June 5, 2025 • 71 mins
What does it take to transform from a military officer into a global sailor chasing the horizon? Captain James Canning's journey aboard his Regina 43 sailboat Archila reveals the realities behind the sailing dream – equal parts adventure, challenge, and unexpected wildlife encounters.
From his early days learning on small dinghies in central England to navigating the treacherous waters near Gibraltar where orcas systematically attack sailboats, James shares candid insights about his transformation into a blue water cruiser. After 17 years in the Royal Air Force, one charter holiday rekindled his passion for sailing, eventually leading to his 2018 purchase of Archila, which he jokingly refers to as "going into self-induced bankruptcy."
The conversation takes us through his Atlantic crossing preparation, where Brexit complications and COVID restrictions shaped his route through the Canary Islands and Cape Verde before the 2,200-mile ocean passage to Grenada. Despite losing his parasailor early in the journey and surviving a mid-Atlantic whale impact that damaged his rudder and skeg, James completed the crossing in 14 days using only wind power. His twin genoa setup and calm problem-solving under pressure demonstrate the resilience required for successful ocean voyaging.
Most compelling is James's encounter with the infamous Iberian orca pod that has sunk multiple sailboats near Gibraltar. His practical advice for navigating these waters – staying within the 20-meter depth contour – offers valuable insights for sailors planning Mediterranean passages. Similarly, his enthusiastic endorsement of copper coating as "one of the best investments" for hull maintenance provides real-world wisdom for boat owners everywhere.
Whether you're dreaming of your first sailboat or planning your own ocean crossing, this episode delivers authentic experiences from someone who's living the dream while facing its challenges. Listen now and discover why Captain James believes the simple advice to "reef early" might be the most important sailing lesson of all.
Insightful interviews with Africa’s tourism professionals - Great giveaways from 5* guests
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SALTY ABANDON: Cap'n Tinsley, Orange Beach, AL:
Oct 2020 to Present - 1998 Island Packet 320;
Nov 2015-Oct 2020; 1988 Island Packet 27
Feb-Oct 2015 - 1982 Catalina 25
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Capn Tinsley (00:04):
Good evening.
Joining us tonight is JamesKenning, captain of Sailing
Yacht Archila, a Regina 43sailboat.
James has done what most onlydream about sailed to many
countries of the world andcounting a life powered by wind,
determination and adventure.
We're about to dive into whatit really takes to chase the
horizon and live the dream.
(00:25):
But first, if everybody wouldplease like, subscribe and share
, it really helps us bring youmore incredible sailing stories
if you do that.
I'm Captain Tinsley of SailingVessel Salty Abandoned and
Island Packet 320, and this isthe Salty Podcast, episode 61.
(00:46):
Welcome, james.
James Kenning (00:49):
Hello good evening.
Capn Tinsley (00:51):
Good evening.
Thank you for being here.
James Kenning (00:53):
My pleasure.
Capn Tinsley (00:55):
Okay, so I found you on Instagram, right?
James Kenning (01:00):
That's right.
Yeah, I've got a presence there.
Capn Tinsley (01:02):
Okay, you've got a presence.
Okay, so tell us a little bitabout yourself.
You're obviously not from theUnited States, so tell the folks
where you're from.
James Kenning (01:11):
So I'm British born and bred.
I hit the big six zero thismonth, which is a little bit
frightening.
I'm sure no one will believe itlooking at this youthful face.
That's right, I would never haveguessed but in those years um
my formative time I was royalair force and then contracting I
(01:34):
first started sailing in afairly traditional way and my
dad taught me to sail dinghies.
Um, I used to sail with him,but I was soon going to become
an orphan, so I went solo racedand then when I went to
university I pretty much stoppedsailing.
(01:54):
It just sort of dropped off myradar.
Capn Tinsley (01:59):
Now, where did you do this sailing?
James Kenning (02:03):
I grew up in Oxfordford, which is a
university town right in themiddle of the country, right in
the middle of the country, andmy first introduction to sailing
was on a small gravel pit thathad been flooded, and it was
called Dorchester Sailing Club.
Oh wow, Sailing reallyliterally could be everywhere.
(02:26):
I started very small.
Capn Tinsley (02:29):
Okay, all right, and I know you went to the Royal
Air Force.
James Kenning (02:34):
So I was commissioned in the Royal Air
Force, did 17 years in that, inthat, and towards the end, um
took up sailing again andbasically had one holiday
chartering a boat, knowingnothing about big boats uh, it
was a 34 Bavaria, I think thatwe chartered and to me then it
(02:59):
was a big boat.
No one had told me anythingabout prop walk or or these
sorts of things, and and theyjust let they just let us go
with it, and so it was quite astressful week learning how not
to do things and then, fromthere, caught the bug, got back
into the sailing bug, a numberof years chartering and then it
(03:22):
would be in 2018 decided to gointo self-induced bankruptcy by
buying Archila.
She's been sucking me dry ofmoney ever since.
Capn Tinsley (03:34):
So tell us about Archila.
James Kenning (03:39):
So, archila, she's a Regina 43.
She's from a small swedish yardwhich not many will have
probably heard of.
But if you think, marlo, uh,halber grassy, um, it's a vat
ilk.
Um, she's a sturdy deck saloon,uh, 40.
(04:00):
Well, she's called a 43.
The Marina will charge me 46foot.
Waterline length is closer to39.
Um, but she, she's good she's.
I'll say she's a deck saloon.
Um, she's fairly bulletproof.
Capn Tinsley (04:20):
Um, you've got some great pictures.
Uh, you're a photographer,right?
James Kenning (04:24):
Well, hobbyist photographer, obviously, I sort
of make a few scraps of moneyselling pictures to some of the
yachting magazines, but yeah.
I'm not a professional by anymeans.
Capn Tinsley (04:38):
I'm just going to.
While you're talking anddescribing your boat, I'm just
going to put some up here,because that is a beautiful boat
so she, she is.
James Kenning (04:47):
I mean, she gets a lot of um comments where
whenever we go places, um, she'sso that rigged.
She's got a very, uh, veryflexible rig so that, uh, in a
sail is a self-tacking jib, soreally good for shorthanded,
especially if you're goinganywhere into the wind.
Capn Tinsley (05:09):
On the front.
James Kenning (05:09):
there I have twin genoas, which is my downwind
rig when I'm not using aparasailer, and then a furling
mainsail, which I swear at justabout every time I try and get
it in and out.
Capn Tinsley (05:26):
Yeah, yeah, I have one of those too.
Wait, this isn't your boat, isit?
Is that your boat?
James Kenning (05:33):
That is actually just a month or so ago and it's
a charter vessel called Riawhich operates with a sister
ship, kronos, around theCaribbean at the moment.
Capn Tinsley (05:48):
I love that picture.
James Kenning (05:50):
That's not our fighter either.
Capn Tinsley (05:52):
No, but it's a beautiful picture.
James Kenning (05:54):
My big love in photography is actually wildlife
photography.
Capn Tinsley (05:59):
Okay, I think I do have a question about that.
James Kenning (06:02):
It's really an easier thing to take because you
know they're going to be there.
But, given the choice, I'd beout in the field trying to
capture wildlife.
If I could do my life all overagain, then, as a career, I
would like to have been awildlife photographer.
Capn Tinsley (06:21):
Well, this is a beautiful picture of your boat.
Is that a Takakat, that is yeah, I have one of those.
James Kenning (06:28):
I love those.
It's a Trukit from New ZealandRight.
Very pleased with it, me too.
Capn Tinsley (06:38):
And I like it because when I do a crossing of
the Gulf I like to pack it up inthe two bags and put it inside
the boat absolutely.
James Kenning (06:46):
Um, you know, if I'm doing, uh, an offshore
passage, then I don't keep heron on the davits at the back.
She's, she's packed up and goesin the bow yeah, because who
wants it swinging around backthere?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it beats mewhy people would want to do
that yeah, it seems like itwouldn't be good for the davits
(07:08):
and this is us um.
The boat has just been hauled.
In the last uh couple of weeksshe's out in uh grenada for
hurricane season now is thisafter?
Capn Tinsley (07:23):
it looks like you just had had the bottom done.
James Kenning (07:25):
It's so clean well, she has been um uh jet
washed, but I'm the bottom iscopper coated, which is one of
the best investments I thinkI've made on the boat.
Tell me about that.
What is that?
So, copico, it's a hard resinbased um antifoul which uh gets
(07:50):
applied on and theoretically itshould hopefully last 10 years
oh my gosh um, it doesn't stopgrowth.
It it mostly stops any hardgrowth.
But you still, you know,certainly in the caribbean, in
warm waters, every couple ofweeks you need to dive down and
take a take a brush to it to getso do barnacles.
Capn Tinsley (08:14):
Are they able to attach themselves?
Is that what you mean by hardgrowth?
James Kenning (08:18):
yeah, so I get very little hard growth.
Um, I do need to reactivate it.
There's starting to get alittle bit of growth on her.
Capn Tinsley (08:28):
It looks very shiny.
I'm so jealous.
I've got some whole envy.
Wow, it's beautiful and ofcourse, I love this picture.
James Kenning (08:40):
Yeah, I mean the Swedes.
They know how to build boats.
They build good-looking boats.
The inside of them, thecraftsmanship is just
unbelievable.
The screen behind me is a shotof the lower saloon in the boat
(09:00):
and the galley and there's justwood everywhere.
It's beautiful and it's it'sjust very, very high quality.
You know it's um, it doesn'tcreak like maybe some of the you
know sort of med med intendedboats like your production,
bavarias or genoves orbeneteau's with.
Capn Tinsley (09:21):
Right, and I do not have a production boat, so I
can appreciate that this is awonderful shot.
Is this done with a drone?
James Kenning (09:34):
No, I actually got my crew to be riding the
other dolphin backwards just infront of that.
Capn Tinsley (09:40):
What.
James Kenning (09:41):
Clearly I'm lying .
This is using one of theInsta360 cameras, so it's a
GoPro Max, and the way I getthese shots is, rather than
trying to take a picture, is, Iwill put it onto video and then
(10:02):
record it, and then, hopefully,you end up getting a shot like
this, where, where the animal isis in the right position,
you're in the right position,the sales drawing and then it
does take an element ofpost-processing because you have
to try and make a video still.
You know better quality.
Capn Tinsley (10:25):
So what a great shot.
Let's see if there's any more.
Nope, there's, that's it.
So, um, okay, all right.
So you, you got our Kyla.
You bought her in 2018.
Is that right?
James Kenning (10:44):
Yep, so end of the season 2018.
And where?
So she was bought in a littleriver mouth called the Yelm on
the south coast of Britain.
I then took her back from.
(11:10):
We took her back from the Yelm,which is close to Plymouth, to
her home, where we kept her fora couple of years in the Solent,
but that was it for 2018.
Basically, she then got hauledout for the English weather and
I know a lot of the Americanlisteners will be I know a lot
of American listeners will be,especially those in the South
will be wondering why do youhaul a boat?
Well, if you lived in the UK,you'd know why because it can be
(11:32):
pretty bloody, miserableweather.
They do that in say Michigan,yeah, so 2019 was really the
first year we started sailing.
It was also a year where wewere discovering that all the
(11:56):
systems that we thought weregood probably weren't quite as
good as the broker had told us.
We had to replace all the sails, all the new electronics,
because we got the blue screenof death on the chart plotters,
putting in upgraded anchor, allthose sorts of things.
So that first year, 2019, ofsailing didn't really even get
(12:20):
out of the Solent, which is oneof the most popular sailing
areas in the UK, but not reallymy idea of you know where to
sail.
It's busy, there aren't thatmany anchoring opportunities.
So, yeah, it was itching.
(12:41):
It was itching to get out andwider.
The next year, of course, wewere hit by a little thing
called Brexit in the UK and,because of all the tax rules
regarding VAT, we made thedecision to put the boat into
(13:04):
France, so sailed across toCherbourg, but this is now
during COVID.
So, again, the sailingopportunities were few and far
between.
And then the following year,when I brought our car back into
the UK because everyone hadbought a boat in the uk, there
(13:25):
was nowhere to put her, so I didthe season sailing up and down,
uh, the southwest coast, whichhas got some beautiful areas you
know along along the west coast.
Uh, but then nowhere to put her.
So she had to be hauled outagain and at that stage she just
(13:46):
decided let's go to the sun.
So the following season theboat was prepped to cross Biscay
, go down the Portuguese coastand hang in the Algarve, which I
think that must be 2022.
Capn Tinsley (14:04):
Okay, okay, okay.
So how did you get to Caribbean?
James Kenning (14:11):
So in between.
Capn Tinsley (14:13):
I guess first of all tell me the countries you
went to in the Mediterranean.
James Kenning (14:17):
So I've charted a lot in the Med and loved it,
especially the Greek islands,but also really liked the
Balearics.
So Majorca, ibiza, formentera,menorca, greek islands.
(14:38):
I'm going to pull that up so theoriginal intent was to take the
boat into the Med and hangaround in there for a while, but
Brexit made it very difficultwith regards to UK flagged boats
(14:58):
being there, even with EU VAT,and so toing and froing, you
know, as to whether or not tostay there.
