Our Sailing Blown Away 2015 Leopard 44 catamaran is NEW and IMPROVED and we are excited to show her off! It’s been almost 4 months of upgrades at the work dock in Sint Maarten and Blown Away has now been transformed from Sunsail 444 charter catamaran into the world class blue water offshore sailboat of our dreams which is now our full time home and we are enjoying all of the changes. Remember our first tour of our newly purchased our boat (Episode 101) on the day we closed and moved on to her on the 19th of November 2020? Please note that many of our upgrades and their specifications can be found on our website, www.sailingblownaway.com and as always, please do not hesitate to ask questions by leaving comments! In this video, we will show the following changes that have taken place since our first tour which includes a Highfield Classic 380 dinghy, Nissan Marine 2 stroke 30 hp outboard, customized davit system, scuba tank and life-raft quick release fabrication, Sunbrella front and back cockpit cushions, Raymarine Axiom + 12 inch screen chart plotter, appliances, new DC and AC outlets in the salon, Relion 300 ah lithium batteries, Spectra Newport 400 DC watermaker, Dometic CFX3 100 refrigerator freezer, Iridium Go, Pirate Lights Security System, mattress topper, washing machine, helm and cockpit enclosure, parasail rigging, bridle, Mantus M1 85 lb anchor, chain lock shift, watermaker watertank manifold addition to fill all three tanks, Jabsco high pressure 60 psi deck wash, and LG Neon 2 410 and 355 watt solar panels. Please make sure that you subscribe to our channel to receive notifications of future videos detailing each of the upgrades introduced in this video. NEW TO OUR CHANNEL? We are Eileen and Brown Councill. Welcome to our channel and a glimpse into our NEW life adventure! 2020 was a year of uncertainty and change (for all of us, right?), but we overcame the challenges and decided it was time to chase our dream, to sail around the world! Did I mention that we have very little sailing experience? Before leaving Qingdao, China, our home of 4 years, we sold almost all of our earthly possessions and started our international search to find the right sailboat that we would call "home." After 5 months of unanticipated twists and turns, we found what we were looking for, a used Leopard 44' Catamaran located in St. Lucia. So, here begins our journey, filled with unmatched excitement and honestly, a bit of trepidation as well. We have much to learn as we travel the world on our floating home and we intend to document that journey and share it with you. We are so glad you have decided to join us, and we hope that you will find our story so compelling that it will inspire you to chase your dreams too! As a viewer, we consider you to be part of our family and look forward to getting to know you. Don't hesitate to comment on our videos and ask questions. We will do our best to answer every correspondence! All we ask is that you have patience with us as we work really hard to improve our camera/video techniques and ability to tell a story. Hopefully, you will be as BLOWN AWAY from watching, as we are in experiencing and producing our adventures! If you wish to support our video efforts, all we ask is that you SUBSCRIBE, give a THUMBS UP, and SHARE our videos with your friends! SUBSCRIBE https://www.youtube.com/c/blownaway

