Episode #188: Josh Kali on Leg 1 of the McIntyre Mini Globe Race

In this week’s Good Jibes we chat with returning guest Josh Kali to chat stories from Leg 1 of the McIntyre Mini Globe Race 2025. Josh is a mountain climber, sailor, and professional marine technician who built his 19-foot one-design Skookum over the past 2.5 years and has now sailed it from North Carolina to Antigua to Panama.

Tune in as Josh updates Good Jibes host John Arndt about how he and his boat are doing, how to keep morale up during a long voyage, the camaraderie between competitors, how to pack food and water when away from land for so long, and the perks of racing on a little boat.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll hear in this episode: 

• How does it to sail a 19 foot plywood boat?
• How is the transition from mountain climbing to sailing?
• Josh’s tips on keeping up morale
• Ways to strategize the route
• Do competitors choose where to stop and for how long at each pit stop?

Sponsor Josh at JoshKaliOceanRacing.com and learn more about Josh in Latitude 38’s April issue. 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots — follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re feeling the Good Jibes!

Catch our previous Good Jibes episode with Josh here.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• Josh Kali on Leg 1 of the McIntyre Mini Globe Race, with host John Arndt
  • [0:21] Welcome to Good Jibes with Latitude 38
  • [0:50] Welcome ahoy Josh Kali
  • [1:49] What has Josh learned on the journey to Antigua?
  • [4:36] When did he meet all the competitors?
  • [6:33] Josh’s wind vein troubles
  • [7:34] What is Josh’s personal watch schedule?
  • [8:53] How Josh eats and cooks?
  • [10:47] Any interesting situations with the other sailors?
  • [13:02] Are you looking to sail more? Add your name to our crew list at Latitude38.com
  • [13:56] What’s the next leg?
  • [15:11] Does Josh choose where to stop and for how long at each pit stop?
  • [17:23] How will Josh manage water for 60 days sailing?
  • [18:41] Any tricks around water and food for the journey?
  • [20:38] How does it feel to sail a 19-foot plywood boat he built himself?
  • [21:48] How is the transition from mountain climbing to sailing?
  • [23:22] Pick up your own copy of Latitude 38, find one on Latitude38.com
  • [24:35] How Josh strategizes the route
  • [25:14] Tracking wind and weather
  • [26:47] Trusting your boat
  • [28:40] What’s the common thread between the participants?
  • [30:59] Any repairs that Josh’s boats needs?
  • Make sure to follow Good Jibes with Latitude 38 on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • Check out the April 2025 issue of Latitude 38 Sailing Magazine
  • Theme Song: “Pineapple Dream” by Solxis

Show Transcript:

Please note, transcript not 100% accurate

00:02

take care of the boat and the boat takes care of you.  that’s kind how I’ve treated it. And so far, that’s how it’s worked out.

00:21

Well, hi everyone. Great to have everyone back aboard another adventure and Good Jibes podcast. And it’s all going to be brought to you by Latitude 38, the sailing magazine for West Coast sailors since 1977. Of course, the magazine is up and down the West Coast. You can subscribe or pick it up at a Marine store near you. But we’re great to have everybody aboard here and in for another episode of Latitude 38’s Good Jibes.

00:50

So with us today, we have a Pacific Northwest sailor and it’s Josh Calley. He’s a mountain climber, a sailor, and also a professional marine technician. Over the last couple of years, he’s been building a one design,  19 foot ocean going plywood boat  to enter in the McIntyre Mini Globe Challenge. Good. So  yeah, you’re in Panama. Congratulations. Yeah. Leg one complete. Yep. Yep. And yeah. How’d the boat hold up?

01:20

Oh, both great. Yeah. Yeah. It needs nothing. It’s Oh, terrific. Yeah, if anything, I’m the one that’s wore out. I think that’s probably a common refrain actually. Yeah, but that’s that’s terrific. Good. Well, um, yeah, I just Yeah, well, I’ll a little story on our next issue coming out and do a little update on what you’re doing and, and how it all went. So one of

01:45

maybe get an update. What’d you learn on this leg? mean, you’ve done, actually, since we talked, you’ve gone from North Carolina to Antigua, and then you had what, two weeks? Not even two weeks to get- Not even six days, it was six days. Six days, good grief. Yeah, and then, yeah, so what have you learned about the race, the boat, and cruising this adventure? North Carolina to Antigua was 20 days.