But in in the Balearics whichagain I charted there a number
of years earlier a really lovefor cruising area, but it had
(15:20):
got incredibly busy.
Capn Tinsley (15:22):
Am I?
Am I close to it here on themap got incredibly busy.
Am I close to it here on themap?
James Kenning (15:25):
So you're hanging over Greek.
So if you're, put your arrow upa little bit below Corfu,
across, go left Down and you getto.
So you've got.
Those are the Ionian Islands,oh okay, and they're a wonderful
(15:46):
, really relaxed, easy cruisingarea.
But because for British flagboats it was looking fairly
difficult in terms of thebureaucracy that was going to
get involved and because of andwhat is that?
Capn Tinsley (16:08):
what, what, what were they saying?
James Kenning (16:10):
they, they were insisting that, um, every time
you go to a different port youhave to go into an office and
renew your transit log.
It was just going to bedifficult.
Capn Tinsley (16:28):
Okay.
Your transit log.
James Kenning (16:32):
So a transit log is what you have to buy if
you're a visiting yacht intoGreek waters, and it was going
to start getting expensive.
People weren't quite sure howthey were implementing the rules
.
It was potentially a bit of arisk, so I decided not to bother
(16:59):
going any further from theBalearics and to turn around
further from the Balearics andto turn around, head back out
through.
Walker Alley and head to theCaribbean.
So the route out of the Med.
I'd wintered the boat inValencia, which was a wonderful
(17:19):
place to be.
I mean, it's a fantastic city.
It's got two marinas.
I was in the northern one,which was originally built and
developed for the America's Cup.
Capn Tinsley (17:34):
Okay.
James Kenning (17:37):
And very handy for getting to the Balearic
Islands.
So Valencia to ibiza was sortof about a 14 hour sail and, uh,
to go across to say sola inmallorca would be 24 hours.
So really handy for that.
But the thing with the med isthey.
(18:00):
They often say you either havetoo much wind or you don't have
any at all, and that is verytrue.
So when it came to getting theboats out towards the Canaries
to start the Caribbean push,basically all the way from
(18:21):
Valencia to Gibraltar was prettymuch a motor.
It was fairly soul-destroying.
Capn Tinsley (18:27):
And how long does that take?
James Kenning (18:28):
You said I think we did that in the space of
three weeks.
Wow, as I said, either the windwas blowing 25 knots directly
on the nose or there was none atall, so there was a lot of
(18:51):
hanging around in some of theports.
There's very few anchoragesalong that entire Spanish coast,
so you have to go to marinas,so there's a lot of hanging
around in marinas.
Capn Tinsley (19:05):
That's fun too, though, isn't it?
James Kenning (19:10):
I mean, I prefer anchorages myself.
Capn Tinsley (19:13):
I prefer to drop a hook.
James Kenning (19:16):
My wallet prefers anchorages.
Capn Tinsley (19:18):
Of course, yeah.
James Kenning (19:22):
But yeah, so you know, we made our way through
places like Cartagena and thenthrough to Gibraltar and I mean,
I imagine a number of yourlisteners and viewers will have
heard of the orca problem in andaround the Straits of Gibraltar
(19:44):
.
Probably, but I haven't sothere is a particular group of
orcas.
They're called the Iberian orca.
They're a subset of the widerorca killer whale.
There's about 30 of them inthis pod, and since COVID they
(20:09):
started a habit of attacking therudders of yachts.
Capn Tinsley (20:13):
Oh, my goodness.
James Kenning (20:14):
So over that time I think about five yachts have
been sunk Right in here.
So they migrate with the tunaand it's seasonal where the tuna
is, so they they start off inthe Straits of Gibraltar there
(20:38):
and then they work their way upthe coast towards the Bay of
Biscay.
So you can't fully be sure everwhere they are and your only
real defence is to try and stayshallow.
You try and stay within the 20meter contour, which is a little
(21:00):
problematic around the sailingin this area because you get a
lot of fishing pots.
So it means that youeffectively have to travel by by
day.
So you have to do it to go fromGibraltar to Porto, mau or
Lagos on the western tip,southwestern tip of Portugal.
(21:21):
You you really need sort offive days to do that or you take
the risk of going in deep water.
But those are the yachts thatget attacked, and I say that
five have been sunk, hundredshave been attacked and had their
rudders disabled that isincredible very big issue okay,
(21:41):
well, that's that's.
Capn Tinsley (21:42):
I had asked you if you had any pirate stories.
That's a.
That's a pretty good storyright there.
That's a good tip of the day onthe Salty podcast is to watch
out for the….
James Kenning (21:52):
Yes, there's a lot of support networks out
there now as well.
There's one website calledorcapt and they show heat maps
of where they think the orcasare because scientists are
studying them.
I'm a member of the CruisingAssociation, which is it's open
(22:18):
to all worldwide, but it is a UKbased in its headquarters.
They have an orca team andthey've been doing studies,
trying to correlate and findsolutions so that neither boats
or the orcas because they are anendangered species they are
protected.
Capn Tinsley (22:36):
Right.
James Kenning (22:37):
Can't mess with them.
But there are key areas whereyou can almost be certain that
if you sail through there you'regoing to get hit.
Through there you're going toget hit, and particularly if you
if you look at uh tarifa there,that's marked on the map um,
just, uh, just for west of thatyou've got the bay of barbati,
(22:57):
you have barbati and um offshore.
There is where you get some ofthe highest concentrations of
the orca now you said theyfollow the tuna, so is that
seasonal?
Yes, so in the early season,around sort of April May, they
(23:22):
tend to be in the straight there, okay, and then as the season
progresses the tuna move upnorth and the orca tend to move
up with them and so then anotherplace is a hot spot yeah, it
tends to be.
(23:43):
There's 30 odd individuals inthis group of orca and it's 14
individuals that have beenidentified as what we think is
just playing games.
Um, no one knows for sure, butthey think it's a way to
alleviate boredom, and there'sall sorts of theories as to how
(24:10):
to deter them.
You know, some people say dropsand over your stern because it
disrupts their sonar, becausethey go in under sonar.
Right, fishermen usefirecrackers, though that's
theoretically illegal.
Right, the best thing to do,according to the scientists, is
(24:34):
transit through there underengine and, if and when they do
come up alongside you, if theybump you or you have an incident
with them, engine on full andjust head, if you can, to the
shallows.
Capn Tinsley (24:50):
Okay, wow, this is a first for me.
I mean, I've never taken myboat over here, but that's good
information.
James Kenning (24:58):
So you came out of here and you went up to so I
was looking for the safest orthe least chance of meeting Orca
, so I decided to push for theCanaries from that suburb of
Portugal, so Porto Mau.
Capn Tinsley (25:22):
Tell me if I'm on the right track here.
James Kenning (25:26):
I can't see your map at the moment.
Oh, I'm sorry, sorry about thatI can't see your map at the
moment.
Capn Tinsley (25:29):
Oh, I'm sorry.
James Kenning (25:30):
Sorry about that, I can try.
Capn Tinsley (25:35):
Okay, so can you see it now.
James Kenning (25:37):
So go, take your pointer to Lisbon and go south.
Capn Tinsley (25:45):
Okay, closer in.
Okay, do you see Albufeira?
James Kenning (25:51):
Yes, okay, go to the west of Albufeira.
Okay, really, on thatTrajectory, no, no, no, no.
Sorry, you're right in themiddle of the Atlantic now, so
still on the Portuguese coast.
If you zoom in that Portuguesecoast, if you zoom in more or
(26:12):
less where you are now.
So you have Lagos and Porto Mal, and that is where I decided to
stage from.
Capn Tinsley (26:20):
Okay.
James Kenning (26:21):
And so the first 70 miles, 70 nautical miles or
so, were the ones where we're onhigh alert, really looking,
okay, looking to make sure thatwe weren't going to be.
Capn Tinsley (26:36):
Forgive my ignorance, but I'm trying to
find the canary islands now, sothere you go.
James Kenning (26:41):
Uh, funchal, that is madeira, which I'd
originally hoped to go to, butbecause I missed out on, because
of the weather, windows failedto get there, so I had to miss
that and instead, if you headsouth, zoom out and head south,
then these are the CanaryIslands and went into Arrasith.
(27:05):
Okay, there we go.
Yeah, on Lanzarote, which is avery barren um yeah, looks
volcanic islands, butspectacular scenery okay, did
you anchor here?
so again, the canary Islandsaren't really known for their
(27:30):
anchorages.
There are anchorages, but I wason the timeline.
I went into Arrasif and thenfrom Arrasif I then did a
passage to go to Gran Canariaand Las Palmas.
To go to Gran Canaria and LasPalmas, where I left the boat
(27:55):
for a couple of months untilwaiting for my November
departure with the ARC Plusrally.
Capn Tinsley (27:58):
Okay, and then you went across.
James Kenning (28:02):
And then yep, but we went down via the Cape Verde
Islands.
So there you go and you want tolook for Salvacente and Mindelo
.
So Mindelo is the main yachtingbase of the Cape Verdes.
It's got a good marina there.
(28:24):
It has a chandlery.
So when boats do go in thereand they're broken and quite
often they will be you do get agood chance of fixing things in
there what's the depth aroundhere?
So I mean the, the depth.
(28:45):
It's probably around, you know,in the deep areas, 3000 meters
wow you do on on your way down,you know you do have to be wary,
though, of occasionally thereare some seamounts where you may
not be going to, um, you know,run aground on them, but they
(29:07):
could certainly throw out nastywaves and seas on them.
So we were talking about goingdown into lanzarote in the
canaries, and, uh, if you, ifyou just head north again, zoom
into lanzarote, zoom intoLanzarote, so you want to go
(29:33):
east to Arrasith, and then youcan just see there, where the
shelf comes up, it comes up veryrapidly and there are a couple
of seamounts that can get youunawares if you're not checking,
zooming in on your chartplotter.
Capn Tinsley (29:52):
Seamounts.
Okay, wow, okay.
You unawares if you're notchecking, zooming in on your
chart plotter see mounts.
Okay, wow, okay.
So you hung out here, you wenthome for a while and then how
did you make it all the way overhere?
James Kenning (30:00):
so, um, so we should probably head back to the
, the 900 mile passage from LasPalmas down to Mindelo, because
that was not without incident.
Okay, and on the second nightout, my parasailor, which I'd
(30:25):
only had since picking it up inGibraltar.
The weather forecast was not asit promised and in trying to
get it down in the middle of thenight it did come down.
We lost the halyard out of themast winch and it dropped in the
ocean and ripped to shreds,nearly took three fingers of
(30:51):
mine up the marsheaf, butfortunately got that out out of
the way just in time.
Um, but that lost us, our, ourmain downwind sail.
So, but fortunately, my reserveis I have twin geno's which are
permanently fixed onto my frontstate and that's what we then
(31:17):
used, which, when we had wind is, it's an excellent rig.
I mean, it's stable, it's fast.
But you know, our kyla's quitea.
She's a sturdy girl, she'spretty hefty and if you've got
less than 12 knots of wind, youknow they.
They just flap and bang andevery time I could see the, the
(31:42):
anti-chafed strips coming apart.
Capn Tinsley (31:45):
Yeah, okay, so what did you do then?
James Kenning (31:49):
so we got into um .
Well, the first thing we had todo was recover this stricken
sail, which took us nearly twohours, drifting um 25 knots of
wind.
We basically got it out out ofthe the ocean and we
(32:09):
unceremoniously ducked it downinto the forward cabin.
So we had a rearrangement ofthe crew quarters and uh, and
then we we continued along.
At this stage we didn't quiteknow what the damage was on the
sail, so later in the trip wewent in and had a look at it.
(32:30):
It was beyond repair, so shed afew tears at that.
Capn Tinsley (32:37):
What did you do Not?
James Kenning (32:38):
so much for the fact that I killed the
parasailor, but for the factthat how were we going to get
across the Atlantic without it,especially if we had light airs?
But when we came to leaving,basically we pulled out the Twin
(33:05):
Genoa's and we set those, ourcourse was determined on which
way was exactly downwind and westayed like that for 2,200 miles
, basically, and took a pulldown about 30 miles off Grenada
okay, we had a very frustratinglow wind scenario of trying to
(33:26):
do that last last miles.
Capn Tinsley (33:29):
So here it is.
So you're right here.
So we're right here and now youare.
James Kenning (33:36):
And we move into Grenada, which is the southern,
pretty much the.
There we go, grenada.
Capn Tinsley (33:48):
Here we go However .
You came you came in.
James Kenning (33:53):
There's always, however so we went direct,
direct to Grenada so you wentfrom here down.
Capn Tinsley (34:00):
Now somebody was asking me the other day and I
haven't made this trip, so Idon't know.
I may, who knows.
But so when you're coming thisway, what is the rule Like I
know that you know a lot of whenthey go back, they go this way.
James Kenning (34:20):
So boats leave.
Typically you don't want toleave earlier than November
December.
To leave earlier than NovemberDecember and the later you leave
it into.
I mean, some people go acrossin January and February because
that's when the trade winds arebetter established.
But even if you were goingdirect from the Canaries and not
(34:45):
doing a stop in the Cape Verdes, you would still.
The wisdom is to go south andthe saying is go south until the
butter melts.
Yeah, I've heard that.
Basically at which stage?
