Distant Shores' Blog

Having just completed the Dutch “Standing-Mast Route” I thought I would give you an overview and some images from the trip. Much more fun and lovely than we had expected!!

Stand Mast Route as it is called in the Netherlands allows bigish boats to cross Holland from the German border to the North Sea coast with the mast up. This compares to most European canals that have lower clearances, the Stand Mast Route allows 30meter heights, so our 20.5m (67 feet) is fine. See Wikipedia page or search “staande mastroute” or “standing mast route” for more info.

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Rocna 33Kg Anchor - Excellent - In my opinion this is the best all-round anchor, working well in sand, mud and soft mud. It sets quickly and holds very well. It also sets well in most grass and weed although the Delta might outperform it there since it doesn’t have the ring on top. Basically most modern anchors will work well if they are big enough. This is one thing I really admire about Rocna - they recommend a realistic size anchor for a cruising boat. For our 49 footer we could have used either a 33kg or 40kg version of the Rocna according to their website. Other anchor manufacturers recommend much lighter versions but in the very small print they are talking about using it up to just 30 knots wind. I think similar anchor shapes like the Manson and the Spade might also perform well in similar sizes. But would need to be much bigger than they recommend. For instance, Spade anchors suggest that the 77 pound model (similar to our 73lb Rocna) would be sufficient for a 75 foot boat?! Rocna suggest their 73lb for 40-50 footers (66 feet only if the boat was an ultralight racer weighing less than 10t). Rocna tables - For real life cruising when you occasionally wake up at 3am in gusts of 40 knots you want to know you have been conservative in sizing your anchor! Here I inspect our Rocna at low tide after winds of 30-35 blew all night. Not budging!

Yanmar 4JH4 Engine - 56hp - Excellent!! - Very nice performing engine - well engineered. Affordable parts (versus certain other makes... not to name names). The instrument panel is abit cheesy but all my experience with the engine is positive.

3 bladed fixed prop - oops... not good - it certainly pushes the boat along nicely under power but a real drag under sail. We hadn’t ordered a feathering/folding prop for the 49 for this past summer cruise and really missed it!! The Variprop we had on the 42 was excellent. Will probably go for another on the 49 for this season. Definitely we need to change from the fixed prop. It is certainly the best way to improve performance on any sailboat. We’ll go at least 1/2 knot faster under sail and I think closer to 1 knot in some situations.


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Having the new boat has been a great opportunity to get that new gear I always thought would be a good idea. I thought I would do a round-up of the equipment now that we have had a year to try it out. So here goes... in no particular order

Electric heads - Tecma - they have been brilliant! No breakages and no servicing required yet. I had thoroughly disliked our Jabsco heads previously. They needed constant maintenance, required way too much pumping to operate and frequently seemed to malfunction. There had to be a better way and the Tecma electric head is perfect for us. I have ordered a spares kit for them (not cheap!) but it is well worth it. I know purists will suggest an electric toilet is somehow “not proper” but if all fails we always have a bucket...

Forced Air Heating System - Espar - Wonderful! Nothing beats coming down below to a toasty warm boat after a cold/wet sailing day. The Espar has just worked flawlessly. It does have a small and slightly bizarre control panel that does theoretically allow it to be turned on and off at preprogrammed intervals but we haven’t used that option. We just turn it on and set it for 1-3 hours as needed. Great!

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One of the best things about our “job” (sailing and telling about it on television) is that we get to hear from others who have been inspired to set off on journeys of their own!

Many of the notes we get are from people planning a 1-2 year (or more) trip down to warmer climes. We are happy to think we have helped a number of these people to start off on their big adventure! And often it is just a bit of extra confidence to know that regular people are making the trips on a regular basis. Often one partner has some doubts and a bit of reassurance is all that’s needed. Can we stay in touch with family and friends? Are there Pirates? How do you deal with storms?

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