02:13

1650 miles or something like that. And it was pretty much all upwind. Yeah, wow. Yeah. Yeah. No spinnakers or anything like that. We were just we were always just pointing right into it. There was a couple of days there when when morale was flagging a little bit, you know, I was thinking, oh, gosh, is this going to work out? And yeah, you know, some some things seemed like they were questionable, you know, like the rudder had a strange noise and stuff like that. But it was just me having to get used to the boat. That’s all. Yeah.

02:42

And, uh, and there was, there was a day there probably  four or five days offshore where the wind was completely against me. You know, I needed to go Southeast and the wind was out of the Southeast and the only direction I could not go was Southeast, obviously.  So I didn’t, I didn’t want to get blown to Bermuda because then I didn’t want it to be so much further for me to have to go. So,  um, I just kind of sailed back and forth in front of a wall. There was like a,  you know, I just tacked back and forth and could make no forward progress, you know, and I’m thinking, ah, this is going to work. All the weather models, the,

03:12

Forecasts were showing that it was going to be, um, I wasn’t going to arrive until the 25th or something like that. And the race was supposed to start on the 23rd. So I was like, I’m never going to make it, you know, I some good encouragement. You know, I was told just, uh, wait until the next day, you know, the wind will change. It’s the wind it blows all over, you know, and tomorrow will be different. And so that’s what I did. And, sure enough, it did end up being, different. That was okay. And so then I was able to make a little bit more progress and then

03:41

got to another point where couldn’t go Southeast anymore. then, so I ended up having to go South. I went South for three or four days and then I was able to pick the trades up and  that was all good after that. You know, there was a few, a few days of no wind or whatever. The Bermuda high seemed to be chasing me South, you know,  I couldn’t, I couldn’t get away from it. You know, I kept being like, where are these trade winds? Where are these trade winds? You know, I’ve heard much about, know, and I couldn’t find them until eventually about two days off of Barbuda there.

04:07

Good. then the last day, two days off of our route, that’s kind of late in program.  All the way there. Yeah. So  in the last day was just a nice beam reach down down the coast. And  I hooked in and I slowed down and came in in the morning. So that was all good. And then Tegu was obviously a beautiful island. That was great. Yeah. was a  cool, place to visit, you know, the island vibe. Yep. Yep.  Got everything turned around and  we started off on the  23rd of February. Yeah. That’s also the first time you met.

04:36

all your competitors, right? Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, they had all known each other from the doing the transat and we knew each other because we had, you know, been  so close through building the boats and everything like that, helping each other do problem solving and sort everything out and stuff. So  I felt like I already knew everyone, but it was just putting names to faces and actually getting to meet them in person, which was really cool. You know, it’s a really cool group. Yeah. The family vibe is very strong. We all take good care of each other. So that’s really a neat aspect of it.

05:04

Yeah, no, that seems great. That must’ve been fun to connect with them in person. And, and, you know, I don’t know if you got much time to really chill out in Antigua, but you’re probably working pretty hard to get. Working every day, but we, we, we didn’t get to do a little socializing. So it was nice. Yeah. Oh, that’s great. Yeah. So then, uh, yeah, so sorry I interrupted, but you were getting ready to go out to the start line then, and, take your next leg. You’re 1650 miles and now you’ve sailed what? 1200 miles almost a pan.

05:32

There it was, think mine was something like 1165 or something like that. All, all told. So yeah, I’m close to 3000 miles on her now and, uh, she’s in great shape, you know, just as, know, little crusty with salt and everything, but otherwise the boats holding up wonderful. Really? Yeah. So I was off, I got off to a pretty good start, but,  just my lack of experience downwind, everybody pretty much passed me that first night.  Um, cause  I had never flown spinnakers on this boat and I had never rigged the poles and I had never done any of that. So it was all.

06:00

learning how to do that and figuring, working out the systems and stuff like that. I think I finished next to last or something, but that was all right. was just getting everything dialed in on that leg pretty much. Now I’ve got a really good grasp of what I need to do for downwind sailing in the Pacific. Yeah. Well, you’ve got 25,000 more miles to learn, right? Exactly. Every time I get back to Antigua, I’ll it figured out. Yeah. You’ll be pretty slick by that. That’s great.