Where it's pretty much aroundthe, the latitude of the Cape
Verdes, and that's where thetrade winds you hope kick in.
Capn Tinsley (35:09):
Okay, and then you pretty much kind of go this way
Well, no, so you're on theCanaries, there.
James Kenning (35:15):
What you want to do is you want to actually drop
south, so you'd be looking todrop south towards the Cape
Verdes.
Capn Tinsley (35:22):
Okay, I'm sorry, that's what I was thinking, you
were saying and then you makeyour westing.
Okay, and so you're basicallygoing.
I don't know what that headingis, but I mean you go west,
basically.
James Kenning (35:36):
Is it southwest?
It's pretty much west, okay,because you've taken a southern
leg to start with, until yourbutter starts melting.
Capn Tinsley (35:47):
Okay.
James Kenning (35:48):
Once you then go, you're almost on a due west
course, gotcha.
You don't have to worry aboutgreat circles, roots.
You know that's uh, that's umlatitude.
There's very little in it, soyou just point for your target
okay, so how far?
Capn Tinsley (36:07):
You said it was 2,200?
James Kenning (36:09):
2,200, I think is the crow flies.
Capn Tinsley (36:13):
How long did that take you?
James Kenning (36:15):
Well, I think we got across in 14 days, all under
sail.
Capn Tinsley (36:22):
Okay.
James Kenning (36:23):
What did happen, though, was Sorry.
No motor, no motor.
Wow nice Sorry.
Capn Tinsley (36:26):
No motor.
James Kenning (36:27):
No motor.
Wow nice what did happen wasliterally midway we had a rudder
issue and first noticed thatthe rudder stock had dropped in
(36:49):
the transom void.
So we still had steerage, butwe didn't know what had happened
or what the damage was.
There was a little bit of wateringress, so we jury rigged up
the rudder to stabilise it.
We got pumps ready, we wentthrough all of our water ingress
(37:12):
procedures.
We tried to slow the boat so wereefed her fully down and we
ended up speeding up.
We're doing eight and a halfknots.
Wow, still under our head.
Capn Tinsley (37:26):
And what were the?
James Kenning (37:26):
winds.
We were probably having, youknow, sort of 15 to 20 knots,
mostly until the last day.
Capn Tinsley (37:37):
So we have some.
This is Hayden of SV IslandSpirit and he said what caused
the Halyard failure.
James Kenning (37:45):
Well, it wasn't a Halyard failure, it just it
came out of the winch jaws.
So we've gone up to try andbring the sail down, to put the
snuffer over it, and somethinghappened.
It got knocked and it just cameout with jaws and that was it.
(38:06):
It was under such load becausewe had about 20-25 knots of wind
at the time.
It just shot off instantly.
Capn Tinsley (38:19):
He comments on your 14 days.
Is that fast?
James Kenning (38:27):
We weren't the fastest boat, we weren't the
slowest.
I mean by handicap.
Our Kylo was the, I think theninth slowest boat out of the
fleet of 96.
Even with our rudder issue andnot having our parasailor 44.
(38:52):
But on handicap we came infifth okay so.
Capn Tinsley (38:57):
So I would say an island packet probably has a
handicap too right, because it'sit's not going to win any races
.
And uh, sv, island spirit.
These guys also are in a islandpack at 35, so you know he's
also a boat broker, so I bet heknows your boat type yeah but
(39:17):
bear in mind.
James Kenning (39:18):
You know that's 14 days.
That's not from the canariesright, that's from mindelo, in
the cape verdes right right um,so typically you know you, you
would probably expect you know adecent cruising boat to get
across in two weeks from theCape Verdes.
If you were going from directfrom the Canary Islands, from
(39:44):
Gran Canaria, you'd be lookingat probably closer to three
weeks area you'd be looking at,probably closer to three weeks,
okay, yeah, so how long?
did it take you to get to thecape verdez?
That, I think was um.
Well, it was 900 miles, I thinkwe did that in and that was
(40:05):
from Six days maybe.
Capn Tinsley (40:07):
Okay, from the Canaries, yeah, okay.
And then from Portugal to theCanaries.
Portugal to Lanzarote andthat's Canaries, right, yeah,
okay.
James Kenning (40:26):
I think that was four days.
Capn Tinsley (40:29):
Okay.
James Kenning (40:30):
And I think that was four days.
Okay, and I think that was topof my head.
I think it was about 800 miles,but no, it could have been 800
miles if we did.
We don't do 200 miles days, butthe fastest day I did was 180
miles which was good.
Wow, which was good.
Wow, that was when we had, youknow, the wind right up the
(40:54):
stern.
We had the twin genoas out.
We probably had about 20, 25knots.
We were going in the rightdirection.
It was a good feeling.
Capn Tinsley (41:07):
Okay, all right.
James Kenning (41:11):
So you made it into Grenada or grenade, made it
into grenada um, very happy, umbut then arranged to have a a
haul out uh, because we wedidn't really know what was what
was wrong with the rudderhauled the boat out, looked at
it.
The engineer said, yeah, okay,don't think this is too much of
(41:34):
an issue, and we were back inthe water in a couple of days.
The next day, however, I wasgetting a lot of water.
We were leaking about an hour alitre an hour.
So we hauled out again and hada closer look and we had a crack
on the skeg.
And the engineer, once he'dlooked at everything and we'd
(42:00):
also had a split all the way upthe leading edge of the rudder,
so there was an open crack onthe port side of the skeg and a
compression crack on thestarboard.
He said the only thing thatreally could have done that was
a whale impact.
So that at this stage I saidthis to one of the crew I had on
(42:25):
board he said oh yeah, Iremember having a big jolt when
I was on the helm, which hedidn't tell me about.
Capn Tinsley (42:35):
And this was halfway across.
James Kenning (42:38):
Yeah, we were 1,100 miles in 900 to go.
The nearest land was threemiles away, but it was
vertically down.
So, yeah, we were 900 milesfrom from safety.
So when we first saw that therudder was, um, not not as it
should be and that we had alittle bit of water in grace, it
(43:01):
was, uh, it was concerning.
Capn Tinsley (43:06):
I bet, but you made it Okay we made it.
And then we were hauled out forthe second time.
And where were you?
In Grenada.
James Kenning (43:19):
In Grenada.
So we went into.
If you see St George's and youzoom in on there and you can
start to see the beginnings of amarina there that is port louis
marina, is that where youstayed?
So that's where we went into.
That's where the art plus rallyfinishes okay um and then uh, to
(43:45):
get hauled out along the Southcoast there are.
There are three main boat yards.
There's Spice Island, marineClark's Quart Down here, yep.
So if you look at see where LeFer Bleu is Not true blue but
(44:15):
keep going East, right, okay.
So go go north, not into fairblue, but just to the east.
Yeah, go opposite the bigdipper restaurant and there's
clark's court boatyard andmarina oh nice.
Okay, this is a good tip, whichis one of the for insurance
purposes, is consideredhurricane safe.
Capn Tinsley (44:35):
Okay, yeah right.
James Kenning (44:37):
So this is where I hauled out to have the the
rudder repaired by an absolutelyfantastic team of Palm Tree
tree marine who are based atclark's court okay, good to know
everything took?
Uh, because they closed downfor christmas.
(44:58):
The boat had to be dried out,then they had to do 17 layers of
glassing on the boat, then thecopper coat had to be reapplied
in the areas on the rudder andthe skeg.
So it wasn't until the end ofthe first week in February that
the boat relaunched.
Capn Tinsley (45:19):
And when did you get there?
James Kenning (45:21):
I got there mid-December.
Okay, so it was a bit of afrustrating couple of months and
not really how I'd hoped Didyou stay there or did you fly?
home A little bit of both, flewhome initially, then came back
to oversee the works going on.
(45:44):
I'm always a big I very wary ofleaving um contractors alone.
You know I mean, as it happened, palm tree guys were
unbelievable in.
You know, the professionalismin the way they were treating
the boat.
But I have had bad experiencesin the past of um of contractors
(46:08):
left alone.
Oh yeah, I like to be there ifany serious work is being done.
Capn Tinsley (46:15):
There's a lot of catamarans in here.
James Kenning (46:17):
There are a lot of cats there, in fact, where
that white car is, that isexactly where my boat was parked
at.
Capn Tinsley (46:24):
Okay, hayden says a good yard Clarkark's.
James Kenning (46:30):
we stored there for two seasons yeah there we go
yeah, um, the only downsidewith clark's court is it is in
the middle of nowhere.
I mean there is nothing aroundthere.
Um, there's one restaurant onsite, but that is it's not.
(46:52):
It's not the best place, it'sit closes all day.
Sunday it closes about sixo'clock.
Had I got the dinghy in thewater then I would have been
able to you know come over herethat you're pointing out across
the Bay, but my, you know thedinghy we're in a rush to get
hauled out.
(47:12):
She was still on the davits soI was pretty much stuck there
living on the hard, a lot ofmosquitoes and bugs, which was
not very pleasant.
Capn Tinsley (47:25):
So a million dollars later.
James Kenning (47:28):
Actually you joke , but I was expecting the cost
to be huge and it wasn't.
Capn Tinsley (47:36):
Oh.
James Kenning (47:37):
All of the work, including the lift out and the
storage, came to less than10,000 GB GB pound sterling,
which I thought was actually abargain, because normally
anything with marine in it I wasexpecting it to be at least
(48:00):
twice that and insurance covereda lot of it as well.
Capn Tinsley (48:05):
Oh nice.
James Kenning (48:07):
As did the insurance cover my parasailor,
because it wasn't damaged bywind, it was damaged by water.
I did have heavy deductibles onboth, but it it took a bit of a
sting out sure, sure, well,that's good news.
Capn Tinsley (48:24):
Okay, so you made it back in february.
Of what year is this by now?
James Kenning (48:29):
2000 this year we're now to 25.
Capn Tinsley (48:32):
Yeah, so that's where your boat is now so the
boat's there now.
James Kenning (48:37):
Um, she's actually hauled out in spice
island marine.
Uh, for the hurricane season.
Um, again, it it's an insurancething that uh, again it's an
insurance thing that the boatshave to be below 12 degrees
something.
Capn Tinsley (48:56):
Otherwise they're not insured.
Yes, I'm right in the middle of.
I've got a bullseye where I amfor hurricanes.
James Kenning (49:09):
But okay.
So what's the plan next?
Um well, trying to work outwhat to do for the summer months
.
Um, back to the boat.
Um, um, whether you know, inthe future it's around the.
I mean, what I'd really like todo would be the High Latitude
(49:34):
Challenge and go pole to pole.
So I don't know if you've heardof this, but it's the latest,
jimmy Cornell, it's not a rallyas such, but boats leave from
Cherbourg and they time to godown South America, down to the
(49:58):
Antarctic Peninsula, and thenhead up via Hawaii to do the
Northwest Passage, before thenheading back to via Greenland,
to uh, uh, to share, book, tocomplete, complete the trip
around.
Capn Tinsley (50:15):
So that would be uh.
And you know I I interviewedsome folks on here that love,
they love that, they love iceand snow and they sail to those
destinations.
James Kenning (50:30):
Yeah.
Capn Tinsley (50:31):
And I'm like what is?
Oh I just love it, they love it.
James Kenning (50:36):
You know, to be honest, our Kyler isn't the boat
for that.
Capn Tinsley (50:41):
Okay.
James Kenning (50:42):
It would need to be an aluminium expedition boat.
Capn Tinsley (50:46):
Okay.
James Kenning (50:48):
Maybe I'll go boat shopping.
Capn Tinsley (50:53):
Okay, so I do have some rapid fire questions.
Favorite country to sail to sofar.
James Kenning (51:01):
Oh, I like Martinique in the.
Caribbean.
Okay, uh, it's got some beaut,so it's got great, great food,
cause it's French.
Um some lovely anchorages, it'sgot good marinas, good services
(51:21):
.
There I did like Martinique.
Capn Tinsley (51:23):
Okay, um and uh.
Hayden says uh, I'veinterviewed SV Touché.
It's an island pack at 380.
And they go from Svalbard toCape Horn, and they talked about
the butter melting.
That's how I first heard it.
Okay, so, martinique, wealready talked about your
(51:47):
favorite anchorage, biggeststorm.
James Kenning (51:56):
Do you know, I haven't been caught out in a
huge storm.
Good answer, I like to thinkthat's because of my passage
planning.
I've been in force eight windsplanning.
I've been in force eight winds,but I don't think I've had
stronger than that.
So yeah, I'm a virgin in thatrespect, with regards to really
(52:20):
heavy weather.
Okay, I have to ask force eightwinds.
What is that?
I think force eight is up to 40knots.
Capn Tinsley (52:31):
Oh, you have been in that.
Yeah, well, that's challenging.
Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
James Kenning (52:43):
It's not officially Stormforce, no, it's
not Hurricane, strength, butgoodness gracious.
Capn Tinsley (52:49):
Okay, I think they call it a near gale, I think.
It'll ruin your day.
First thing you do at landfallafter a crossing Open a tin of
beer.
James Kenning (53:04):
Okay, favorite sailing movie oh, um, I'll come
back to that one.
Okay, there's a few of them outthere uh night watch coffee or
(53:25):
red bull do you know I don't doeither.