Closed Captions (CC):
hey everybody thanks for joining us

at ground class st

martin on the front side we're here at

this beautiful anchorage

right now and we have spent

three months getting our butt ready and

doing all the up get grades to our

charter boat

so that we're able to live

comfortably on this boat really enjoy it

and also

safely sail this boat and to go

all over the world that's our goal is

the circumnavigates we have systems and

everything in place in order to assure

that what we're going to focus on

now are the upgrades and first one

is not my wife she's still my wife

she's the keefer but how about that

shirt babe

whoops how about that shirt babe yeah

got some new swag you gonna flip around

cool okay babe uh what do you want to

start with

let's start with the rear cockpit and

everything that changed here it's

so different all right you pointed out

welcome to our boat

come along with us let's take a look

one of the things we've added is

lettering a little worn

salty style here and then

here and then all the way up front

on the boat over there on both sides

man we really love this boat right now

we can't wait to show you all the things

we've added to it how about we talk

about the dinghy

that's a great that's the cadillac right

or the suburban

or the so we love our dinghy and you can

find information about this on our

website

sailingblownaway.com so we have the

uh 380 centimeter this is as large as

the classic

gets it has the aluminum uh

hull underneath which makes it more

lightweight and then

uh we have a 30 horsepower nissan marine

two-stroke engine so it's the lighter

weight you have to add the oil to it one

thing that we've done is really cool

is i have run

the fuel line from underneath here

all the way underneath the boat this is

us our garbage can as you can see we're

waiting to take our traffic and then i

can't

open this up but the fuel line comes all

the way up inside here

into a six gallon tank

and we also have this long steel cable

which we keep everything locked

up in then while we're here babe let's

talk about the davit system how we've

improved that

so the data system is the pulley system

that brings our

dinghy up and down from the water before

we had it fixed

the davit would make a big bang noise

oh okay okay and so we had to replace

the dyneema which is actually what pulls

the dinghy up

using a winch that is located in this

compartment right here

and we changed out the bolts here again

all part of creating a safer and

stronger davit system and then we opted

to

include a second latch and you can see

on the other side

there was a latch and then fkg just

mimicked it for

this side so that we have the ability to

have both

of the arms of the davit system strongly

held

by the boat it just makes a big

difference and then also to

accommodate our new very very long

dinghy we had to move the eyelets that

held

these bridles that pulled the dinghy up

we had to move them

over because the dinghy is a lot longer

than the ones that they used for charter

we also replaced the dyneema straps

because we needed to lift our dinghy

to fit our scuba tank and life raft

fabrication below speaking of tanks this

dyneema's so thick it could

tow a tank i think they said that this

could lift

a couple thousand pounds i want to say

yeah yeah um

so very very strong dyneema which is

good

the next exciting addition is this

beautiful piece of art

which is a steel rack that was created

by fkg and it holds as you can see four

of our scuba tanks

and then our monster life raft which was

located in this compartment

and we have moved that out so that in

the event of an emergency

we can easily access and deploy

this monstrous box so now

we have the benefit of being able to

kick

it out easily with a hydrostatic release

so that means that

the life raft will deploy automatically

once it hits the water

notice that the red caps of our dive

tanks

match our new gumdrops the charter boat

is stripped down they're not going to

mess with cushions

in order to make it homey and add fun

and color

we've had st martin sails over on the

dutch side

do all of our cushions and our helm

enclosures and they did a

really good job and we were really

daring

in our color collection we wanted some

fun colors kind of like these shirts

we're in the tropics we're having fun

sunbrella which is the material that we

used they've got 70 great fun colors so

we decided to use them

listen if you want to experiment with

color and you need some help on it

contact me

i used to be a designer and i'll help

you put it together

but let's take a look this is the

azure color on sunbrella's line this is

uh tangela right here that we've used as

a contrasting welt

we used a suavelle milk creek fabric

it's five dollars a yard super cheap

and use some of the leftover material

that's on the back of it just to make

the

facing fabric go a little bit longer and

then over here we've

flipped it to where the tangelo is the

main fabric

and then the contrasty well is the azure

we have some pillows that we got in fiji

long time ago that are on the boat lots

of fun and then

check out these winch covers right there

our red gumdrops

remember the candy really cool they

protect and they're just like little fun

energy pods

and then up here

[Music]

