Answering All Your Burning Questions

A roundup of some recent questions including what's happening with warranty work, our 2025 plans, and what we're learning about catamaran sailing.

I thought it might be fun to do a round up of some questions we’ve been asked recently over on our YouTube channel. These topics might not warrant an entire Substack all on their own, but they’re still interesting subjects to discuss and I wanted to give them some space. So today we’re going to be addressing some recent comments I’ve seen on our YouTube channel, and then turn our attention to RR2, a warranty work update, and our plans for 2025.

RR2, currently in the yard- but more on that later.

Why don’t we use bluetooth headsets aka ‘Marriage savers’?

We’ve had so many comments about why we’re using two-way radios to communicate instead of bluetooth headsets that I thought I’d lead with this one! On this week’s episode on YouTube, we discuss our anchoring process (watch from 15:26) and we utilise our radios to communicate during this procedure. Early in the episode, you can also see us communicating as we leave a town dock, where we have no radios and rely on good old fashioned hand signals, supplemented by raising our voices to be heard by the other person.

The comment was:

I've never understood why you don't use Bluetooth headset comms. Called 'marriage saver' for a reason. I watch young noobs Patrick and Micheala quietly and calmly talking with each other through manoeuvres and it just seems so much easier and safer than yelling and hand signals.

First, we have nothing against bluetooth headsets except for the price. We looked into buying a set, but at hundreds of dollars each, we wondered if it was really worth it and opted for a cheap two-way radio instead. Is the radio perfect? Absolutely not. It’s not hands free, and if it’s windy, it’s practically useless.

But here’s my answer to this question. A lot of cruisers/sailors use bluetooth headsets- colloquially known as ‘marriage savers’. However- and I in no way mean to sound patronising, because God knows we would have benefited from bluetooth headsets at times over the years- I honestly think they’re more useful for less experienced sailors who need to have a lengthier conversation or talk the process through while doing a manoeuvre, such as docking. Or, clearly, they have a use for racers, who need a quick, failsafe way of communicating with their crew. But that’s not us, so let’s stick to the context at hand.

But for experienced cruisers, I think ‘marriage savers’ definitely falls into the ‘nice to have’ category rather than ‘need to have’, as this commenter implies. Are they easier? Yeah, maybe, in very specific circumstances, but largely- no. Safer? I don’t think so. Let me explain.

Let’s take an example of docking. Do you know how many times Nick and I have docked our boat together? Over the past 15 years…. a LOT. We don’t need to talk. We don’t need to discuss anything. I know *exactly* what he’s doing and he knows exactly what I’m doing at every step of the process. This isn’t because we’re mind readers (although….) but because we’ve done this a million times and even when things inevitably go pear shaped, we still stick to our jobs and know what the other person is doing, and what information they might need. For example, when in close quarters, I’ll always tell Nick the distance between our boat and whatever’s around us. I don’t need to say, “Nick, there’s 2 metres between our starboard bow and the boat next to us.” I just stand at, say, the starboard bow, position myself so he can see me through the windows- which are always open- and hold up 2 fingers. He doesn’t need a running commentary from me. He needs the information I have, and quickly, so he can react accordingly. And he doesn’t need to give me direction- we’re like a well-oiled machine and we both know our roles well. In fact, I would argue that the less conversation during these high-stress/ high focus manoeuvres, the better. The last thing Nick needs is me talking at him while he’s trying to focus, and vice versa.

Sometimes I do need to provide actual direction, because I’ve got a better view of the entire boat. In this case, “Reverse on starboard” or “Forward on Port” or similar is obviously sufficient, but doesn’t require the radio. If I have to raise my voice to be heard, that’s fine. We’ve been doing this for 15 years. We know the difference between shouting to be heard and shouting out of frustration.