I have a bag of sweets so sugar, sugar.
Capn Tinsley (53:33):
Okay, I'm a coffee gal.
James Kenning (53:41):
Favorite snack on passage.
I eat what's given to me.
I eat what's in the snack pack.
So yeah, I don't have afavorite, it's whatever's in
there.
Capn Tinsley (53:53):
Okay, Dream crew member dead or alive.
James Kenning (53:57):
Ooh, I'd like to cross with Elvis.
I mean, just, wouldn't it begreat You've got entertainment.
He'd have so many stories, itwouldn't really matter if he
couldn't sail.
Capn Tinsley (54:17):
Best answer on the Salty podcast ever.
Okay, other than my partner, ofcourse.
Of course.
Biggest fear at sea.
I think I've heard a couple ofthem.
James Kenning (54:32):
Waves, waves.
Yeah, biggest fear at sea.
I think I've heard a couple ofthem um waves, waves.
Yeah, it's not the wind.
It's not wind that thatfrightens me, but the waves no
actually no, I changed.
I changed my answer.
Capn Tinsley (54:40):
It's lightning, okay, lightning scares the
absolute god out of me okay, itjust occurred to me that we did
not bring up the anchorage wewere talking about that.
James Kenning (54:54):
Ah, that's true.
We were talking about thatearlier.
I think we said I will.
Although it changes daily, Iwill go for Chatham Bay on Union
Island.
Here it is, there it is, thereit is, and it's Grenada or no.
(55:14):
This is St Vincent and theGrenadines.
Right, okay, it's the SouthernIsland.
I had the best ever lobsterfrom a little shack on the beach
there.
And it's very sad because theowners there, since the
(55:36):
Hurricane Beryl blew through andpretty much laid waste to a lot
of the Grenadines andespecially Union Island, the
government have been withholdingpermission for what were wooden
shacks to rebuild.
They're currently in tentsbecause they want to be able to
(55:58):
sell the land off for hoteldevelopment there.
Capn Tinsley (56:01):
Yeah, that's sad.
James Kenning (56:02):
You know, it's really sad because it is such a
beautiful area and part of youknow why I love it.
There is that it's just a beachand a couple of shacks.
Capn Tinsley (56:14):
Yeah, and I'm told by a lot of different sailors
that there are a lot of placeslike this in the Caribbean, yeah
, places to pull in, but that isa shame, but they are still
operating.
James Kenning (56:28):
But in a tent, yeah, but they are still
operating, but in a tent.
Yeah, you know they, they werethere in a tent.
Um, it's amazing.
You know how these people areare pulling, pulling through
after the storm, you know I wasthere last.
It must have been April.
(56:48):
I came through there and we'renow so Beryl went through the
previous June and the localresidents in Clifton Harbour.
They're still living in tents.
They're still relying ongovernment food being brought in
daily for them to have hotmeals.
(57:09):
But one thing that really doeshelp is cruisers going in there
and spending their dollars right.
It's putting much needed moneyinto the economy and you know
you go in.
If you would normally anchor,then take a boy so that you, you
know, give 20, you know just ontaking a boy.
And there are, you know, give$20, you know, just on taking a
(57:29):
boy.
There are things that cruiserscan do there to help, just by
being there and not being putoff by the fact that it's still,
you know, a lot of destructionfrom a hurricane.
Capn Tinsley (57:41):
Right, right, Okay , yeah, and that would appeal to
.
I think that would appeal.
Even a tent would appeal to uscruisers.
You know, yeah, Drew says fireis his.
Fire at sea is his biggest fear.
And then he wrote I was workingon a tug and we had a crankcase
explosion and the builds caughton fire.
That would be frightening.
James Kenning (58:00):
Yeah, fire.
Um, there's not a lot you cando.
Is that other than hope you canlaunch the life raft in time if
it's caught hold?
Capn Tinsley (58:09):
Right.
James Kenning (58:10):
There's only one outcome that's probably going to
happen.
Okay, I mean, arkyla doesn'thave lithium batteries, but
that's the big scare these daysis that lithiums that haven't
been installed properly.
Capn Tinsley (58:22):
Yeah.
James Kenning (58:23):
We've got high fires.
Capn Tinsley (58:25):
Okay, so one thing you'd never sail without.
James Kenning (58:30):
Ooh, I was Okay.
So one thing you'd never sailwithout GPS.
Okay, of course I'm not intothat whole sextant thing for me.
No, you know, if the GPS failsI go to a second GPS and after
that you go to chart.
If the GPS fails, I go toGalileo or Glasnos.
Capn Tinsley (58:52):
Okay, and like charts are the last on the list
no, I still have paper charts.
Yes, okay, and let's see Anchordown First drink.
What is it?
James Kenning (59:13):
It's either going to be a beer or a gin and tonic
or, if it's in the Caribbean,it could be a painkiller.
Okay, or a beer, because thatwould be cold in the fridge.
Capn Tinsley (59:25):
And that would be on your boat.
James Kenning (59:27):
Yeah.
Capn Tinsley (59:27):
Okay, All right.
So Drew says.
Luckily we were faced up to abarge and we all got on it and
let the tug go.
It was hard to watch it burnyeah, soul destroying yeah, um,
if not sailing, what would yoube doing?
Skiing, skiing, snow skiing,yeah, okay, well, that was a
(59:51):
quick answer yeah, um eithermountains or ocean for me that's
right, you did say that oneword to describe sailing yacht
or kyla.
One word beautiful, beautiful,that's for sure.
Uh, sail changes at night.
Love it or hate it.
James Kenning (01:00:13):
I try not to the last one I did.
Was it destroyed my parasail?
I hate it yeah.
Capn Tinsley (01:00:21):
Okay.
James Kenning (01:00:27):
Best wildlife encounter since you love
wildlife?
Um, okay, this wasn't on ourKyla.
This was actually a non-sailingtrip up in Alaska and I was sea
kayaking and a pod of orca cameby.
Oh, we're talking about orcasagain, so you?
Capn Tinsley (01:00:45):
were on a kayak.
James Kenning (01:00:47):
On a sea kayak.
And then my second answer tothat would be the other end of
the earth, in the AntarcticPeninsula, again sea kayaking,
and a seal just came up rightnext to the kayak, so that was
pretty special.
Capn Tinsley (01:01:05):
Did you have a camera with you?
James Kenning (01:01:07):
I did.
Capn Tinsley (01:01:08):
Good, Because we haven't mentioned this.
But if you go to, is it yourInstagram?
You've got some beautifulpictures there of your boat.
We just showed some of them.
So you say you're aself-claimed amateur
photographer Most ridiculousboat superstition you've heard.
James Kenning (01:01:32):
Well, okay, I'm going to say not having bananas
on board.
And the reason I say that isbecause when we left the
Canaries, my crew said we can'thave bananas on board, something
will go wrong.
Well, first we lost aparasailor, then we got hit by a
whale which cracked the skeg.
(01:01:53):
So maybe it's not so.
Capn Tinsley (01:01:56):
I always travel with bananas too, and I have had
some things happen.
I never attribute it to thebananas, though.
Will you ever stop sailing?
James Kenning (01:02:10):
Do you know?
I think I'll get my ashessprinkled off a sternum of a
boat.
Capn Tinsley (01:02:16):
Sweet, okay.
Last question If you couldleave the world with one sailing
lesson, what would it be?
Tip of the day.
James Kenning (01:02:29):
Reef early.
Capn Tinsley (01:02:31):
Reef early.
Yes, reef early, yes, reefearly, and call for help early
also.
James Kenning (01:02:40):
Yeah, hopefully reefing early will negate the
need to call for help, all right.
Capn Tinsley (01:02:45):
Well, is there anything else you'd like to tell
us?
We've been on here an hour andif anybody else would like to
make some comments, we've had afew comments, which is nice,
please do, but is there anyother?
Final, your plans, your plans,what are your plans?
James Kenning (01:03:01):
Well, I mean not sure of the immediate plans, but
you know the dream would bethat pole to pole, you know,
northwest Passage, antarcticPeninsula.
I say when I went down to theAntarctic it was on a Russian
expedition boat and I feltcheated because we had the Drake
(01:03:26):
Lake.
It was flat calm going aroundCape Horn and all the way across
.
So I geared myself up to be assick as a dog for however many
days it takes to get across andit was just flat calm.
Capn Tinsley (01:03:44):
And most people would consider that a blessing,
but you did not.
James Kenning (01:03:49):
Well, it was a blessing, but I felt cheated.
So maybe I'd like to go and dothat in an expedition sailboat.
Capn Tinsley (01:03:57):
You wanted a good sea story.
Yeah, gotcha, okay.
James Kenning (01:04:01):
So, but after Grenada, you're going to Grenada
, you're in the UK now so, whenthe boats refloated, get it back
up through the Caribbean andthen back across to Europe okay,
so you're going to go north,and when is that going to be?
Capn Tinsley (01:04:24):
when are you going back?
You're still waiting for it atthe end of hurricane season yeah
.
End of hurricane season somaybe I'll see you down there.
Are you going to go to bahamas?
James Kenning (01:04:35):
yeah, you're going to go to georgetown we'll
crack the, I'll crack my beerand whatever you're cracking
okay.
Capn Tinsley (01:04:42):
um, so drew says for a beginner buying a sailboat
what is a good price to startat, or or a certain boat to look
for?
My first response is how wellare you at fixing things?
James Kenning (01:04:54):
I mean, you can't answer that question as it is.
You have to say what you wantto do, and my advice would be
start small.
Buy a dinghy, learn thefundamentals of sailing in a
dinghy, because it does seemthat to me, the best sailors are
those who learnt on dinghiesand then work your way up, take
(01:05:16):
some lessons.
Capn Tinsley (01:05:18):
Yeah, you can take some ASA 101, 103, 104 yeah.
James Kenning (01:05:22):
I mean, I did the RYA courses to my yacht master.
But charter boats to see whatand get on other people's boats
before you buy one yourselfbecause that's good advice a
boat is.
It's not a good financialinvestment.
No financial advisor will evertell you to buy a boat.
Capn Tinsley (01:05:44):
All it does is a vessel that you throw money at
constantly yeah, I actually dida podcast on this with a boat
broker and her first responsewas what do you want to do with
it?
Are you just going to be daysailing?
Are you going to be, you know,going cruising?
So there's a lot of questions.
So, drew, if you would like, Ican hook you up with a good boat
(01:06:08):
broker.
There's actually another one onhere, that's Island Spirit S
here.
That's Island Spirit SV, islandSpirit.
He's a boat broker and if he'snot available, I have another
one in the Keys.
Where are you, drew?
James Kenning (01:06:23):
the other thing is to work out if you like
sailing and, if you have apartner, if he or she likes
sailing, because if they don't,then your dreams could come
apart very quickly and you couldhave a very expensive bit of
kit on your hands that youreally wish you didn't have.
Capn Tinsley (01:06:44):
It seems like it's always the men trying to get
the women to go, and in my caseit was the other way around, but
there's a lot of men out therewishing they had a woman that
would go like Island Spirit.
They're a sailing couple andthey both love it, so it's kind
(01:07:05):
of hard to find that a partnerwhen you get one, hold on to him
or her.
Right, drew, if you want to knowmore.
I want you to a partner whenyou get one hold on to him or
her Right, right, drew, if youwant to know more, I want you to
.
I will hook you up with theright people.
Email me at salty abandon atGmail.
Oh wait, it looks like heresponded.
I'm in Florida.
What part of Florida?
(01:07:25):
I got people.
I got people.
I'll send you to Florida's abig place, but email.
I got people.
I got people.
I'll send you to Florida's abig place.
But email me at saltyabandonedat gmail and I will steer you in
the right direction to startyour search.
So okay.
Well, if anybody wants tofollow James, you're on
(01:07:58):
Instagram at S-V-O sailingarchaic sailing archaic at
sailing archaic at on uhinstagram or the website where
all the cruising stories arefully laid out is
wwwsailingarchaelacom.
I'm going to put that up here.
Make sure I spell it right.
(01:08:20):
And then on Instagram it's atsailingarchaela.
Okay, there it is, we'll haveto see.
So you're going back at the endof hurricane season, correct?
James Kenning (01:08:44):
Let's see what happens.
Capn Tinsley (01:08:46):
Okay, oh, so he's in the Tampa area.
Cool, cool, cool, okay.
So email me, drew, we'll talk,we'll chat.
Okay, well, james, it's been apleasure.
James Kenning (01:08:56):
Thank you for having me.
Capn Tinsley (01:09:02):
I want to stay in touch with you and I might even
see you down there and maybeeven interview again after
you've gone through the wholeCaribbean.
You probably have some good seastories Hopefully it won't be
expensive ones.
You probably have some good seastories.
James Kenning (01:09:13):
Hopefully won't be expensive ones.
Capn Tinsley (01:09:13):
Every story with a boat is expensive one way or
another are you pretty good atfixing things yourself certainly
the last few years, I've got alot better.
James Kenning (01:09:25):
Yeah, when you start doing ocean passages is
when you start to really learnyour boat.
I think you know, you.
I have literally unscrewedevery single panel in the boat
to see where everything is.
Capn Tinsley (01:09:41):
Uh, how it, how it can be fixed and did you do
your walk arounds every day whenyou're out at sea?
