Our first sailing afternoon and updates on our 1st week in La Rochelle.

Week 1 - February 3 - 11, 2011 (temps have been between 10-14c and mostly sunny)

After nearly two and a half years we are finally on our new Elba 45. We headed out of port with a hired Captain for our first day sailing on Friday 4th (February). Practiced the three reef system, sail trim, anchor operations and tacking/gybing. In about 10 kts of wind, we were steady 6 knots of boat speed. Having the larger 12 inch Garmin at the helm station was a good idea.

It is so nice to have electric winches and everything run back to the helm. The only thing needing to go forward is for reef points 2 and 3. We have since upgraded reef point 2 to operate the same way as the first so we only have to be at the mast for putting in the tack point for the third reef.

During our first sail noticed that we will need to install some barbour haulers to get better angles on the Genoa when we are on a beam or broad reach.

This is the first time Janine have been sailing in FEBRUARY.

We love the square mast rig on our mainsail that is 807 sq ft of area affixed to the 60' mast. Also great to have lazy jacks and sail bag to gather the sail on takedown.

We discovered that the mainsail autohook did not work so well with the factory provided 12mm halyard line sooooo...

We bought 10mm dyneema that is so much stronger and lighter than the standard braid 12mm. We will see on our Monday sail how this new setup works. Once again, having the big Harken electric winch at the helm station allowed Janine and I to get this job done by ourselves.

First time we have had fender covers. We're in the big leagues now.

The upgrade to Lithium batteries did not complete this week. We have five 330 Amp Hour LiFePO4 that will be connected to a 6kw victron inverter being powered by 2000 watts of solar off the back deck. We have calculated we will need about 546 Amp Hours at Anchor and 684 Amp Hours Underway. We have 1,650 amps of power so we should be good. The only thing not included in these calculations are the six zones of heat-pump/air-conditioning that each take up about 90 amp hours each.

Janine spent most of this week shopping and setting up the boat. She is so good at staging.

The sky light windows will be very helpful to keep an eye on jib and mainsail trim.

The blue courtesy lighting is a nice touch at night.

The underwater blue lights at the stern will look amazing when we are at anchorages.

The marina staff say there are over 5,000 boats in the La Rochelle marina. Possibly the biggest marina in Europe?

Dingy arrived Thursday. Highfield 360 with console steering wheel and electric start.

Fits nicely on the dingy davits between the sugar scoops. We also have an electric winch to haul her up at night.