About Me
Hi, I’m Paul, owner and skipper of Moon Shadow. I have been sailing since the early 1970s. I started out racing dinghies – Wayfarers and Mirrors, on the Blackwater estuary in Essex. I have an RYA Day Skipper certificate and ICC.
My long-held dream is to complete a very leisurely circumnavigation. Most people that undertake that journey do so using the tried and trusted trade-wind route across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific Ocean to French Polynesia then on through the South Pacific Islands to New Zealand, around the top of Australia, through Indonesia, across the Indian Ocean to South Africa and back across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
Sounds great, doesn’t it?
To me, it sounds a bit mundane. I know that sounds like a crazy statement but, the whole point of this trip for me is to do something out of the ordinary. Whilst sailing around the world might seem extraordinary to most people (and, of course, it is), I want to do it a bit differently…
To follow the path less travelled.
To meet the people most travellers miss.
To see the sights few people see.
To forge my own path! Well, almost…
Of course, just about anywhere that it’s possible to sail has been sailed by someone at some time but there are routes that are still seldom followed and it’s those that interest me. So what is my plan?
The first rule of safe sailing – don’t have “a plan”.
No, I’m not talking about passage plans. Those are essential for each individual leg that you sail, I’m talking about the overall plan of; leave on such and such a date and be in that port on this date or that etc.
If you tie yourself to specific dates you are going to run into trouble, perhaps serious trouble, sooner or later.
At the beginning of the last century and for countless years previously, sailors worked with the weather, the seasons, the tides and the wind. My aim is to enjoy that type of sailing.
At the end of the 19th century, the first recorded single-handed circumnavigation of the world was completed by Joshua Slocum in a boat he built (well, restored and modified) himself. In the days before any kind of electronic navigation aids and before the Panama Canal was built. That trip is my inspiration.
So, where am I going?
The first part is, by and large, fairly standard. Leave the UK and sail to Northern Spain across the notorious Bay of Biscay, then cruise the coast of Spain, Portugal and Morocco before crossing to the Canary Islands.
From there my route possibly deviates from the standard route.
What I have in mind is, instead of heading west to the Caribbean, to head a bit further south to Suriname then south along the coast of Brazil, Uraguay and Argentina. At the southern end of Argentina, there are two options:
The Straits of Magellan or, a little further south, the Beagle Channel.
Either option will lead to some pretty remote sailing before turning north through the “Chilean Fjords”. In both cases, there are about a thousand miles between any major habitation – either Punta Arenas (Chile) in the Straits of Magellan or Ushuaia (Argentina) in the Beagle Channel and Puerto Montt on the west coast of Chile.
From there, there is the entire western seaboard of the Americas or heading across the Pacific to such places as Isla de Pascua (Easter Island), Pitcairn Island and on to French Polynesia.
Where will I end up?
Stay tuned!
About Moon Shadow
Moon Shadow is a Sigma 362 built to Lloyds #1 in 1988 by Marine Projects in Plymouth UK.
She is 36 feet LOA with a beam of 11’6″ and a draft of a smidge over 6 feet. She shares the hull with the Sigma 36 racing yacht but has a different interior and coachroof as well as a masthead rig and wheel steering.
Internally Moon Shadow is fairly standard for this type of boat but I particularly liked the heads compartment which is properly designed rather than put in almost as an afterthought as seems the case in a lot of boats I’ve seen. The galley is useable in a seaway and the berths in the main salon are equipped with lee cloths.
Cabin heating is via a diesel heater (or electric fan heater when on shore power). Heating might be required in southern Argentina and Chile but I’m rather hoping that, where I’m headed, most of the time, cabin heating isn’t going to be an issue.
Accommodation is a V berth in the fore cabin which can be converted to a double. A double and single berth in the main salon and a double aft quarter berth. So strictly speaking there is accommodation for seven but I think that would be rather “cosy”! I sail her mostly single-handed or with one or two crew depending on the length of passage I’m making.
Moon Shadow is equipped with RADAR, AIS, VHF, Raymarine Autopilot and Neptune wind vane self-steering. She carries a Seago Seacruiser (ISO 9650-2) 4-man liferaft. Instruments are NASA Marine Clipper wireless wind speed/direction and Raymarine i60 depth and speed (which also has a nifty water temperature sensor so that I know when it’s warm enough for a dip!).