James Kenning (01:09:48):
yeah, um, uh, very important.
I mean, on doing that one ofthe things, I found that my
general lines were almost chafedfully through.
So, yeah, it's, uh, it'simportant yeah, so you looked at
everything there's no worsething to find than a split pin
(01:10:12):
ring on the deck.
Capn Tinsley (01:10:14):
Right, yeah, yeah, and you know I was sailing
Phoenix.
By the way, I'll beinterviewing Sailing Phoenix at
7 pm Central.
He's in Hawaii.
It'll be 2 pm Hawaii time.
So, if you guys want to, I'mdoing two today, so come back at
7 pm central and I'll be herewith sailing phoenix, who has
(01:10:34):
just skyrocketed viral.
He's become so viral.
He now has two millionfollowers on instagram and he
talked about that.
He would find all kinds ofthings, but, um, anyway, thank
you so much, james.
It's a pleasure talking withyou and I will see you again
soon.
We'll see you in the Caribbeansoon.
Sounds good.
Good evening.
Joining us tonight is JamesKenning, captain of Sailing
Yacht Archila, a Regina 43sailboat.
James has done what most onlydream about sailed to many
countries of the world andcounting a life powered by wind,
determination and adventure.
We're about to dive into whatit really takes to chase the
horizon and live the dream.
(00:25):
But first, if everybody wouldplease like, subscribe and share
, it really helps us bring youmore incredible sailing stories
if you do that.
I'm Captain Tinsley of SailingVessel Salty Abandoned and
Island Packet 320, and this isthe Salty Podcast, episode 61.
(00:46):
Welcome, james.
James Kenning (00:49):
Hello good evening.
Capn Tinsley (00:51):
Good evening.
Thank you for being here.
James Kenning (00:53):
My pleasure.
Capn Tinsley (00:55):
Okay, so I found you on Instagram, right?
James Kenning (01:00):
That's right.
Yeah, I've got a presence there.
Capn Tinsley (01:02):
Okay, you've got a presence.
Okay, so tell us a little bitabout yourself.
You're obviously not from theUnited States, so tell the folks
where you're from.
James Kenning (01:11):
So I'm British born and bred.
I hit the big six zero thismonth, which is a little bit
frightening.
I'm sure no one will believe itlooking at this youthful face.
That's right, I would never haveguessed but in those years um
my formative time I was royalair force and then contracting I
(01:34):
first started sailing in afairly traditional way and my
dad taught me to sail dinghies.
Um, I used to sail with him,but I was soon going to become
an orphan, so I went solo racedand then when I went to
university I pretty much stoppedsailing.
(01:54):
It just sort of dropped off myradar.
Capn Tinsley (01:59):
Now, where did you do this sailing?
James Kenning (02:03):
I grew up in Oxfordford, which is a
university town right in themiddle of the country, right in
the middle of the country, andmy first introduction to sailing
was on a small gravel pit thathad been flooded, and it was
called Dorchester Sailing Club.
Oh wow, Sailing reallyliterally could be everywhere.
(02:26):
I started very small.
Capn Tinsley (02:29):
Okay, all right, and I know you went to the Royal
Air Force.
James Kenning (02:34):
So I was commissioned in the Royal Air
Force, did 17 years in that, inthat, and towards the end, um
took up sailing again andbasically had one holiday
chartering a boat, knowingnothing about big boats uh, it
was a 34 Bavaria, I think thatwe chartered and to me then it
(02:59):
was a big boat.
No one had told me anythingabout prop walk or or these
sorts of things, and and theyjust let they just let us go
with it, and so it was quite astressful week learning how not
to do things and then, fromthere, caught the bug, got back
into the sailing bug, a numberof years chartering and then it
(03:22):
would be in 2018 decided to gointo self-induced bankruptcy by
buying Archila.
She's been sucking me dry ofmoney ever since.
Capn Tinsley (03:34):
So tell us about Archila.
James Kenning (03:39):
So, archila, she's a Regina 43.
She's from a small swedish yardwhich not many will have
probably heard of.
But if you think, marlo, uh,halber grassy, um, it's a vat
ilk.
Um, she's a sturdy deck saloon,uh, 40.
(04:00):
Well, she's called a 43.
The Marina will charge me 46foot.
Waterline length is closer to39.
Um, but she, she's good she's.
I'll say she's a deck saloon.
Um, she's fairly bulletproof.
Capn Tinsley (04:20):
Um, you've got some great pictures.
Uh, you're a photographer,right?
James Kenning (04:24):
Well, hobbyist photographer, obviously, I sort
of make a few scraps of moneyselling pictures to some of the
yachting magazines, but yeah.
I'm not a professional by anymeans.
Capn Tinsley (04:38):
I'm just going to.
While you're talking anddescribing your boat, I'm just
going to put some up here,because that is a beautiful boat
so she, she is.
James Kenning (04:47):
I mean, she gets a lot of um comments where
whenever we go places, um, she'sso that rigged.
She's got a very, uh, veryflexible rig so that, uh, in a
sail is a self-tacking jib, soreally good for shorthanded,
especially if you're goinganywhere into the wind.
Capn Tinsley (05:09):
On the front.
James Kenning (05:09):
there I have twin genoas, which is my downwind
rig when I'm not using aparasailer, and then a furling
mainsail, which I swear at justabout every time I try and get
it in and out.
Capn Tinsley (05:26):
Yeah, yeah, I have one of those too.
Wait, this isn't your boat, isit?
Is that your boat?
James Kenning (05:33):
That is actually just a month or so ago and it's
a charter vessel called Riawhich operates with a sister
ship, kronos, around theCaribbean at the moment.
Capn Tinsley (05:48):
I love that picture.
James Kenning (05:50):
That's not our fighter either.
Capn Tinsley (05:52):
No, but it's a beautiful picture.
James Kenning (05:54):
My big love in photography is actually wildlife
photography.
Capn Tinsley (05:59):
Okay, I think I do have a question about that.
James Kenning (06:02):
It's really an easier thing to take because you
know they're going to be there.
But, given the choice, I'd beout in the field trying to
capture wildlife.
If I could do my life all overagain, then, as a career, I
would like to have been awildlife photographer.
Capn Tinsley (06:21):
Well, this is a beautiful picture of your boat.
Is that a Takakat, that is yeah, I have one of those.
James Kenning (06:28):
I love those.
It's a Trukit from New ZealandRight.
Very pleased with it, me too.
Capn Tinsley (06:38):
And I like it because when I do a crossing of
the Gulf I like to pack it up inthe two bags and put it inside
the boat absolutely.
James Kenning (06:46):
Um, you know, if I'm doing, uh, an offshore
passage, then I don't keep heron on the davits at the back.
She's, she's packed up and goesin the bow yeah, because who
wants it swinging around backthere?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it beats mewhy people would want to do
that yeah, it seems like itwouldn't be good for the davits
(07:08):
and this is us um.
The boat has just been hauled.
In the last uh couple of weeksshe's out in uh grenada for
hurricane season now is thisafter?
Capn Tinsley (07:23):
it looks like you just had had the bottom done.
James Kenning (07:25):
It's so clean well, she has been um uh jet
washed, but I'm the bottom iscopper coated, which is one of
the best investments I thinkI've made on the boat.
Tell me about that.
What is that?
So, copico, it's a hard resinbased um antifoul which uh gets
(07:50):
applied on and theoretically itshould hopefully last 10 years
oh my gosh um, it doesn't stopgrowth.
It it mostly stops any hardgrowth.
But you still, you know,certainly in the caribbean, in
warm waters, every couple ofweeks you need to dive down and
take a take a brush to it to getso do barnacles.
Capn Tinsley (08:14):
Are they able to attach themselves?
Is that what you mean by hardgrowth?
James Kenning (08:18):
yeah, so I get very little hard growth.
Um, I do need to reactivate it.
There's starting to get alittle bit of growth on her.
Capn Tinsley (08:28):
It looks very shiny.
I'm so jealous.
I've got some whole envy.
Wow, it's beautiful and ofcourse, I love this picture.
James Kenning (08:40):
Yeah, I mean the Swedes.
They know how to build boats.
They build good-looking boats.
The inside of them, thecraftsmanship is just
unbelievable.
The screen behind me is a shotof the lower saloon in the boat
(09:00):
and the galley and there's justwood everywhere.
It's beautiful and it's it'sjust very, very high quality.
You know it's um, it doesn'tcreak like maybe some of the you
know sort of med med intendedboats like your production,
bavarias or genoves orbeneteau's with.
Capn Tinsley (09:21):
Right, and I do not have a production boat, so I
can appreciate that this is awonderful shot.
Is this done with a drone?
James Kenning (09:34):
No, I actually got my crew to be riding the
other dolphin backwards just infront of that.
Capn Tinsley (09:40):
What.
James Kenning (09:41):
Clearly I'm lying .
This is using one of theInsta360 cameras, so it's a
GoPro Max, and the way I getthese shots is, rather than
trying to take a picture, is, Iwill put it onto video and then
(10:02):
record it, and then, hopefully,you end up getting a shot like
this, where, where the animal isis in the right position,
you're in the right position,the sales drawing and then it
does take an element ofpost-processing because you have
to try and make a video still.
You know better quality.
Capn Tinsley (10:25):
So what a great shot.
Let's see if there's any more.
Nope, there's, that's it.
So, um, okay, all right.
So you, you got our Kyla.
You bought her in 2018.
Is that right?
James Kenning (10:44):
Yep, so end of the season 2018.
And where?
So she was bought in a littleriver mouth called the Yelm on
the south coast of Britain.
I then took her back from.
(11:10):
We took her back from the Yelm,which is close to Plymouth, to
her home, where we kept her fora couple of years in the Solent,
but that was it for 2018.
Basically, she then got hauledout for the English weather and
I know a lot of the Americanlisteners will be I know a lot
of American listeners will be,especially those in the South
will be wondering why do youhaul a boat?
Well, if you lived in the UK,you'd know why because it can be
(11:32):
pretty bloody, miserableweather.
They do that in say Michigan,yeah, so 2019 was really the
first year we started sailing.
It was also a year where wewere discovering that all the
(11:56):
systems that we thought weregood probably weren't quite as
good as the broker had told us.
We had to replace all the sails, all the new electronics,
because we got the blue screenof death on the chart plotters,
putting in upgraded anchor, allthose sorts of things.
So that first year, 2019, ofsailing didn't really even get
(12:20):
out of the Solent, which is oneof the most popular sailing
areas in the UK, but not reallymy idea of you know where to
sail.
It's busy, there aren't thatmany anchoring opportunities.
So, yeah, it was itching.
(12:41):
It was itching to get out andwider.
The next year, of course, wewere hit by a little thing
called Brexit in the UK and,because of all the tax rules
regarding VAT, we made thedecision to put the boat into
(13:04):
France, so sailed across toCherbourg, but this is now
during COVID.
So, again, the sailingopportunities were few and far
between.
And then the following year,when I brought our car back into
the UK because everyone hadbought a boat in the uk, there
(13:25):
was nowhere to put her, so I didthe season sailing up and down,
uh, the southwest coast, whichhas got some beautiful areas you
know along along the west coast.
Uh, but then nowhere to put her.
So she had to be hauled outagain and at that stage she just
(13:46):
decided let's go to the sun.
So the following season theboat was prepped to cross Biscay
, go down the Portuguese coastand hang in the Algarve, which I
think that must be 2022.
Capn Tinsley (14:04):
Okay, okay, okay.
So how did you get to Caribbean?
James Kenning (14:11):
So in between.
Capn Tinsley (14:13):
I guess first of all tell me the countries you
went to in the Mediterranean.
James Kenning (14:17):
So I've charted a lot in the Med and loved it,
especially the Greek islands,but also really liked the
Balearics.
So Majorca, ibiza, formentera,menorca, greek islands.
(14:38):
I'm going to pull that up so theoriginal intent was to take the
boat into the Med and hangaround in there for a while, but
Brexit made it very difficultwith regards to UK flagged boats
(14:58):
being there, even with EU VAT,and so toing and froing, you
know, as to whether or not tostay there.
But in in the Balearics whichagain I charted there a number
of years earlier a really lovefor cruising area, but it had
(15:20):
got incredibly busy.
Capn Tinsley (15:22):
Am I?
Am I close to it here on themap got incredibly busy.
Am I close to it here on themap?
James Kenning (15:25):
So you're hanging over Greek.
So if you're, put your arrow upa little bit below Corfu,
across, go left Down and you getto.
So you've got.
Those are the Ionian Islands,oh okay, and they're a wonderful
(15:46):
, really relaxed, easy cruisingarea.
But because for British flagboats it was looking fairly
difficult in terms of thebureaucracy that was going to
get involved and because of andwhat is that?
Capn Tinsley (16:08):
what, what, what were they saying?
James Kenning (16:10):
they, they were insisting that, um, every time
you go to a different port youhave to go into an office and
renew your transit log.
It was just going to bedifficult.
Capn Tinsley (16:28):
Okay.
Your transit log.
James Kenning (16:32):
So a transit log is what you have to buy if
you're a visiting yacht intoGreek waters, and it was going
to start getting expensive.
