Hey, welcome to... Sorry.

That's okay.

Hey, welcome to 59 degrees north with Andy Schell. Enjoy the show.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the 59 degrees north sailing podcast. It's Andy Schell here.

A lot to cover in this intro, so I'll get right into it.

Thanks to our newest sponsor, Collegro Marine. They are sponsoring this episode and a few more going

forward. I've been working with John Franta, the brains behind Coligo, since I first met him

in Annapolis in 2009. John was on hand displaying a classic West Sail 32 cutter rigged with

Dynex duct synthetic rigging, and I was sufficiently intrigued, to say the least.

Long story short, Arcturus is now fitted with ducks, including her main and mizzenmasts

and her lifelines. The only wire left is the forestay. Ducks is absolutely superior to wire

rigging, particularly for those who like to work on their own boats. It's easily spliceable,

weighs next to nothing, is two to five times

stronger than wire for its size, and removes a remarkable amount of weight aloft, making the

boat sail easier, faster, and with less heel. Caligo also makes a lot of clever rigging bits,

including Spinnaker and Code Zero furlers, snatch blocks, fairy leads, and a lot more.

Also, to the Blue Water Cruiser, their emergency shroud kits are must-have spare, in my opinion,

for emergency rigging repairs offshore.

So check out Collego at caligomarine.com and tell them that you heard about them through 59 North.

Lots of cool stuff going on at 59 North right now with Mia and myself.

We just launched the gear page yesterday on our website.

Actually, I'm recording this on Friday, so it would have been Thursday.

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