this is a caravan stripe

by a company called covington and it's a

slip cover

on top of sunbrella's horizon

not sure what the name of this color is

but it matches right up with their

azure color and so you don't have any

waterproofing issues right here

and you can take this off it just wears

out and change it here we've upgraded

the raymarine

from the regular chart plotter to a

17-inch

chart plotter i think it had a 7-inch

and and look at that beautiful view

oh it's gorgeous i love the red gumdrops

that's like one of my favorite

uh additions to our boat for sure and

then what we have up here

is a clear vinyl we have a helm

enclosure

they put straps to tie it down it was

custom fitted and then when i

are these zips here

and you can roll this up and then just

clip them in and you can do that all the

way around depending on where the

wind's coming from so it's kind of an

indoor outdoor

type of thing the main body of this is

a really impervious white vinyl

and we also had the bolster

reupholstered

the steel underneath the bolster had

actually disintegrated

and so we actually needed to have that

re-welded and we would never have known

it if we hadn't taken the bolster off

what a fun white with the blue contrast

piping look at this whoa look at all

this stuff down here huh

hold on we're gonna get to that let's

show

them down in the engine compartment

there's an

anti-siphon loop which gregory tamat

the yanmar dealer he installed the first

one shows how to do it

then i installed it on the port side

check out a later video this will help

you eliminate a lot of heartache with

getting water in your engine and causing

engine failure don't let that happen to

you

and you'll see all of this extra wiring

as well this was all added later voltage

regulators

for our alternators in order to

accommodate our lithium

system yep but we'll get there soon so

when talking to kaz

who is the captain of the st

lucia leopard 58 and also the surveyor

they said

from safety aspect they would

take out the two gauges that were in

here

and then add an oil pressure oil

temperature and an oil pressure

switch for both of the engines that way

you can diagnose things before they

become a problem

the warning comes on and then it's just

too late so we're really glad we've got

those

one of the things that's really

important to me being living on a boat

full time is safety

and so we had the opportunity to create

a

security system that's really simple and

it's made by boaters

for boaters so this system is called

pirate lights

and it is a motion sensor that's that

detects motion

on your boat and when it detects motion

it will put the lining lights on first

and then secondly

an alarm at 130 decibels and that will

actually cause hearing damage within i

think

20 seconds so it's gonna cause someone

to get off the boat very quickly

did you say pirate art my day

one of the most important things to us

is safety when we're at anchor

and so we replaced two things we

replaced the

bridle which is here the white line that

connects to the anchor chain which

is really important it takes all of the

weight off of the anchor chain and also

uh

creates a stabilized triangle so that

the boat is not

spinning unnecessarily what's underneath

the water in the sand

oh our new anchor looks cold it is our

mantis anchor

it's cold i was actually going to open

the anchor locker but

it's not here because it's actually

doing its job

but we did have to move back the chain

lock

uh about a foot to accommodate the

shaft of the new anchor we have

the generator and water stories

previously the spectral water maker

which we'll show you would only fill up

the starboard tank

what we've done is we've added this

manifold and this

enables us if it's pointing down it's

filling so this

uh starboard is being filled now and

when you want to

close it off and fill the other tank

this one being the port tank you just do

that

and then down here we've added a switch

to power up our deck wash and this is a

60 psi

deck wash that's plumbed throughout here

we're going to do some plumbing here

goes all the way over

you put the here up here and it's

awesome you can

clean your entire boat whenever you get

to your anchorage get all the sauce off

of it

and then down here look how much fun

this is right here

this is sunflower yellow sunbrella with

tangelo or i love this mango i'm wearing

it

on me right now and so it's a lot of fun

we've added this little

fruit basket here swinging in the breeze

and then what do we have over here one

of our favorite things to do at night is

to pull out our yellow chairs

and we take them out on the roof and we

have our sundowners and we watch the

sunset every night so these

are a great addition to our boat

[Music]