People weren't quite sure howthey were implementing the rules
.
It was potentially a bit of arisk, so I decided not to bother
(16:59):
going any further from theBalearics and to turn around
further from the Balearics andto turn around, head back out
through.
Walker Alley and head to theCaribbean.
So the route out of the Med.
I'd wintered the boat inValencia, which was a wonderful
(17:19):
place to be.
I mean, it's a fantastic city.
It's got two marinas.
I was in the northern one,which was originally built and
developed for the America's Cup.
Capn Tinsley (17:34):
Okay.
James Kenning (17:37):
And very handy for getting to the Balearic
Islands.
So Valencia to ibiza was sortof about a 14 hour sail and, uh,
to go across to say sola inmallorca would be 24 hours.
So really handy for that.
But the thing with the med isthey.
(18:00):
They often say you either havetoo much wind or you don't have
any at all, and that is verytrue.
So when it came to getting theboats out towards the Canaries
to start the Caribbean push,basically all the way from
(18:21):
Valencia to Gibraltar was prettymuch a motor.
It was fairly soul-destroying.
Capn Tinsley (18:27):
And how long does that take?
James Kenning (18:28):
You said I think we did that in the space of
three weeks.
Wow, as I said, either the windwas blowing 25 knots directly
on the nose or there was none atall, so there was a lot of
(18:51):
hanging around in some of theports.
There's very few anchoragesalong that entire Spanish coast,
so you have to go to marinas,so there's a lot of hanging
around in marinas.
Capn Tinsley (19:05):
That's fun too, though, isn't it?
James Kenning (19:10):
I mean, I prefer anchorages myself.
Capn Tinsley (19:13):
I prefer to drop a hook.
James Kenning (19:16):
My wallet prefers anchorages.
Capn Tinsley (19:18):
Of course, yeah.
James Kenning (19:22):
But yeah, so you know, we made our way through
places like Cartagena and thenthrough to Gibraltar and I mean,
I imagine a number of yourlisteners and viewers will have
heard of the orca problem in andaround the Straits of Gibraltar
(19:44):
.
Probably, but I haven't sothere is a particular group of
orcas.
They're called the Iberian orca.
They're a subset of the widerorca killer whale.
There's about 30 of them inthis pod, and since COVID they
(20:09):
started a habit of attacking therudders of yachts.
Capn Tinsley (20:13):
Oh, my goodness.
James Kenning (20:14):
So over that time I think about five yachts have
been sunk Right in here.
So they migrate with the tunaand it's seasonal where the tuna
is, so they they start off inthe Straits of Gibraltar there
(20:38):
and then they work their way upthe coast towards the Bay of
Biscay.
So you can't fully be sure everwhere they are and your only
real defence is to try and stayshallow.
You try and stay within the 20meter contour, which is a little
(21:00):
problematic around the sailingin this area because you get a
lot of fishing pots.
So it means that youeffectively have to travel by by
day.
So you have to do it to go fromGibraltar to Porto, mau or
Lagos on the western tip,southwestern tip of Portugal.
(21:21):
You you really need sort offive days to do that or you take
the risk of going in deep water.
But those are the yachts thatget attacked, and I say that
five have been sunk, hundredshave been attacked and had their
rudders disabled that isincredible very big issue okay,
(21:41):
well, that's that's.
Capn Tinsley (21:42):
I had asked you if you had any pirate stories.
That's a.
That's a pretty good storyright there.
That's a good tip of the day onthe Salty podcast is to watch
out for the….
James Kenning (21:52):
Yes, there's a lot of support networks out
there now as well.
There's one website calledorcapt and they show heat maps
of where they think the orcasare because scientists are
studying them.
I'm a member of the CruisingAssociation, which is it's open
(22:18):
to all worldwide, but it is a UKbased in its headquarters.
They have an orca team andthey've been doing studies,
trying to correlate and findsolutions so that neither boats
or the orcas because they are anendangered species they are
protected.
Capn Tinsley (22:36):
Right.
James Kenning (22:37):
Can't mess with them.
But there are key areas whereyou can almost be certain that
if you sail through there you'regoing to get hit.
Through there you're going toget hit, and particularly if you
if you look at uh tarifa there,that's marked on the map um,
just, uh, just for west of thatyou've got the bay of barbati,
(22:57):
you have barbati and um offshore.
There is where you get some ofthe highest concentrations of
the orca now you said theyfollow the tuna, so is that
seasonal?
Yes, so in the early season,around sort of April May, they
(23:22):
tend to be in the straight there, okay, and then as the season
progresses the tuna move upnorth and the orca tend to move
up with them and so then anotherplace is a hot spot yeah, it
tends to be.
(23:43):
There's 30 odd individuals inthis group of orca and it's 14
individuals that have beenidentified as what we think is
just playing games.
Um, no one knows for sure, butthey think it's a way to
alleviate boredom, and there'sall sorts of theories as to how
(24:10):
to deter them.
You know, some people say dropsand over your stern because it
disrupts their sonar, becausethey go in under sonar.
Right, fishermen usefirecrackers, though that's
theoretically illegal.
Right, the best thing to do,according to the scientists, is
(24:34):
transit through there underengine and, if and when they do
come up alongside you, if theybump you or you have an incident
with them, engine on full andjust head, if you can, to the
shallows.
Capn Tinsley (24:50):
Okay, wow, this is a first for me.
I mean, I've never taken myboat over here, but that's good
information.
James Kenning (24:58):
So you came out of here and you went up to so I
was looking for the safest orthe least chance of meeting Orca
, so I decided to push for theCanaries from that suburb of
Portugal, so Porto Mau.
Capn Tinsley (25:22):
Tell me if I'm on the right track here.
James Kenning (25:26):
I can't see your map at the moment.
Oh, I'm sorry, sorry about thatI can't see your map at the
moment.
Capn Tinsley (25:29):
Oh, I'm sorry.
James Kenning (25:30):
Sorry about that, I can try.
Capn Tinsley (25:35):
Okay, so can you see it now.
James Kenning (25:37):
So go, take your pointer to Lisbon and go south.
Capn Tinsley (25:45):
Okay, closer in.
Okay, do you see Albufeira?
James Kenning (25:51):
Yes, okay, go to the west of Albufeira.
Okay, really, on thatTrajectory, no, no, no, no.
Sorry, you're right in themiddle of the Atlantic now, so
still on the Portuguese coast.
If you zoom in that Portuguesecoast, if you zoom in more or
(26:12):
less where you are now.
So you have Lagos and Porto Mal, and that is where I decided to
stage from.
Capn Tinsley (26:20):
Okay.
James Kenning (26:21):
And so the first 70 miles, 70 nautical miles or
so, were the ones where we're onhigh alert, really looking,
okay, looking to make sure thatwe weren't going to be.
Capn Tinsley (26:36):
Forgive my ignorance, but I'm trying to
find the canary islands now, sothere you go.
James Kenning (26:41):
Uh, funchal, that is madeira, which I'd
originally hoped to go to, butbecause I missed out on, because
of the weather, windows failedto get there, so I had to miss
that and instead, if you headsouth, zoom out and head south,
then these are the CanaryIslands and went into Arrasith.
(27:05):
Okay, there we go.
Yeah, on Lanzarote, which is avery barren um yeah, looks
volcanic islands, butspectacular scenery okay, did
you anchor here?
so again, the canary Islandsaren't really known for their
(27:30):
anchorages.
There are anchorages, but I wason the timeline.
I went into Arrasif and thenfrom Arrasif I then did a
passage to go to Gran Canariaand Las Palmas.
To go to Gran Canaria and LasPalmas, where I left the boat
(27:55):
for a couple of months untilwaiting for my November
departure with the ARC Plusrally.
Capn Tinsley (27:58):
Okay, and then you went across.
James Kenning (28:02):
And then yep, but we went down via the Cape Verde
Islands.
So there you go and you want tolook for Salvacente and Mindelo
.
So Mindelo is the main yachtingbase of the Cape Verdes.
It's got a good marina there.
(28:24):
It has a chandlery.
So when boats do go in thereand they're broken and quite
often they will be you do get agood chance of fixing things in
there what's the depth aroundhere?
So I mean the, the depth.
(28:45):
It's probably around, you know,in the deep areas, 3000 meters
wow you do on on your way down,you know you do have to be wary,
though, of occasionally thereare some seamounts where you may
not be going to, um, you know,run aground on them, but they
(29:07):
could certainly throw out nastywaves and seas on them.
So we were talking about goingdown into lanzarote in the
canaries, and, uh, if you, ifyou just head north again, zoom
into lanzarote, zoom intoLanzarote, so you want to go
(29:33):
east to Arrasith, and then youcan just see there, where the
shelf comes up, it comes up veryrapidly and there are a couple
of seamounts that can get youunawares if you're not checking,
zooming in on your chartplotter.
Capn Tinsley (29:52):
Seamounts.
Okay, wow, okay.
You unawares if you're notchecking, zooming in on your
chart plotter see mounts.
Okay, wow, okay.
So you hung out here, you wenthome for a while and then how
did you make it all the way overhere?
James Kenning (30:00):
so, um, so we should probably head back to the
, the 900 mile passage from LasPalmas down to Mindelo, because
that was not without incident.
Okay, and on the second nightout, my parasailor, which I'd
(30:25):
only had since picking it up inGibraltar.
The weather forecast was not asit promised and in trying to
get it down in the middle of thenight it did come down.
We lost the halyard out of themast winch and it dropped in the
ocean and ripped to shreds,nearly took three fingers of
(30:51):
mine up the marsheaf, butfortunately got that out out of
the way just in time.
Um, but that lost us, our, ourmain downwind sail.
So, but fortunately, my reserveis I have twin geno's which are
permanently fixed onto my frontstate and that's what we then
(31:17):
used, which, when we had wind is, it's an excellent rig.
I mean, it's stable, it's fast.
But you know, our kyla's quitea.
She's a sturdy girl, she'spretty hefty and if you've got
less than 12 knots of wind, youknow they.
They just flap and bang andevery time I could see the, the
(31:42):
anti-chafed strips coming apart.
Capn Tinsley (31:45):
Yeah, okay, so what did you do then?
James Kenning (31:49):
so we got into um .
Well, the first thing we had todo was recover this stricken
sail, which took us nearly twohours, drifting um 25 knots of
wind.
We basically got it out out ofthe the ocean and we
(32:09):
unceremoniously ducked it downinto the forward cabin.
So we had a rearrangement ofthe crew quarters and uh, and
then we we continued along.
At this stage we didn't quiteknow what the damage was on the
sail, so later in the trip wewent in and had a look at it.
(32:30):
It was beyond repair, so shed afew tears at that.
Capn Tinsley (32:37):
What did you do Not?
James Kenning (32:38):
so much for the fact that I killed the
parasailor, but for the factthat how were we going to get
across the Atlantic without it,especially if we had light airs?
But when we came to leaving,basically we pulled out the Twin
(33:05):
Genoa's and we set those, ourcourse was determined on which
way was exactly downwind and westayed like that for 2,200 miles
, basically, and took a pulldown about 30 miles off Grenada
okay, we had a very frustratinglow wind scenario of trying to
(33:26):
do that last last miles.
Capn Tinsley (33:29):
So here it is.
So you're right here.
So we're right here and now youare.
James Kenning (33:36):
And we move into Grenada, which is the southern,
pretty much the.
There we go, grenada.
Capn Tinsley (33:48):
Here we go However .
You came you came in.
James Kenning (33:53):
There's always, however so we went direct,
direct to Grenada so you wentfrom here down.
Capn Tinsley (34:00):
Now somebody was asking me the other day and I
haven't made this trip, so Idon't know.
I may, who knows.
But so when you're coming thisway, what is the rule Like I
know that you know a lot of whenthey go back, they go this way.
James Kenning (34:20):
So boats leave.
Typically you don't want toleave earlier than November
December.
To leave earlier than NovemberDecember and the later you leave
it into.
I mean, some people go acrossin January and February because
that's when the trade winds arebetter established.
But even if you were goingdirect from the Canaries and not
(34:45):
doing a stop in the Cape Verdes, you would still.
The wisdom is to go south andthe saying is go south until the
butter melts.
Yeah, I've heard that.
Basically at which stage?
Where it's pretty much aroundthe, the latitude of the Cape
Verdes, and that's where thetrade winds you hope kick in.
Capn Tinsley (35:09):
Okay, and then you pretty much kind of go this way
Well, no, so you're on theCanaries, there.
James Kenning (35:15):
What you want to do is you want to actually drop
south, so you'd be looking todrop south towards the Cape
Verdes.
Capn Tinsley (35:22):
Okay, I'm sorry, that's what I was thinking, you
were saying and then you makeyour westing.
Okay, and so you're basicallygoing.
I don't know what that headingis, but I mean you go west,
basically.
James Kenning (35:36):
Is it southwest?
It's pretty much west, okay,because you've taken a southern
leg to start with, until yourbutter starts melting.
Capn Tinsley (35:47):
Okay.
James Kenning (35:48):
Once you then go, you're almost on a due west
course, gotcha.
You don't have to worry aboutgreat circles, roots.
You know that's uh, that's umlatitude.
There's very little in it, soyou just point for your target
okay, so how far?
Capn Tinsley (36:07):
You said it was 2,200?
