Seasons Greetings to all in the St Francis Community

[Paul Allinson]

Wishing everyone a Joyous Festive Season and a Happy New Year.
I'd like to suggest a New Year's Resolution for our community that we take the time to share our experiences as we travel the world. The collective knowledge base of a group like ours is very valuable with many questions and answers that have been addressed regarding maintenance and repair issues that come up on our boats.
We will be launching "Grace" SFM #5021 in March and we will commit to share the learnings as we commission and sail to the Bahamas and then the US East Coast in April and May.
Cheers and Fair Winds for 2017.
Paul and Maureen

[Don Cafe Getaway]

From the deck of Tackless Too, we also wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Gwen and I are also new to the St Francis group ( St Francis 44-1996, formally Obelix) and will be departing Tarpon Springs, Fl for the Bahamas in the middle of next month. We look forward to sharing our adventures and misadventures with the family.

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[Paul Allinson]

Hi Don and Gwen,
Congratulations on your new boat - we look forward to sharing the good, not-so-good, and splendidly awesome ;-)
Cheers
Paul and Maureen
"Grace"

[Steve Butz]

Paul,

In the spirit of your suggestion here, I thought I would post an update on our travels on Alyosha (St. Francis 50, hull #17).

Alyosha is now at the Fish Hook Marina in Golfito, Costa Rica after transiting the Panama Canal over the holidays.

Before that, it was a 6,000nm jaunt from Lisbon, Portugal to Panama that included stops in the Canaries, Cape Verde, Fortaleza (Brazil), Barbados, Bonaire and (although we were not allowed to check in!) Columbia.

As everyone on this thread knows, these boats can absolutely fly! I have enjoyed nearly every minute of all of these transits, and have had some minor issues along the way. (I had a battery that went bad and swelled up, causing me to replace all four; there was the small-ish issue of the starboard bowsprit restraint pulling through the fiberglass hull- landing me in 15 minute "bucket bailing" territory during a series of squalls along the South American coast, etc, etc...)

I would love to know of any other St. Francis owners who will be in the South Pacific this coming summer- I sail from Costa Rica to Tahiti in February and look forward to spending 4-5 months in the South Pacific as we make our way to New Zealand.

I am not sure what I can add to the collective knowledge base, but I am definitely learning as I am going. The sailing, weather and navigation (which have been my strengths) have offered little in the way of surprises, other then the tremendous performance of the St. Francis on everything except pointing into the wind.

Steve