(Have our manoeuvres ever gotten heated because we got shouty? Yes. Of course. In the early days of our sailing and also our relationship, there was lots of “Don’t yell at me!” “I’m not yelling at you, I’m yelling to be heard!” “No, you’re yelling at me!” “No, I’m not!” etc etc. And we wouldn’t be a cruising couple if we didn’t experience a joint meltdown while picking up a mooring ball in 30kts of wind when surrounded by boats on all sides, unable to hear each other, unable to see what the other person’s doing, and just generally freaking out. That’s in an upcoming episode for your viewing pleasure, by the way! Stay tuned for those fun times.)

But, for the 95% of the time where you’re just doing familiar manoeuvres, plain old hand signals supplemented by some verbal communication is just fine. There’s a moment in the video where Nick’s raising the anchor using the windlass control at the helm. Because of the design of the anchor locker, the chain piles up in a pyramid and needs to be pushed aside lest it gets caught in the gypsy (that’s happened!). So, periodically, we need to pause and shove the chain to one side. Clearly, it’s not safe to put my hands near the windlass while it’s in operation, and maybe that’s what the commenter meant when she said bluetooth headsets are ‘safer’- but there’s no risk here. I give Nick the ‘Stop’ sign (this isn’t a surprise to him; he’s waiting for it because he, too, knows the chain needs moving aside), he responds by giving me a ‘hands up’ gesture to show his hands are off the windlass remote, I do my thing, then I give him a thumbs up. What is there to actually discuss here? Nothing. How is it safer for me to laboriously explain that I need to move aside the chain, wait for Nick’s verbal response, etc etc. I would argue that clear hand signals are actually safer in this situation. There’s no risk of mis-hearing or needing to repeat oneself.

I mean, this is pretty clear, right?

Same with anchoring. Usually there’s a discussion about where, precisely, to drop the anchor and I need to let Nick know what the bottom looks like. But this is all done in the lead up when having a hands-free radio isn’t necessary (easier? yes. Necessary? No. My hands are just… hanging there. I can use one of them to hold the radio). But when it comes time to drop the anchor, it’s a process we’ve done so many times before that there is absolutely nothing to actually discuss. We exchange a bit of key information, generally on depth and the amount of chain that’s out, but that’s perfectly possible by just… speaking to each other in the normal way?

Look. There is no doubt that a couple of times of the years, I’ve thought to myself, “That would have been easier with handsfree bluetooth headphones.” Picking up a mooring ball is a great example of this. I actually do need my hands free if I’m the one picking up the ball (which I don’t like doing because I don’t have as much reach as Nick- I prefer to helm, but we both do both jobs), and often you do need to communicate with the other person information that doesn’t lend itself to hand signals, even if you weren’t busy hanging over the crossbeam with your hands gripping your boat hook, frantically trying to pick up the strop. The upcoming episode I mentioned where it all went horribly wrong in a tight mooring field provides the perfect example of why and how handsfree headsets would have been hugely beneficial in that scenario. However- our mistakes (without wanting to foreshadow the episode too much) had just as much to do with poor judgement on our part, and really not much at all to do with poor communication, although I do concede that being able to verbally communicate at a time where our hands weren’t free, and we couldn’t be heard with shouting, would have been beneficial. That said, the way our luck was going that day, the headset would have likely just fallen in the water, adding to our woes.

But we’ve always managed without them just fine, and with experience, relying on hand signals and communicating in a concise way- even if you do need to raise your voice- also works perfectly fine for 95% of the time. And the other 5%? Well, that’s where your best stories come from…

Bit of a frantic moment as we were caught in a cross wind while docking, but we got the boat in safely in the end.

How is sail trim different for catamarans vs monohulls?

We had another comment which I wanted to pick up on:

When the wind picks up try to tension the luff with a combination of halyard and cunningham/downhaul, sheet in the mainsheet to obtain a more “straight” leech. Trim all wrinkles out of the main. Now use the mainsheet-traveller for compressing and de-compressing. This might feel counterintuitive coming from a monohull like you do, but it is, in fact,your first reef when you do it right. When it’s getting hairy, put tension on the foot of the sail accordingly . Playing with tension on the foot and cunningham/downhaul is moving around the shape of your wing (mainsail). I bet you can reach the factory’s recommendations for reefing this way. I sail a olympic class Tornado sport catamaran in 28 Knts sustained, it has no way to reef , but playing with the mainsheet-traveller and cunningham/downhaul gets me home safe. A properly trimmed mainsail on a cat will result in forward momentum instead of sideways.