James Kenning (36:09):
2,200, I think is the crow flies.
Capn Tinsley (36:13):
How long did that take you?
James Kenning (36:15):
Well, I think we got across in 14 days, all under
sail.
Capn Tinsley (36:22):
Okay.
James Kenning (36:23):
What did happen, though, was Sorry.
No motor, no motor.
Wow nice Sorry.
Capn Tinsley (36:26):
No motor.
James Kenning (36:27):
No motor.
Wow nice what did happen wasliterally midway we had a rudder
issue and first noticed thatthe rudder stock had dropped in
(36:49):
the transom void.
So we still had steerage, butwe didn't know what had happened
or what the damage was.
There was a little bit of wateringress, so we jury rigged up
the rudder to stabilise it.
We got pumps ready, we wentthrough all of our water ingress
(37:12):
procedures.
We tried to slow the boat so wereefed her fully down and we
ended up speeding up.
We're doing eight and a halfknots.
Wow, still under our head.
Capn Tinsley (37:26):
And what were the?
James Kenning (37:26):
winds.
We were probably having, youknow, sort of 15 to 20 knots,
mostly until the last day.
Capn Tinsley (37:37):
So we have some.
This is Hayden of SV IslandSpirit and he said what caused
the Halyard failure.
James Kenning (37:45):
Well, it wasn't a Halyard failure, it just it
came out of the winch jaws.
So we've gone up to try andbring the sail down, to put the
snuffer over it, and somethinghappened.
It got knocked and it just cameout with jaws and that was it.
(38:06):
It was under such load becausewe had about 20-25 knots of wind
at the time.
It just shot off instantly.
Capn Tinsley (38:19):
He comments on your 14 days.
Is that fast?
James Kenning (38:27):
We weren't the fastest boat, we weren't the
slowest.
I mean by handicap.
Our Kylo was the, I think theninth slowest boat out of the
fleet of 96.
Even with our rudder issue andnot having our parasailor 44.
(38:52):
But on handicap we came infifth okay so.
Capn Tinsley (38:57):
So I would say an island packet probably has a
handicap too right, because it'sit's not going to win any races
.
And uh, sv, island spirit.
These guys also are in a islandpack at 35, so you know he's
also a boat broker, so I bet heknows your boat type yeah but
(39:17):
bear in mind.
James Kenning (39:18):
You know that's 14 days.
That's not from the canariesright, that's from mindelo, in
the cape verdes right right um,so typically you know you, you
would probably expect you know adecent cruising boat to get
across in two weeks from theCape Verdes.
If you were going from directfrom the Canary Islands, from
(39:44):
Gran Canaria, you'd be lookingat probably closer to three
weeks area you'd be looking at,probably closer to three weeks,
okay, yeah, so how long?
did it take you to get to thecape verdez?
That, I think was um.
Well, it was 900 miles, I thinkwe did that in and that was
(40:05):
from Six days maybe.
Capn Tinsley (40:07):
Okay, from the Canaries, yeah, okay.
And then from Portugal to theCanaries.
Portugal to Lanzarote andthat's Canaries, right, yeah,
okay.
James Kenning (40:26):
I think that was four days.
Capn Tinsley (40:29):
Okay.
James Kenning (40:30):
And I think that was four days.
Okay, and I think that was topof my head.
I think it was about 800 miles,but no, it could have been 800
miles if we did.
We don't do 200 miles days, butthe fastest day I did was 180
miles which was good.
Wow, which was good.
Wow, that was when we had, youknow, the wind right up the
(40:54):
stern.
We had the twin genoas out.
We probably had about 20, 25knots.
We were going in the rightdirection.
It was a good feeling.
Capn Tinsley (41:07):
Okay, all right.
James Kenning (41:11):
So you made it into Grenada or grenade, made it
into grenada um, very happy, umbut then arranged to have a a
haul out uh, because we wedidn't really know what was what
was wrong with the rudderhauled the boat out, looked at
it.
The engineer said, yeah, okay,don't think this is too much of
(41:34):
an issue, and we were back inthe water in a couple of days.
The next day, however, I wasgetting a lot of water.
We were leaking about an hour alitre an hour.
So we hauled out again and hada closer look and we had a crack
on the skeg.
And the engineer, once he'dlooked at everything and we'd
(42:00):
also had a split all the way upthe leading edge of the rudder,
so there was an open crack onthe port side of the skeg and a
compression crack on thestarboard.
He said the only thing thatreally could have done that was
a whale impact.
So that at this stage I saidthis to one of the crew I had on
(42:25):
board he said oh yeah, Iremember having a big jolt when
I was on the helm, which hedidn't tell me about.
Capn Tinsley (42:35):
And this was halfway across.
James Kenning (42:38):
Yeah, we were 1,100 miles in 900 to go.
The nearest land was threemiles away, but it was
vertically down.
So, yeah, we were 900 milesfrom from safety.
So when we first saw that therudder was, um, not not as it
should be and that we had alittle bit of water in grace, it
(43:01):
was, uh, it was concerning.
Capn Tinsley (43:06):
I bet, but you made it Okay we made it.
And then we were hauled out forthe second time.
And where were you?
In Grenada.
James Kenning (43:19):
In Grenada.
So we went into.
If you see St George's and youzoom in on there and you can
start to see the beginnings of amarina there that is port louis
marina, is that where youstayed?
So that's where we went into.
That's where the art plus rallyfinishes okay um and then uh, to
(43:45):
get hauled out along the Southcoast there are.
There are three main boat yards.
There's Spice Island, marineClark's Quart Down here, yep.
So if you look at see where LeFer Bleu is Not true blue but
(44:15):
keep going East, right, okay.
So go go north, not into fairblue, but just to the east.
Yeah, go opposite the bigdipper restaurant and there's
clark's court boatyard andmarina oh nice.
Okay, this is a good tip, whichis one of the for insurance
purposes, is consideredhurricane safe.
Capn Tinsley (44:35):
Okay, yeah right.
James Kenning (44:37):
So this is where I hauled out to have the the
rudder repaired by an absolutelyfantastic team of Palm Tree
tree marine who are based atclark's court okay, good to know
everything took?
Uh, because they closed downfor christmas.
(44:58):
The boat had to be dried out,then they had to do 17 layers of
glassing on the boat, then thecopper coat had to be reapplied
in the areas on the rudder andthe skeg.
So it wasn't until the end ofthe first week in February that
the boat relaunched.
Capn Tinsley (45:19):
And when did you get there?
James Kenning (45:21):
I got there mid-December.
Okay, so it was a bit of afrustrating couple of months and
not really how I'd hoped Didyou stay there or did you fly?
home A little bit of both, flewhome initially, then came back
to oversee the works going on.
(45:44):
I'm always a big I very wary ofleaving um contractors alone.
You know I mean, as it happened, palm tree guys were
unbelievable in.
You know, the professionalismin the way they were treating
the boat.
But I have had bad experiencesin the past of um of contractors
(46:08):
left alone.
Oh yeah, I like to be there ifany serious work is being done.
Capn Tinsley (46:15):
There's a lot of catamarans in here.
James Kenning (46:17):
There are a lot of cats there, in fact, where
that white car is, that isexactly where my boat was parked
at.
Capn Tinsley (46:24):
Okay, hayden says a good yard Clarkark's.
James Kenning (46:30):
we stored there for two seasons yeah there we go
yeah, um, the only downsidewith clark's court is it is in
the middle of nowhere.
I mean there is nothing aroundthere.
Um, there's one restaurant onsite, but that is it's not.
(46:52):
It's not the best place, it'sit closes all day.
Sunday it closes about sixo'clock.
Had I got the dinghy in thewater then I would have been
able to you know come over herethat you're pointing out across
the Bay, but my, you know thedinghy we're in a rush to get
hauled out.
(47:12):
She was still on the davits soI was pretty much stuck there
living on the hard, a lot ofmosquitoes and bugs, which was
not very pleasant.
Capn Tinsley (47:25):
So a million dollars later.
James Kenning (47:28):
Actually you joke , but I was expecting the cost
to be huge and it wasn't.
Capn Tinsley (47:36):
Oh.
James Kenning (47:37):
All of the work, including the lift out and the
storage, came to less than10,000 GB GB pound sterling,
which I thought was actually abargain, because normally
anything with marine in it I wasexpecting it to be at least
(48:00):
twice that and insurance covereda lot of it as well.
Capn Tinsley (48:05):
Oh nice.
James Kenning (48:07):
As did the insurance cover my parasailor,
because it wasn't damaged bywind, it was damaged by water.
I did have heavy deductibles onboth, but it it took a bit of a
sting out sure, sure, well,that's good news.
Capn Tinsley (48:24):
Okay, so you made it back in february.
Of what year is this by now?
James Kenning (48:29):
2000 this year we're now to 25.
Capn Tinsley (48:32):
Yeah, so that's where your boat is now so the
boat's there now.
James Kenning (48:37):
Um, she's actually hauled out in spice
island marine.
Uh, for the hurricane season.
Um, again, it it's an insurancething that uh, again it's an
insurance thing that the boatshave to be below 12 degrees
something.
Capn Tinsley (48:56):
Otherwise they're not insured.
Yes, I'm right in the middle of.
I've got a bullseye where I amfor hurricanes.
James Kenning (49:09):
But okay.
So what's the plan next?
Um well, trying to work outwhat to do for the summer months
.
Um, back to the boat.
Um, um, whether you know, inthe future it's around the.
I mean, what I'd really like todo would be the High Latitude
(49:34):
Challenge and go pole to pole.
So I don't know if you've heardof this, but it's the latest,
jimmy Cornell, it's not a rallyas such, but boats leave from
Cherbourg and they time to godown South America, down to the
(49:58):
Antarctic Peninsula, and thenhead up via Hawaii to do the
Northwest Passage, before thenheading back to via Greenland,
to uh, uh, to share, book, tocomplete, complete the trip
around.
Capn Tinsley (50:15):
So that would be uh.
And you know I I interviewedsome folks on here that love,
they love that, they love iceand snow and they sail to those
destinations.
James Kenning (50:30):
Yeah.
Capn Tinsley (50:31):
And I'm like what is?
Oh I just love it, they love it.
James Kenning (50:36):
You know, to be honest, our Kyler isn't the boat
for that.
Capn Tinsley (50:41):
Okay.
James Kenning (50:42):
It would need to be an aluminium expedition boat.
Capn Tinsley (50:46):
Okay.
James Kenning (50:48):
Maybe I'll go boat shopping.
Capn Tinsley (50:53):
Okay, so I do have some rapid fire questions.
Favorite country to sail to sofar.
James Kenning (51:01):
Oh, I like Martinique in the.
Caribbean.
Okay, uh, it's got some beaut,so it's got great, great food,
cause it's French.
Um some lovely anchorages, it'sgot good marinas, good services
(51:21):
.
There I did like Martinique.
Capn Tinsley (51:23):
Okay, um and uh.
Hayden says uh, I'veinterviewed SV Touché.
It's an island pack at 380.
And they go from Svalbard toCape Horn, and they talked about
the butter melting.
That's how I first heard it.
Okay, so, martinique, wealready talked about your
(51:47):
favorite anchorage, biggeststorm.
James Kenning (51:56):
Do you know, I haven't been caught out in a
huge storm.
Good answer, I like to thinkthat's because of my passage
planning.
I've been in force eight windsplanning.
I've been in force eight winds,but I don't think I've had
stronger than that.
So yeah, I'm a virgin in thatrespect, with regards to really
(52:20):
heavy weather.
Okay, I have to ask force eightwinds.
What is that?
I think force eight is up to 40knots.
Capn Tinsley (52:31):
Oh, you have been in that.
Yeah, well, that's challenging.
Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
James Kenning (52:43):
It's not officially Stormforce, no, it's
not Hurricane, strength, butgoodness gracious.
Capn Tinsley (52:49):
Okay, I think they call it a near gale, I think.
It'll ruin your day.
First thing you do at landfallafter a crossing Open a tin of
beer.
James Kenning (53:04):
Okay, favorite sailing movie oh, um, I'll come
back to that one.
Okay, there's a few of them outthere uh night watch coffee or
(53:25):
red bull do you know I don't doeither.
I have a bag of sweets so sugar, sugar.
Capn Tinsley (53:33):
Okay, I'm a coffee gal.
James Kenning (53:41):
Favorite snack on passage.
I eat what's given to me.
I eat what's in the snack pack.
So yeah, I don't have afavorite, it's whatever's in
there.
Capn Tinsley (53:53):
Okay, Dream crew member dead or alive.
James Kenning (53:57):
Ooh, I'd like to cross with Elvis.
I mean, just, wouldn't it begreat You've got entertainment.
He'd have so many stories, itwouldn't really matter if he
couldn't sail.
Capn Tinsley (54:17):
Best answer on the Salty podcast ever.
Okay, other than my partner, ofcourse.
Of course.
Biggest fear at sea.
I think I've heard a couple ofthem.
James Kenning (54:32):
Waves, waves.
Yeah, biggest fear at sea.
I think I've heard a couple ofthem um waves, waves.
Yeah, it's not the wind.
It's not wind that thatfrightens me, but the waves no
actually no, I changed.
I changed my answer.