06:29

So yeah, great. your boat’s in good shape. That’s cool. mean, self-steering vein and  all your systems work pretty well. And  that was my biggest challenge was the wind vein, getting it to want to steer the boat downwind. know, I mean, my problem was I wanted to go fast. And so I was always carrying too much sail for it. You know, I  knew that if I wanted to get it to steer, I would have to reduce sail, but I knew if I reduced sail, would slow down.  So yeah.

06:52

always a constant dilemma there. Eventually I got the hang of it, you know, to where I could get it to steer, you know, through the night and stuff like that. Yeah. It just, like, thing is you’ll get the, you’ll get the boat steering and then it’s, it’s so susceptible when you’re running before the waves that like you get one from another direction and it’ll turn the boat, you know, and then all of a sudden you’ve jived and you back when you got to go out and undo everything and turn it all around.  Yeah. Downwind is a tough angle for humans and for veins.  Yeah. Right. Yeah, for sure.

07:21

Yeah. then, know, the wind shifts and the seas get all confused and you got waves coming from every direction. And yeah, it was, was a bit, it was definitely a learning curve  for me for sure. Yeah. Great. Wow. Good. And how about sleeping? Did you get a hang of getting off watch or what was your watch, your personal watch schedule like? Yeah. So I do like, um, 40 minutes of sleep. I’ll sleep for 40 minutes  or I’ll go down. set the alarm for 40 minutes and I’ll close my eyes and,  usually get, get to sleep. And then,  uh, I found that.

07:49

Kind of towards the end of the passage, I would get up three minutes before the alarm went off anyway. So I kind of got into the rhythm, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so then I would sleep for 40, get up for, you know, however long it took. I would check the sales, check the trim, check the course and scan the horizon, check the AIS and all that. And, and then go back down for 40 more minutes, but I never felt exhausted. You know, I always felt like I had enough rest. Oh, that’s good. That’s great. I mean, 40 minutes people don’t usually call sleep. They call that maybe a nap, but, that’s good. Yeah. I mean, that’s.

08:19

which you have to do on your single landed sailing. that’s great. Although as we know, Kenichi Hori, you know, he, he sailed across the Pacific said he’d just go to bed for eight hours. Yeah. It’s half of these guys. That’s what they do. They’re like, I just go to bed. How do you, how do you wake up and you’re still going the same way that you want to go? And you know, like, and they just say, Oh, if the boat needs me, it’ll wake me up.  That’s so yeah. I cook dinner for myself every night. Yeah. I was going to ask. Yeah. What about food?

08:45

out of 30 days or whatever I’ve been at sea on the little boat. I’ve only used the jet boat once. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I’ve got an Arrego like a Gimbling alcohol, single burner. Yeah. And so I’ll do like for the first week out of port, you know, I’ve got, you know, peppers and onions and potatoes and whatever it’ll keep without refrigeration. And so I’ve got fresh, fresh produce for the first few days. Yeah. And I’ll like potatoes and onions and peppers with  rice  in a burrito with a tortilla for breakfast. And then I’ll

09:14

I’ll just have like a can of sardines on like a hamburger bun with some mustard for lunch. And then for dinner, I’ll do like spaghetti  or like chow mein, or I’ll do another rice packet  with a can of tuna or some chicken or something like that. So I try to cook meals. know, I think that’s for me, that’s a big part of keeping the morale up.  I  always make dinner right as the sun goes down, I cook dinner, I eat it, and then I reduce my sail and set up the boat for the night and stuff like that. And so it’s kind of a bit of a ritual.

09:41

Yeah, yeah, good. Are you able to put your feet up and read a book at all or anything? You know, you anything? Yeah, yeah, you know, and that was part of the reason why I wasn’t as fast as I wanted to be too, you know,  coming across the Atlantic. I wasn’t in a race and so I pretty much was just cruising in the boat, steered itself up wind so well that I  got pretty lazy as far as just laying around and reading books or playing the ukulele or doing whatever. And then I realized, oh man, I need to be driving more. I need to be driving faster if I want to if I want to actually be competitive. So  I had to kind of.