and then here we've added the solar

we have five 410 pipes

uh lg panels really high quality panels

and we also put these on the ends

to keep this from coming

in main sheets and popping them off and

then

look how incredible

this job is

that uh fkg did and how beautiful this

316 stainless

two custom made uh

solar arc is and how the panels are set

into

the panels versus on top which makes it

just more streamlined and i think more

beautiful very elegant and then

right here we have a 355

watt lg panel here and then up here

discovered

in space we've heard from people in the

past

that put as many panels on the boat as

you can it's really

the cheapest part of an electrical

system and so that's what we've done we

almost have a total of 2800

lots on this boat and it works great

can't wait to show you the rest

one of the exciting new sales that we

added to our sale inventory is the power

sailer

and we used our current spinnaker

halyard

to be able to do that which connects

to the front d-rings to let this

beautiful sail

uh launch and so we're really excited to

be able to use that for our downwind

sail two new additional pieces of

technology for safety reasons

one is the iridium go this is our

satellite that allows us to

be in touch wherever we are in the world

crossing oceans we have the ability to

text it also allows us to download

weather and then the second piece is

this disk it's a gps disk

which uh allows us to send a gps signal

i think every 20 seconds

for a group of 15 people to be able to

download to know where we are

at any point in time and then this

is a wi-fi extender and the wi-fi

extender allows us to connect to wi-fi

that is onshore

that is unlocked if you are going to a

restaurant and you get

it's on the water and you get the wi-fi

code

remember that wi-fi code and then

share with us and you can pull it in

from your boat and use their wi-fi

okay you didn't hear that here it's one

of the advantages of watching the blind

weight channel one other piece of

technology that we added was

radar which is really important when

we're underway to be able to

know what the weather system is going to

be or to be able to identify a boat that

does not have an ais number so

radar will allow us to actually see them

could be a fisherman's boat

and we would not ordinarily see that on

our ais so

the radar is up on top of the mast there

and that was installed when we were in

st

lucia by regis electronics so radar is

not just about its own mass

anymore he's up on our map so one thing

that we've had

added is this phifertex on the

sides and back of our boat what it is is

a mesh that only allows

14 of the light to come through so it

shields you from those harsh

rays and also wind it fits right in

tightly or you can do it loosely

uh another way and have it come out

to here instead almost like a wing

so you can adjust it either way that way

you can see out and you're still

protected by it

great job babe and it's on the back

right here and it's on the other side

and when you get some rain coming in it

also stops a lot of the rain so this is

a great kind of indoor outdoor

uh solution and there you can see the

effect it has

on the sunshine to be able to

keep out enough sun but allow us to be

able to see out which is

a great combination hey let's go into

the salon

great idea this is probably the most

important

place on the boat and boy

they have no idea how many changes are

made to the back of that panel

it's basically the heart of the boat

this operates all of the electrical

but just to get started a little bit

spectral water maker we've added that

show you that later and then the show

that i never get tired of this is our

victron electrical system that includes

lithium

here's a deep sea electronics automatic

starter for our generator when our

batteries drop below 20 percent

and this measures solar amps here we

have our iridium go

part lights here and guys we added so

much

to our panel we had to add a separate

dc extension panel to get everything on

it

to expand the amount of food that were

able to purchase and add to our fridge

and freezer

we bought a dometic which is a

convertible

either fridge or freezer we could use it

for either

so that really has given us a great

opportunity to be able to expand what we

purchased from the grocery store for

longer provisioning and another thing

that we're working on is turning

our entire kitchen into an all-electric

kitchen and so we're

partially through that we have a lot of

appliances i know it's not the

traditional way of sailing

but we love them um this is a miniature

oven

that's soon to go we're gonna pull out

the uh eno gas oven because it doesn't

really work that well

and put in a electric smart oven

over here we kept the

uh microwave microwave we use that quite

a bit

and then we've added a kettle whoa look

at the light show

and then just instant

one of the best additions that we made

outlets underneath the table because

otherwise to have your computer here

and plug into an electrical outlet you

would have to run the cable

across here to the outlets on the wall

over here which is highly inconvenient

for someone who wants to walk down the

stairs

all right moving down the hall into

the port side as you have seen in our

previous

uh upload of the washing machine versus

the councils

and the washing machine is in and so we

are doing

laundry on a regular basis which is

awesome

sleeping and sleep quality is really

important especially on a boat you don't

get a whole lot of sleep especially at

anchor

because you're constantly worried about

dragging your anchor

so when we do get sleep we want it to be

high quality sleep so we have taken

our mattress and added a topper to it

and that topper is three and a half

inches thick so that is an addition that

we

love one of my wife's favorite safety

devices

is the eeper it's registered

make sure you not only get an epub but

make sure it's registered what does the

epub

stand for expensive piece of equipment

that has to be inspected

every four years for more money

is what it stands for and that you have

to take with you in your go bag

yeah and then uh fishing rods can't wait

to use those

the most exciting thing and also the

most expensive thing

that we added to this boat that also

ties in with the solar

is our lithium electrical system a lot

of work had to be done

to this but it totally has transformed

our life here on the boat

we are never going to run out of power

because of our storage and our power

producing capabilities we are able to

use our generator which is a 6k

generator we're able to use our 2800

watts of solar

and order power as well as our

alternators

so come take a look at what we've added

and we have a fuel compartment in here

take a look at what we've packed in

over here so

these are reliant rb 300

ah batteries we have three of them in

there for a total

900 amp hours we also have

a victron 5 000 watt

quattro inverter which enables us to

power with the generator

solar shore and this thing

converts and it's awesome here we have a

battery protect

next are our controllers each one of our

solar panels

is individually controlled by a victron

mnpt

the reason for this is to protect

against shading

and also to make it a whole lot more

efficient because this is valuable

real estate we want to get the most

painting for the buck

so behind all of this we have those

seven

uh electron controllers now

for the last thing we want to show you

the spectra

newport 400 water maker

first part of it is the charcoal filter

and you have to have a

uh seacock put in directly with this and

this brings in the sea water

here's the raw water strainer which

strains out the little fishies and that

type of thing

through here is where the

exit water that's has a lot of salt in

it

that is expelled during the fresh water

process that doesn't go through the

membrane

it goes out this part right here

and you can see that we've got a

decent storage space there so here we

are

down in the ford starboard cabin

and underneath the bed and this is where

our spectra lives and it produces

up to 17 gallons per hour great thing

about this

is it's dc powered and you can run this

off of your

battery and it's makes

really good water well we hope you

enjoyed the tour of the boat so many of

you have been

asking for a tour of all of the

additions that we had made

so hopefully this will satisfy your

interest

in what it was that we did yeah and make

sure you check out our website

sailingblownaway.com and

check out boat upgrades a lot of these

will be

detailed in that and a lot of these have

links to amazon where you don't pay any

extra when you click on these

you can buy these from the best sellers

in the country at the lowest prices

and it helps us out too we will continue

to keep this

updated and guys we really enjoyed

doing this for you we love you guys we

appreciate you

thanks for coming along with us make

sure you subscribe make sure you share

with your friends

get them on board with us that would

mean a lot and

comment we'll get right back with you we

want to hear from you

thanks a lot for coming along yeah