, the word will spread, that you are going to that southern icy continent. If you say that you looked at the Atlantic Ocean, studying the upcoming weather for the next days, people know for sure that you are ready for a crossing, while actually your mind does not stretch further than places in the vicinity.
Far more to the point are comments coming from the experienced sailing fraternity. Conversations with them will sometimes touch upon far flung destinations, and the well-known choke points of the 'milk run', such as the crossings of the Panama Canal, the Tuamotus, some archipels, the Coral Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Agulhas Current. However, conversations usually deal with daily sores, such as navigation issues, a broken piece of equipment, different ways of climbing the mast, or having work to do on the underwater body. The necessary jobs, to be faced regularly. Not to speak of seasickness, which also may be part of short or long distance sailing.
Recently, I had to go up myself to do some work on the crosstrees and rig. I tried  to develop a system that would need no outside help. What eventually proved to be successful was a sort of slide around the mast to which I connected a seat. A type of of bosun´s chair without the uneasy dangling. After several non-conclusive tries, I was winched up by reliable builder-sailor Henk in a force 5 and I still could finish the job using both hands satisfactorily within short notice. Now, I think of connecting a deck winch to the right hand side of the slide, so I might reel myself up. I.e., in theory, and only up to the crosstrees. Whether it will work remains to be seen.

Patching up, and work on the boom

A couple of nice days giving me the opportunity to patch up some of the paint work in the cockpit. Two part white DD paint, that I mix early in the morning to ´settle´, whatever that means. I put it on early in the afternoon, when most of the moisture will have been gone. Did an explanatory note on the puzzling climatology time lag of the hurricane frequences behind arctic tree ring data. I hope the tree ring guys did a serious job. Otherwise, I might have made a fool of myself. At the end of the afternoon, the paint was hardened, offering a good feel. Next week I want to do some job on the boom, strengthen it a bit.by adding two Oregon Pine side bars against it.
My boxlike kevlar covered ply dinghy fits neatly under the cockpit seats, as it should.  As my barge neighbor stated - if your boat sinks, just stay in the cockpit, revealing horrible stories on whale attacks, and such..

Some Zeewind Data

The length of Zeewind is 11.99 m.(39'), her beam 3.56 m.(12'), and her draft 1.32 m.(4'). Her loaded displacement is 10.500 kg.(23,000 lbs), and, as such, of heavy nature.  She has a sloop rig, with roller reefing for both the jib, and the mainsail.
Her engine is a Vetus-Deutz D29, of 63 hp.; a bit overpowered, but I did like the 10 liter oil cooling with long intervals, the pretty low revs allowed continuously, the economy on fuel consumption, and the ease of maintenance..
Her heavy rudder has a helm, but is also trailing a trimtab, with a separate small helm. On long distances the trimtab helm should make for a light job on the windvane or pushrod of the autopilot. It is amazing, pushing the small helm, how the heavy rudder immediately follows.
She is built in epoxy-woodcore, a bit rough on her appearance, for reasons of having adopted an allergy in the early building phase. That rules out much sandpapering.  She is flush decked, with glued solar panels on the center line of the foredeck.
Her cockpit can hold a dinghy, featuring fore, aft, and side buoyancy tanks. Construction is of kevlar-epoxy  covered thin ply. Kept under the seats it is hardly visible. Although, being box type shaped, it is easily propelled by an outboard, and  offers reasonable rowing qualities. In many respects it compares to an inflatable.

My example - Johnny Wray

It happened in my school days, when I was 14 or 15 years old, that I came across a wonderful book in the public library of Goes, written by New Zealander Johnny Wray. Vagabonds of the Southsea, in a Dutch translation. He described the building of a sailing boat Ngataki. Very much from scratch in the years of the Great Depression. He had been fired at the age of 21, and decided to build a sailing boat by himself.
He was allowed to do it in the front yard of his parents home Remuera Road in Auckland. He wanted to build the boat of Kauri wood, so the boat would easily survive him. Yet, he had to get the wood himself, from logs that were lost in transportation, and lay separately stranded on the beaches of Hauraki Gulf.
In a yacht of his friend, he searched the beaches, and after collecting some wrong ones, he found some sound Kauri ones, bringing in enough to start boat building. The logs were sawn, paid for by those first cheapy wrong ones.
His 'design' was a half model, carved by himself, at a ratio of 1:12, taking care it was a straightforward model to simplify the construction. He then cut the model into parts in such a way, that he could use the pieces to measure the real dimensions of the construction parts.
Having mastered all the difficulties of getting the parts of the boat together in an unconventional but sound manner, he could sail his boat with friends across the Pacific, and lived on it with his girl friend Loti. However, in an answer to a letter of mine in the late fifties, he wrote, that because of WWII he had been forced to sell Ngataki. He included a photograph of his new sailing boat he had build again, some 10 feet  larger, than his 35 foot Ngataki (Interestingly, Ngataki is being restored nowadays in New Zealand). Having read the book my decision was taken - building a boat from scratch, of my own design. However, for practical reasons it would take some time (actually half a century) to realize my plans.