As the commenter said, our main sail had some wrinkles in the luff, near the foot (before we reefed). These were not evident when sailing in light winds, but became pronounced when the wind picked up and the AWA moved forward, and while we absolutely could have (and should have) increased the halyard and/or downhaul tension, we decided that we were reefing anyway, so we just did that instead. It didn’t occur to us that we should have tinkered with getting the main perfectly set instead of reefing- this is a new perspective, and one we’ll mull over. We are definitely guilty of not chasing down these symptoms of less-than-perfectly set sails (unless we’re extremely motivated to increase our speed by even a small amount; I remember mid-Atlantic we spent most of our time tinkering with sail trim, desperate to increase our excruciatingly slow SOG- but in windy conditions, the boat flies along regardless). Also, we have a cruising mindset rather than a racing one, which means that if the boat is reasonably happy, then we’re reasonably happy, and we’re quite content to sit and chat rather than play with sail trim. Does this make us ‘bad’ sailors? I’m not sure. We’re pretty good at monohull sailing and sail trim, but we still have a lot to learn about the nuances of catamaran sail trim and the role of the traveller/mainsheet. It’s just a mindset we have- if we were racing, we’d have a very different approach.

As I mentioned, we are still wrapping our head around the differences in sail trim between a monohull and a catamaran. The role of the traveller and main sheet is very different on a cat vs a mono and we’ve been monohull sailors for over 20 years; we’ve only had our catamaran for 18 months, and much of that time has been spent with the boat in the yard or marina having repairs and work done (this isn’t something we show much of, so you’d be forgiven for not realising this). This commenter clearly has a very high level of expertise in catamaran sailing, and we would no doubt learn a lot if we had someone like that to give us some pointers as we sailed, but as with most cruisers, we learn on the go. We’ve only had to sail in stronger winds a handful of times, so it takes a long time to build up the experience and expertise this person clearly has. We’ve taken a screenshot of his comment so we can refer back to it, and we’re grateful that he’s taken the time to give us some invaluable advice, which clearly comes from many years of catamaran racing.

Best seat in the house

What specs did you regret on Ruby Rose 2?

We were asked this question recently on our WhatsApp Patreon group (hi Brooke!) and it got us thinking. We definitely had regrets on Ruby Rose, our monohull- the watermaker output wasn’t high enough, the SSB was a total waste of money, energy and time, and we didn’t get the power generation from our Watt and Sea that we’d hoped for. However, we’ve learned from those earlier decisions, and going into the build of RR2, we had a very firm idea of what we wanted and needed, and what we didn’t. All those ‘nice to have’ specs, such as the air conditioning and the washing machine and the obnoxiously large dinghy, we absolutely love. To be able to run the air conditioning on a hot, balmy night is such a treat. To be able to do a quick load of washing, just like you would in a house, is so much more convenient than dragging everything ashore, finding a laundromat and spending half your day getting your laundry done. Our dinghy is very heavy and when we were in Asia and routinely dragging it onto the beach, we started to regret our decision- but in the Med, with dinghy docks everywhere, the weight isn’t an issue and we love being able to zip around, go on adventures and carry all our things with us in the dinghy. In short, we have no regrets about our specifications on RR2.

We do love our dinghy!

When are you starting your 2025 sailing season?

That’s a great question! Unfortunately we’re not sure when we will return to RR2 as we still have some ongoing matters to resolve. Our boat is still in the yard, having some repairs done under warranty.

Any further questions or requests for future Substacks, let us know!

Cheers,
Nick & Terysa