10:11

break myself out of the cruising mindset and more into the racing aspect of things. yeah, I was able to, I have books on Kindle, know, and so I was able to read a few books and listen to music and stuff like that. And I mean, gosh, it’s so hot in the cockpit during the day, I just get cooked by the sun. So I tried to limit my time out there. I would hand steer as much as I could basically. What’s the vibe from the rest of the fleet? What did everybody got there in pretty good shape or any other?

10:41

sort of interesting elements of their story that  Antigua. yeah, sure.  I think there’s Dan Turick, who’s like the Canadian  entrant. He hit something in the night one night. He wasn’t sure what it was, but stopped the boat cold, lifted the bow up and stopped the boat dead in its tracks. And he looked around, he didn’t see anything. He didn’t know what it was. But yeah, that was certainly  interesting. He suspected maybe a whale or something, but I think that’s pretty not necessarily likely, but.

11:09

Not no damage to the boat or him. Right, right. And then  Dan Turner, one of the Australian entrance, he broke his four stay.  Oh  yeah. So he had to, was just using a halyard for the last like two days of the race or something like that and still driving hard. I think he’s finished like fifth or something. So  yeah, that was pretty wild, but beyond that, everybody made it pretty well. Everybody’s in good spirits. We’re all having a good time. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody’s going to be ready to do the next leg.

11:36

Yeah, yeah, right now we’re dealing with the logistical challenge of getting the boats across Panama.  So the the trailer has been a whole issue. They came with one and it was like woefully unsatisfactory. was just  rickety and falling apart. And so everybody was like, we’re definitely not putting our boats on that.  And then they came with a better one and they’ve got it rigged up. And I think the first boat’s leaving today, but we’re already five days behind  on  having boats across. should have something like 10 boats over there already and there’s none. So.

12:04

I can’t see that  the next leg restart won’t be delayed at least a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And so you have to drop all your rigs and can you get more than one boat on a trailer at a time? No, it’s just one at a time. It’s just a regular boat trailer that’s been modified to carry a sailboat. And so it’s just one at a time. They have two trailers that they have one that is ready to go and they have one that they’re modifying now. So I think after today or tomorrow, they should be able to take two boats a day. They should be back on schedule  just a week behind basically.

12:31

Yeah, so I’m scheduled to go across next Thursday, the 20th and the race. The race is scheduled to restart on the 24th, so I won’t have a lot of time over there, but I’ve done as much as I can here as much needs to be done. I’m going to be on the hard for five days. come out of the water tomorrow and I’ll be on the hard for five days before I get towed away. So I’m going to put a coat of bottom paint on just because I have some. Yeah. And that’s really all it needs. The boat doesn’t need anything. Yeah. Restock your onions and potatoes.

13:00

Yeah, exactly. Hey good jibes listeners, are you looking to sail more? It’s the biggest mismatch on the California coast. There are thousands of boats not sailing because they need crew and thousands more sailors, or soon to be sailors, who want to sail but can’t find a boat. For over 45 years, Latitude 38 has been connecting boat owners with sailors to sail, or race the bay, or travel far over the horizon. Some connections have turned into thousands of blue water cruising miles,

13:29

race-winning crews or long-term relationships or just happy days of sailing. If you have a boat or want to crew, add your name to the Latitude 38 crew list at latitude38.com. You don’t know where such a simple act will take you. Yeah, when you get to the other side, depending on whatever you start, what’s the next leg look like or what’s your stops across the Pacific? So the next leg is Panama to Fiji. Yeah. And so we’ll go

13:58

So Panama to Marquesas first. Yeah. That’s a big one. That’s, 4,000 miles. That’s something like 40 days, probably for the fastest people and  anywhere as many as 60 days for the slowest people. So yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s going to be a big one. That’s going to be, uh, bring enough food and butter for sure. I was going to say, yeah, food. Cause you have water makers. No,  we have a manual to salinator, but you’re not allowed to use it. You take a time penalty if you use it. Okay.

14:24

Yeah. The idea is  to encourage everybody to carry their water because they don’t want people who are trying to go fast to dump all their water overboard and then be trying to manually desalinate, you know, possibly have it fail. Fail on you. Exactly.  Yeah. Those things are made for survival situations, not necessarily to be relied on. So that’s the big logistical challenge is going to have enough food and water, you know? Yeah. And so I’ll straight to Nuka Hiva. Yeah. And then we spend seven days there. You’re required to spend seven days. You don’t have to stay seven days Nuka Hiva. You can go.

