Tracking Ravenswing

If you’d like to follow along these adventures, come to this page regularly to get the boat’s  up to date position. If we’re out sailing, anyway.

Ravenswing puts out two types of location signals: [1] Iridium Go! satellite pings. [2] AIS-B over the VHF radio waves.  When we’re underway, each system should be putting out a position report every hour or so. When we stop, and want to conserve battery power, we shut the units down and these sites will keep displaying our last reported position.

Method 1:  We ping straight up to the heavens every hour to the iridium global satellite system, and the good people at PredictWind plot our track on this fabulous map:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Ravenswing?mapMode=useGoogle&windSymbol=WindStreamlines&weatherSource=ECMWF

Sometimes the Iridium tracking will show us on land… that’s because the satellite transponder doesn’t always live on the boat – it serves for land adventures too.

This is the best way to keep up with the boat. You can see where we’ve gone each hour simply by coming back to this page.  Enjoy!

 

Method 2:  Ravenswing emits a commercial-style AIS signal via VHF that is usually picked up by a satellite network, then fed in to numerous world-wide databases. So you can use any of the ship-tracking websites to see where we are and what other boats/ships are nearby. Do a web search on AIS ship tracking, pick out a website, and enter the name S/V (sailing vessel) Ravenswing, and our MMSI # 368065160.

Here’s one example (but sometimes they want you to pay for their service :(

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:5986719/mmsi:368065160/imo:0/vessel:RAVENSWING

Family members of our crew – DO NOT FREAK OUT if the AIS system does not show us. It’s all based on whether the satellites can pick up our signal which is intended to go ship to ship, not towards space. So it doesn’t always work, but we’re still fine. You’ll get a call from the Coast Guard if we’re actually in trouble.

 

 

 

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Farrier F32R Carbon – build project for sale

Darn Craigslist, it gets me in all kinds of trouble! I saw an ad for a stalled Fboat build project in Kansas. And after a bit of back & forth, including an airplane trip, this all-carbon F32 ended up behind our pickup, being towed to the west coast. I thought it was time to build another boat, this time a very light, very fast all-carbon-over-foam racer / adventurer boat. The Mrs. sat me down recently and challenged why I wanted to put the hours in to this project. She’s right, I want to spend more time over the next few years sailing rather than building again. And so… I present what my biased mind thinks is a great opportunity for the intrepid DIY’r. Ian Farrier’s plans make it straightforward to build an exceptional boat. This one is well on the way; the first builder did all the big structural stuff. There’s plenty to do here, but it all can be done as a series of projects in a relatively small shop.

The bones here are very good. He bought proper CoreCell / Divinyncel 5lb foam core, quality carbon fabric as recommended by Ian Farrier from Fiberglass Supply in Washington state, and Applied Poleramic epoxy, an aerospace composites supplier in Benicia, CA. These people supplied all the epoxy in the 90’s for the 40+ F25C builds, and we built Ravenswing with it. The owner and lead scientist had a soft-spot for boat builders, and we got the good goo that also builds Boeing & military carbon aircraft structures. The builder did a good job with his preparations and vacuum bagging; test samples were sent to Ian Farrier as the build got started, and resin ratio adjustment recommendations were followed. This boat will need only minimal fairing work.

You’ll see in the video what’s included here for sale as a package. What’s not here is any steering system, nor any mast / rigging / sails. I’ve done a bunch of research on “donor masts”; if this boat is kept light, the Southern Spars carbon rigs for the TF10 foiling trimarans will work, and there’s one here locally for sale.

The Farrier beams and beam mounts on this boat came from the New Zealand factory. That resource is gone now, but I believe one could purchase this equipment today by ordering from Multihulls Direct in the Philippines. I also guess that would cost as much or more as the $18,000USD price I’m asking for this whole package.

I want to see this boat get finished, and hopefully I get to sail aboard. I can provide some build coaching, and am willing to work with a buyer to make the initial transport feasible. We can package her up for towing anywhere in North America. I think it’s also a good candidate for a roll-on/roll-off ship trip.

The Farrier F32 is a high performance trimaran. Ian Farrier designed it to be offshore capable, partly in response to demand from his Corsair F31 customers to up the safety factor for off-the-coast racing and adventuring. This boat is a bit smaller than the Corsair C36/C37, but also still reasonable for trailering, self-launching and mast raising. There are very successful F32s being towed long distances to significant offshore racing events and doing very well out on the big water. This project has the potential to become an excellent super light racer, or a fast, robust adventure sailing craft. It’s all in how someone visions the final execution on these amazing hulls :)

Let’s find her builder who will take this boat to launch day!

click here for YouTube video walkthrough of this this boat

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