Capn Tinsley (54:40):
It's lightning, okay, lightning scares the
absolute god out of me okay, itjust occurred to me that we did
not bring up the anchorage wewere talking about that.
James Kenning (54:54):
Ah, that's true.
We were talking about thatearlier.
I think we said I will.
Although it changes daily, Iwill go for Chatham Bay on Union
Island.
Here it is, there it is, thereit is, and it's Grenada or no.
(55:14):
This is St Vincent and theGrenadines.
Right, okay, it's the SouthernIsland.
I had the best ever lobsterfrom a little shack on the beach
there.
And it's very sad because theowners there, since the
(55:36):
Hurricane Beryl blew through andpretty much laid waste to a lot
of the Grenadines andespecially Union Island, the
government have been withholdingpermission for what were wooden
shacks to rebuild.
They're currently in tentsbecause they want to be able to
(55:58):
sell the land off for hoteldevelopment there.
Capn Tinsley (56:01):
Yeah, that's sad.
James Kenning (56:02):
You know, it's really sad because it is such a
beautiful area and part of youknow why I love it.
There is that it's just a beachand a couple of shacks.
Capn Tinsley (56:14):
Yeah, and I'm told by a lot of different sailors
that there are a lot of placeslike this in the Caribbean, yeah
, places to pull in, but that isa shame, but they are still
operating.
James Kenning (56:28):
But in a tent, yeah, but they are still
operating, but in a tent.
Yeah, you know they, they werethere in a tent.
Um, it's amazing.
You know how these people areare pulling, pulling through
after the storm, you know I wasthere last.
It must have been April.
(56:48):
I came through there and we'renow so Beryl went through the
previous June and the localresidents in Clifton Harbour.
They're still living in tents.
They're still relying ongovernment food being brought in
daily for them to have hotmeals.
(57:09):
But one thing that really doeshelp is cruisers going in there
and spending their dollars right.
It's putting much needed moneyinto the economy and you know
you go in.
If you would normally anchor,then take a boy so that you, you
know, give 20, you know just ontaking a boy.
And there are, you know, give$20, you know, just on taking a
(57:29):
boy.
There are things that cruiserscan do there to help, just by
being there and not being putoff by the fact that it's still,
you know, a lot of destructionfrom a hurricane.
Capn Tinsley (57:41):
Right, right, Okay , yeah, and that would appeal to
.
I think that would appeal.
Even a tent would appeal to uscruisers.
You know, yeah, Drew says fireis his.
Fire at sea is his biggest fear.
And then he wrote I was workingon a tug and we had a crankcase
explosion and the builds caughton fire.
That would be frightening.
James Kenning (58:00):
Yeah, fire.
Um, there's not a lot you cando.
Is that other than hope you canlaunch the life raft in time if
it's caught hold?
Capn Tinsley (58:09):
Right.
James Kenning (58:10):
There's only one outcome that's probably going to
happen.
Okay, I mean, arkyla doesn'thave lithium batteries, but
that's the big scare these daysis that lithiums that haven't
been installed properly.
Capn Tinsley (58:22):
Yeah.
James Kenning (58:23):
We've got high fires.
Capn Tinsley (58:25):
Okay, so one thing you'd never sail without.
James Kenning (58:30):
Ooh, I was Okay.
So one thing you'd never sailwithout GPS.
Okay, of course I'm not intothat whole sextant thing for me.
No, you know, if the GPS failsI go to a second GPS and after
that you go to chart.
If the GPS fails, I go toGalileo or Glasnos.
Capn Tinsley (58:52):
Okay, and like charts are the last on the list
no, I still have paper charts.
Yes, okay, and let's see Anchordown First drink.
What is it?
James Kenning (59:13):
It's either going to be a beer or a gin and tonic
or, if it's in the Caribbean,it could be a painkiller.
Okay, or a beer, because thatwould be cold in the fridge.
Capn Tinsley (59:25):
And that would be on your boat.
James Kenning (59:27):
Yeah.
Capn Tinsley (59:27):
Okay, All right.
So Drew says.
Luckily we were faced up to abarge and we all got on it and
let the tug go.
It was hard to watch it burnyeah, soul destroying yeah, um,
if not sailing, what would yoube doing?
Skiing, skiing, snow skiing,yeah, okay, well, that was a
(59:51):
quick answer yeah, um eithermountains or ocean for me that's
right, you did say that oneword to describe sailing yacht
or kyla.
One word beautiful, beautiful,that's for sure.
Uh, sail changes at night.
Love it or hate it.
James Kenning (01:00:13):
I try not to the last one I did.
Was it destroyed my parasail?
I hate it yeah.
Capn Tinsley (01:00:21):
Okay.
James Kenning (01:00:27):
Best wildlife encounter since you love
wildlife?
Um, okay, this wasn't on ourKyla.
This was actually a non-sailingtrip up in Alaska and I was sea
kayaking and a pod of orca cameby.
Oh, we're talking about orcasagain, so you?
Capn Tinsley (01:00:45):
were on a kayak.
James Kenning (01:00:47):
On a sea kayak.
And then my second answer tothat would be the other end of
the earth, in the AntarcticPeninsula, again sea kayaking,
and a seal just came up rightnext to the kayak, so that was
pretty special.
Capn Tinsley (01:01:05):
Did you have a camera with you?
James Kenning (01:01:07):
I did.
Capn Tinsley (01:01:08):
Good, Because we haven't mentioned this.
But if you go to, is it yourInstagram?
You've got some beautifulpictures there of your boat.
We just showed some of them.
So you say you're aself-claimed amateur
photographer Most ridiculousboat superstition you've heard.
James Kenning (01:01:32):
Well, okay, I'm going to say not having bananas
on board.
And the reason I say that isbecause when we left the
Canaries, my crew said we can'thave bananas on board, something
will go wrong.
Well, first we lost aparasailor, then we got hit by a
whale which cracked the skeg.
(01:01:53):
So maybe it's not so.
Capn Tinsley (01:01:56):
I always travel with bananas too, and I have had
some things happen.
I never attribute it to thebananas, though.
Will you ever stop sailing?
James Kenning (01:02:10):
Do you know?
I think I'll get my ashessprinkled off a sternum of a
boat.
Capn Tinsley (01:02:16):
Sweet, okay.
Last question If you couldleave the world with one sailing
lesson, what would it be?
Tip of the day.
James Kenning (01:02:29):
Reef early.
Capn Tinsley (01:02:31):
Reef early.
Yes, reef early, yes, reefearly, and call for help early
also.
James Kenning (01:02:40):
Yeah, hopefully reefing early will negate the
need to call for help, all right.
Capn Tinsley (01:02:45):
Well, is there anything else you'd like to tell
us?
We've been on here an hour andif anybody else would like to
make some comments, we've had afew comments, which is nice,
please do, but is there anyother?
Final, your plans, your plans,what are your plans?
James Kenning (01:03:01):
Well, I mean not sure of the immediate plans, but
you know the dream would bethat pole to pole, you know,
northwest Passage, antarcticPeninsula.
I say when I went down to theAntarctic it was on a Russian
expedition boat and I feltcheated because we had the Drake
(01:03:26):
Lake.
It was flat calm going aroundCape Horn and all the way across
.
So I geared myself up to be assick as a dog for however many
days it takes to get across andit was just flat calm.
Capn Tinsley (01:03:44):
And most people would consider that a blessing,
but you did not.
James Kenning (01:03:49):
Well, it was a blessing, but I felt cheated.
So maybe I'd like to go and dothat in an expedition sailboat.
Capn Tinsley (01:03:57):
You wanted a good sea story.
Yeah, gotcha, okay.
James Kenning (01:04:01):
So, but after Grenada, you're going to Grenada
, you're in the UK now so, whenthe boats refloated, get it back
up through the Caribbean andthen back across to Europe okay,
so you're going to go north,and when is that going to be?
Capn Tinsley (01:04:24):
when are you going back?
You're still waiting for it atthe end of hurricane season yeah
.
End of hurricane season somaybe I'll see you down there.
Are you going to go to bahamas?
James Kenning (01:04:35):
yeah, you're going to go to georgetown we'll
crack the, I'll crack my beerand whatever you're cracking
okay.
Capn Tinsley (01:04:42):
um, so drew says for a beginner buying a sailboat
what is a good price to startat, or or a certain boat to look
for?
My first response is how wellare you at fixing things?
James Kenning (01:04:54):
I mean, you can't answer that question as it is.
You have to say what you wantto do, and my advice would be
start small.
Buy a dinghy, learn thefundamentals of sailing in a
dinghy, because it does seemthat to me, the best sailors are
those who learnt on dinghiesand then work your way up, take
(01:05:16):
some lessons.
Capn Tinsley (01:05:18):
Yeah, you can take some ASA 101, 103, 104 yeah.
James Kenning (01:05:22):
I mean, I did the RYA courses to my yacht master.
But charter boats to see whatand get on other people's boats
before you buy one yourselfbecause that's good advice a
boat is.
It's not a good financialinvestment.
No financial advisor will evertell you to buy a boat.
Capn Tinsley (01:05:44):
All it does is a vessel that you throw money at
constantly yeah, I actually dida podcast on this with a boat
broker and her first responsewas what do you want to do with
it?
Are you just going to be daysailing?
Are you going to be, you know,going cruising?
So there's a lot of questions.
So, drew, if you would like, Ican hook you up with a good boat
(01:06:08):
broker.
There's actually another one onhere, that's Island Spirit S
here.
That's Island Spirit SV, islandSpirit.
He's a boat broker and if he'snot available, I have another
one in the Keys.
Where are you, drew?
James Kenning (01:06:23):
the other thing is to work out if you like
sailing and, if you have apartner, if he or she likes
sailing, because if they don't,then your dreams could come
apart very quickly and you couldhave a very expensive bit of
kit on your hands that youreally wish you didn't have.
Capn Tinsley (01:06:44):
It seems like it's always the men trying to get
the women to go, and in my caseit was the other way around, but
there's a lot of men out therewishing they had a woman that
would go like Island Spirit.
They're a sailing couple andthey both love it, so it's kind
(01:07:05):
of hard to find that a partnerwhen you get one, hold on to him
or her.
Right, drew, if you want to knowmore.
I want you to a partner whenyou get one hold on to him or
her Right, right, drew, if youwant to know more, I want you to
.
I will hook you up with theright people.
Email me at salty abandon atGmail.
Oh wait, it looks like heresponded.
I'm in Florida.
What part of Florida?
(01:07:25):
I got people.
I got people.
I'll send you to Florida's abig place, but email.
I got people.
I got people.
I'll send you to Florida's abig place.
But email me at saltyabandonedat gmail and I will steer you in
the right direction to startyour search.
So okay.
Well, if anybody wants tofollow James, you're on
(01:07:58):
Instagram at S-V-O sailingarchaic sailing archaic at
sailing archaic at on uhinstagram or the website where
all the cruising stories arefully laid out is
wwwsailingarchaelacom.
I'm going to put that up here.
Make sure I spell it right.
(01:08:20):
And then on Instagram it's atsailingarchaela.
Okay, there it is, we'll haveto see.
So you're going back at the endof hurricane season, correct?
James Kenning (01:08:44):
Let's see what happens.
Capn Tinsley (01:08:46):
Okay, oh, so he's in the Tampa area.
Cool, cool, cool, okay.
So email me, drew, we'll talk,we'll chat.
Okay, well, james, it's been apleasure.
James Kenning (01:08:56):
Thank you for having me.
Capn Tinsley (01:09:02):
I want to stay in touch with you and I might even
see you down there and maybeeven interview again after
you've gone through the wholeCaribbean.
You probably have some good seastories Hopefully it won't be
expensive ones.
You probably have some good seastories.
James Kenning (01:09:13):
Hopefully won't be expensive ones.
Capn Tinsley (01:09:13):
Every story with a boat is expensive one way or
another are you pretty good atfixing things yourself certainly
the last few years, I've got alot better.
James Kenning (01:09:25):
Yeah, when you start doing ocean passages is
when you start to really learnyour boat.
I think you know, you.
I have literally unscrewedevery single panel in the boat
to see where everything is.
Capn Tinsley (01:09:41):
Uh, how it, how it can be fixed and did you do
your walk arounds every day whenyou're out at sea?
James Kenning (01:09:48):
yeah, um, uh, very important.
I mean, on doing that one ofthe things, I found that my
general lines were almost chafedfully through.
So, yeah, it's, uh, it'simportant yeah, so you looked at
everything there's no worsething to find than a split pin
(01:10:12):
ring on the deck.
Capn Tinsley (01:10:14):
Right, yeah, yeah, and you know I was sailing
Phoenix.
By the way, I'll beinterviewing Sailing Phoenix at
7 pm Central.
He's in Hawaii.
It'll be 2 pm Hawaii time.
So, if you guys want to, I'mdoing two today, so come back at
7 pm central and I'll be herewith sailing phoenix, who has
(01:10:34):
just skyrocketed viral.
He's become so viral.
He now has two millionfollowers on instagram and he
talked about that.
He would find all kinds ofthings, but, um, anyway, thank
you so much, james.
It's a pleasure talking withyou and I will see you again
soon.
We'll see you in the Caribbeansoon.
Sounds good.
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