14:55

Enter, enter Island. you, if you choose.  then from there, after you’ve hit your seven days, you can go,  uh, the next stop is Tahiti. Right. So you can choose when you start like, like, like what, how long, like, how does that work? As far as racing, you get to the, your, your finish line is Fiji, but you stop off in.

15:15

Nuka Hiva or Marquesas. Right, yes. And those are mandatory pit stops. They’re not official stops. So they won’t have any, there won’t be any infrastructure or anything in place for us there. We’ll all be on our own as far as birthing and stuff like that. you’re required. once you, there’ll be a gate in between two of the islands. And once you cross that line, then your seven days starts.  You have to be there for seven days before you can leave.  You can’t leave early and put those days in the bank or anything. There’d be no reason to, because once everybody gets to Fiji,

15:43

You know, the early guys could be there as much as eight weeks, you know? Yeah.  And the people behind would be  four to six or whatever. So,  um, yeah, you got seven days that you have to be there. You don’t have to stay on one Island. You can hop around and see some, sites if you want. mean, you’re encouraged to, that’s kind of what they want us to do is to treat it like a, a bit of a  voyage where, know, of exploration too, not just necessarily a flat out race. So they want us to kind of get out and see some stuff. Good.  Yeah. It’s in every eight days in Tahiti.

16:12

Same thing. Once you arrive in Tahiti, there’ll be a gate and you cross the line. You’ll have eight, you have to be there for eight days and you have to prove what time you got there and what time you leave. And then from T, Tahiti, we go to Tonga. Oh, nice. Yeah. And then that’s seven days in Tonga. Same thing. And then,  from Tonga to Fiji, that’ll be the end of leg two. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And, and so, and leg two in Fiji, actually that’s right. It ends about June 21 or that’s,  is that right?

16:40

Somewhere around there. Yeah. The restart is July 26th. Okay. Yeah. And so they figure that, you know, like I said, the earliest arrivals will be there maybe eight weeks. And so that would be early June. Wow. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Excited. Yeah. That sounds really fun. So getting

17:04

Yeah. You’re both loaded up with food and water. That’s a lot of water. You’re to have like water catchment systems too. Cause I mean, that’s a, or you’re going to really have 60 days of water. I use about two liters a day. Yeah. Maybe three. So I’m going to bring 120 liters. Yeah. You know, it would be enough for two liters a day for 60 days. Yep. So I have a little bit built in, you know, I’ve, I’ve 20 days crossing the Atlantic. had 24 gallons. Yeah. Which is 95 liters and I only used half of it. So.

17:34

I figure twice at, and if I bring, another 30 liters or so, it should be all right. And,  and I can, you know, you can always use the main sail or you can rig something up if you get in a good rainstorm where you feel like there’s rain coming down  for long enough to be able to catch water. You can rig something up, you know, use the boom cover upside down on the boom or something like that. know, yeah. Right. What about sunscreen? 60 days in the sun is a long one.  I got a big, big bottle like this, you know,

18:03

Bathing it so yeah yeah that’s really important. One guy is actually Adam the  British guy is having a custom like sunshade made.  really a bimini but like a thing made out of canvas that will cover the cockpit for him you know because yeah it’s rough out there for sure. Yeah.  There’s no wind and you’re just drifting around. Yeah yeah you’re done a little longer than  anybody else out there. Most boats are going a little shorter time frame for that same passage so.

18:32

That’s a lot of time on the water. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s great. Any tips, tricks, or maybe other food items that other people are bringing  from the other boats that you’re sort of going out? gosh. Some of those guys, I’m like, you know, there’s the guys that use the jet boil every night and they eat dehydrated every night. I’m like one step above that where I actually cook food, but I use, you know, it’s all dried mostly or canned, whatever goes into the meals is. And then  there’s, there’s guys that, uh,

19:00

John from Australia. made fresh guacamole. He had like onions  and avocados and tomatoes and garlic and he had guacamole on wraps with like all this and you know and then there’s Renaud is the Swiss guy. He’s the fastest one of the group and he he bakes his own bread. He bakes he bakes banana bread and pineapple cakes and stuff like that. Yeah, so he’s  yeah for real.  That’s great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s some guys that really do it up. You know I try to just.

