Chris Museler // Cuba Adventure
On the Wind Sailing
Andy Schell
4.8 • 593 Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2016
⏱️ 107 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#149. Chris Museler and I talk sailing to Cuba. He describes the fear and excitement he experienced in Haiti, the 'two sides' of Jamaica, the emotional roller coaster on sailing between vastly different cultures in a relatively short period of time, what Cuba is really like, how he ran out of cash getting to Havana and much more. Throughout our conversation, I chime in a describe what our experience was like on the north shore of the island where we left Isbjorn in Marina Hemingway and stayed ashore in Havana for five days. Chris and I go back several years and it's always fun to catch up with each other and hear about our latest projects. Don't miss Chris' recent coverage of the America's Cup in New York City in last week's New York Times.
You'll most likely know of course that Mia and I just visited Havana aboard Isbjorn last month, sailing over from Fajardo, Puerto Rico on what was truly the adventure of a lifetime, both for us and for our crew.
Chris sailed to Cuba by another means back in January of 2015, aboard the wooden schooner Charlotte, a custom boat built by Gannon & Benjamin on Martha's Vineyard. On that voyage, they took a more circuitous route - Chris actually flew in to Haiti, where he met the boat (only after a frightening and exciting four-hour journey from Port au Prince to get there). They continued on to Port Antonio in Jamaica before making their Cuban landfall in Cienfuegos on Cuba's south coast.
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As for Isbjorn, by the time you hear this we'll be back offshore, bringing the boat home to Annapolis from Ft. Lauderdale. If you got our recent newsletter you'll know we're all but sold out for 2016 - just one space remains on the Ireland-Portugal passage in September - but our 2017 calendar is open and we encourage you to join us on the high seas! If you DON'T get our newsletter, go to 59-north.com/news to register. We only send updates once in a while so won't flood your inbox.
And finally, please head over to iTunes and review the podcast. It truly helps in getting the word out, and I just love doing this week to week. Thanks for all the support!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | the reality is when you meet the people there regardless of your opinions and you see this place, |
| 0:06.1 | if you removed the governments, you know, if you just kind of lifted them up and away |
| 0:11.4 | and let the people come to see each other, which is, you know, you saw some, we saw some of that |
| 0:17.5 | interact, we had some of that interaction. We absolutely dig other hey this is anna winners live from sweden welcome back to the okay hey this is anna winners live from sw. Welcome back to the 59 North Sailing podcast with your host, |
| 0:39.0 | Andy Schell. Enjoy the show. Greetings. Welcome back to 59 degrees north, the podcast about sailing. |
| 0:48.6 | I'm Andy Schell and you're listening to episode number 149. |
| 1:00.2 | This episode is sponsored by Weems and Plath. |
| 1:07.6 | I spoke to CEO Peter Trogden recently in Annapolis about their ingenious SOS distress light that debuted at last fall's Annapolis Boat Show. |
| 1:12.4 | In short, the light replaces flares. Here's Peter. And it's the first of its kind. It's revolutionary. It's an electronic |
| 1:18.7 | flare. And so the terminology that's coming from the industry organically is calling this an electronic |
| 1:26.9 | flare. There's really nothing like it because of the way it meets the Coast Guard requirements. |
| 1:34.3 | So a little backstory on this thing, the Coast Guard put in their regulations in the 70s |
| 1:41.3 | an electric light that could be used for night distress signal. |
| 1:47.0 | And it could be an electric light that has all these requirements, which means it's waterproof, |
| 1:52.0 | it floats, it has to be bright, it has to last for a long time. |
| 1:56.0 | And this was in the 70s. And nothing was ever created that met all those requirements. And now there's a lot |
| 2:03.7 | of great products in the safety department with LEDs and lighting, different colors, different |
| 2:09.8 | blinking sequences, things like that. But the Coast Guard has never changed the CFR that |
| 2:15.1 | says what this product does. |
| 2:17.9 | And no one's ever built it until last year when Sirius Signal patented the lens and |
| 2:25.0 | other parts of that product they wrote a patent for and received. |
| 2:29.3 | So they've created this wonderful light that replaces the need for traditional flares. |
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