Not too many of us get to go off on a multiple year cruise and fewer still go out in wooden boats. My partner Maria Linder and I took out our 41-year-old Fredrick Geiger ketch APSARA on a recent sail to the Caribbean. This paper provides some of the highlights and trials of our experience living on and sailing a classic vessel. The story follows APSARA's update in preparation for the voyage, then traces her adventurous path down the US east coast into the Caribbean on the "Thorny Path " by way of the Dominican Republic with several laps around the Caribbean Sea before triumphantly returning to the US via Bermuda in better shape than ever. From a major structural refit in Venezuela to losing the original wooden rig and building new in Antigua, APSARA has been an on-going project and we had to learn how to find support and materials to accomplish maintenance and repair work in foreign ports. This presentation gives anyone planning or dreaming of cruising a classic sailboat a fresh perspective on the hard work and mostly positive realities of voyaging on a wooden sailboat today.
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