19:27

have a hot, hot home cooked meal every night just to keep morale up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s well, yeah. And yeah, you’ve had and you had pretty good weather. I mean, it wasn’t like you’re getting back. I mean, it was was fast. It sounded like it was pretty breezy, but not for me. No, no, it’s fine. There was no storms. Just a couple of days where it it’s what’s go all in the morning for until about noon or whatever. And the sun came up and they would burn off, you know, and then around Baron Kia, which is like off the coast of

19:57

of Columbia there. That’s a notorious stretch of the  Caribbean Sea where it’s got strong winds and strong currents. And so yeah, everybody got beat up right there. There’s a stretch of about a hundred and fifty nautical miles where everybody really  took a bit of a beating. One guy, Kerry,  the British fellow, he he caught a rogue wave and it went right down the companion way,  flooded the floor. You know, he had a foot of water on the floor of the boat and he  fried all of his electronics and

20:25

And yeah, so he really took a bad one on that. But beyond that, everybody made it pretty well and skated that thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how was it sailing the boat? These are 19 foot plywood boats. You built your boat yourself. You all got similar sails. But yeah, mean, is it, yes, it feel good now that you’ve got what is it? Oh, 2500 miles under your belt or a little more. Yeah, it’s great. It’s a lot of fun. I love sailing the little thing.

20:54

Yeah, it’ll, it’ll surf down the wave, you know, and you can really feel it. You can feel it when you catch one just right, you know, and you can ride it  all the way out, you know, and I think my best speed was like 12.8 knots or something like that surfing. Yeah. And so,  uh, some guys, um, some guys have hit like 15. So really, so yeah, it’s, actually a lot of fun. Yeah. When you, when the waves are going the right direction, sure. Yeah.

21:18

When they’re on the quarter or something like that, you get beat up a little bit, you know, because it pushes the boat around and you have to do a bit more steering. But other than that, it’s a lot of fun. They’re a lot of fun to sail. I never feel claustrophobic in there. You know, it’s always got enough room. I always feel comfortable or happy to go down below. You know, I never feel like I don’t want to be down there. It’s too cramped or anything like that. So cool. Well, you know, and that’s part I was going to think, you you’ve made the migration from mountain climbing in the snow intense to this curious 19 footer.

21:47

Um, yeah, how, how’s that as far as a  shift from the mountains to the sea and a tent to a, a cruising boat, a world cruising boat.  Yeah, it’s, it’s, that’s  one of the parts that really appeals, appealed to me about it was the fact that,  you know, when it’s nasty, you can set it up in a way that where you can, it’ll take care of itself and you can just go below, you know, cause when you’re on the mountain, when you’re on the side of a mountain face, if there’s nowhere, if there’s nowhere to pitch your tent, yeah, that’s it. You know, you’re fully exposed to whatever comes. So.

22:17

Yeah. It’s definitely nice to have the option to be able to get some, a little bit of respite  by  being able to duck below. It’s a dry boat. There’s no, you know, as long as you close everything up, you don’t get any water down below or anything like that. So yeah, know, clothes stay dry, beds stay dry, all that stuff. Yeah. Well, and you shifted from high altitude in the snow to a sea level and tropics.  Have you spent much time in the tropics before?

22:44

No, no,  any trip that I made or anywhere that I went for any reason was to climb mountains. So I never took a tropical vacation. You know, I was always like, ah, that’ll be for me when I’m in the future, you know.  So this is this is all new for me, you know, palm trees and coconuts and monkeys and and two cans and that sort of thing. You know, it’s it’s it’s totally like  a 180 degree change, you know, but I love it. I love every minute of it. Yeah. No, that’s that sounds really fun. That’s and quite an introduction to the tropics on your. Yeah, you’re

23:14

Sailing from North Carolina, Antigua, Panama. That sounds great. You may be asking, how can I find my own copy of Latitude 38 magazine? Well, it can be as simple as walking into your Marina, a Marine store, club, or any California waterfront business. You’ll likely connect with sailors when you walk in the door and you’ll also find many more sailors as you read through the pages of Latitude 38. Bringing home a copy of Latitude 38 is also a great way to redecorate your coffee table

23:43

and reading one will help you unwind from the distractions of the day. It’s almost as good as a day of sailing itself. To find a copy of Latitude 38 near you, go to latitude38.com and click on Find the Magazine at the top of the page. Then go out and meet some sailors. And when you go leave Panama, you’ll go probably straight to the Marquesas, one shot, boom.

24:08

Yeah, that’s the plan, you know that we’re all kind of just talking about right now, whether we want to go north or south of the Galapagos, you know, because this kind of a transitional period end of March kind of beginning of May. There’s there’s one strategy a little bit earlier in the year and there’s one strategy kind of after this time of year.  And it really is going to depend on what the forecast says three days before we leave, you know, because I’m watching the forecast right now. It’ll be a 10 day forecast and for three days the window will be better to have gone north and then for three days the window will be better to have gone south. So.

24:37

I mean, you you have potential to get caught with no wind kind of east of the Galapagos there, you know, you’re and but then you have the potential to get caught with no wind north east of the Galapagos to or northwest. So it depends on how it’s going to shake out either way it goes. You have current, you know, you got the current that goes down the coast that’ll help you go south and you have the equatorial current that can help you go west. So there’s a bit of a strategy involved there, you know. Yeah.

25:01

And so and how are you guys getting weather while you’re sailing because you’re not allowed outside assistance, right? You’re you’re getting all it has to be any just whatever it is. has to be basic grip files. Yeah, you can like windy or lucky grip or one of those, you know, you can’t use any weather routing. Yeah, OK. Just grip files and animated group files are fine. But yeah, nothing that has to do with weather routing. But so you just get the grips, you know, and you kind of compare it to what you actually find, because a lot of times you get

25:30

I’ll go download it and I’ll be like, OK, this says it’s, you know, 10 to 15 out of the northeast. Then I’ve got like eight knots from East, Southeast or whatever. So it’s not necessarily like it’s always super accurate, but it gives you some idea of I feel like wind strength. You know, it kind of tells you when the wind is going to be lighter or when the wind is going to be stronger. And it seems to be fairly accurate, at least in that regard. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it is interesting talking to you because I know when we talked last time, it sounds like, know, you you sound like you’ve been sailing for years, but you started like five years ago, right?

26:00

There’s six. Yeah. Yeah. 2020. think I bought my sailboat. So yeah. 20. So I guess just born to it, I guess. Yeah. Well, you know, and you’ve spent some time out there now and you’ve also now built your own boat. Uh, you know, you’ve kind of got your hands on every aspect of sailing from boat built, you know, cause that you get really intricate into what is involved. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And that, that also I feel like gives me at least a certain degree of confidence. Yeah. You know, so

26:28

and the fact that I know every bit of the boat and I know how it works. And I know just exactly how solid it is where I can kind of relax in not having to worry about the boat so much and kind of just focus on myself and keep myself healthy and keeping the boat sailing and stuff like that. I can just trust it to take care of me that they say take care of the boat and that a boat takes care of you. So that’s kind of how I’ve treated it. And so far that’s how it’s worked out. So. Cool. Yeah. No, I mean, they look great for 19 feet. look

26:57

really quite spacious. I my family growing up had a Rhodes 19, which was a really fun little boat, but it was a little cutty cabin and you know, couldn’t, didn’t have the space yours does, but it’s amazing what you can do with 19 feet and how robust it looks and comfortable. It’s a little big boat or a big little boat, however you want to look at it, you know, it’s, it punches above its weight class. That’s what I like to say. Yeah. Yeah. No, looks great. And so every, and you’d say the rest of the fleet too is all kind of psyched up and ready to keep going. I mean, nobody sort of got

27:27

get the blues or felt like overwhelmed. mean, people are ready to, I mean, get a little rest in Panama.  Totally. Everybody’s just excited to get back to sea. You know, like I think that’s what  really drives drives us is just being out there and doing it. You know,  we’re getting, we’re all getting a little worn down by the logistics here, you know, cause it’s been a challenge just trying to get the boats across and everything. That’s been frustrating in its own right.  But for the most part, we, do a good job of keeping each other up.

27:54

You know, like if we can tell that somebody’s kind of getting discouraged, you know, the other folks will come together and try to help you work through whatever it is you’re dealing with. so yeah, that’s really cool. That’s pretty cool. That’s pretty funny. Cause I mean, most of the world would say, you know, what the hell are you going offshore in a 19 foot boat for? I want to stay near land and you got 15 people there going, I can’t wait to get off of land and get out of my 19 foot boat. Exactly. I spotted the Marina here. Everybody else is on a pontoon and their boats are all together, but because I was a bit of a late arrival, I got.

28:24

front and center. right on the K side here, right in front of the restaurant and everything. So basically everybody who walks by stops and takes pictures and stuff like that. And so I’ve been talking it up and trying to get more people interested, involved in stuff and kind of sharing what it is we’re doing with them. So, yeah, yeah, no, it’s, that’s really great. mean, but it’s a, you know, what, what, do you think common thread is between 15 people who want to go sail around the world on a 19 foot boat? Obviously adventuresome,  you know, and, and,

28:51

But do you think motivations and  don’t know, personality similarities or?  Oh, absolutely. We’re all pretty much cut from the same cloth. It’s really interesting how we all come from such different parts of the world. There’s  a woman from Spain, there’s a German entrant, there’s people from the north of England, and there’s people from the south of Australia and everywhere else in between.  I think it’s just the spirit of adventure for sure and just that we’re all pretty  self-reliant.

29:20

able to take care of ourselves or be comfortable being with being alone with ourselves for so long. I think that’s a big part of it too, you know. So yeah, there’s definitely like  an independent pioneering spirit. Yeah, everybody, you know, that is kind of unique, I think that is what allows us to believe in ourselves to believe that we are able to do something like that. Yeah, no,  it’s inspiring. And it’s fun to see you and you know, have to talk to you when you are

29:48

You know, just getting your boat driving across country from Seattle to North Carolina going, wow,  this is having already spent two and a half years building the boat  and learning to sail in the process too.  Right. I had only sailed it two days  on the Neuse River, which is like nothing, you know, just out putter, putter around with the jib  before I headed straight offshore. So.

30:11

Yeah, it really got a trial by fire for sure in the Gulf Stream there. That was pretty wild, but everything held up good. And after that, felt confident, 100 % confident that it can do whatever it needs to do. Yeah. So  yeah, now we’re just hoping for wind,  first of all.  I think we’re really hoping that wind is going to be kind to us.  And then  yeah, no big storms or anything like that. Yeah. And two working trailers. That’s right. That’s the first thing right now.

30:39

I think kind of for the rest of us, feels like the other side of Panama is further away than the Marquesas at this point, because it’s been so hard for to get over there. Right. Right.  I think it’ll be a big mental, mental reset for everybody once we finally make it over there. Like, yeah, you’re dead. Yeah. I mean, in any repairs you need to make to the boat or anything, or you’re kind of just wash the salt off and ready for the next leg. Yeah. Like I said, I got a half a gallon of antifoul that I had leftover from when I painted it in North Carolina and I figured I would put on another coat.

31:09

Um, when I was here, cause I’m going to be on the hard and I’m not going to carry it any further than here. So I might as well get it on there. But, um, now beyond that, you know, it’s, it’s ready to go. I’m just, disappointed that I had to take the rig down cause I had it tuned like perfectly.  So try to get it tuned up again on the other side. So, yeah,  yeah, that’ll be a challenge, but, uh, beyond that now everything’s good. There’s a lot of the guys are in the yard. They had to make a bunch of repairs. had days to days and that’s.

31:35

Honestly, what I’ve spent my time doing for the last, I’ve been here for a week already for the last four or five days. I’ve just been helping people with their projects, you know, seeing what I can, how I can chip in.  Yeah. Well, that must be good too to learn some other boats and see how things are set up on other boats and probably  interesting to get some of that insight as well.  Yeah. It makes me appreciate how well mine is made. Yeah.  Good for you. Well, nice to hear. Yeah. Nice work having built it yourself and, and, that sounds great.

32:02

Well, Josh, this sounds really fantastic and really like a great adventure. So really fun to follow you  on the mini globe challenge and  look forward to seeing your next sailing leg. You know, we’ll keep an eye on your cross and the is this there, but,  but we’ll try and catch up again in Fiji and you’ll see how, see how I feel then. Yeah. Yeah. No, great. We’ll try and catch up there or, know, maybe in Tahiti or somewhere. Yeah. I would love to catch up on a, you know, you know, I don’t want to have to take you off the beach or away from the coconut milk.