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Man Squid, its amazing how much different (better!!) the cav 32 looks with the lower cabin. It really looks like whole different boat. Here is another shot of our 'live aboard'. My parents have now been living on the boat for well over 20 years and all us boys still call her 'home'. Also a shot of the familys whole fleet in hobart, the red one is my eldest brothers boat that he sailed to antactica (snow petrel) and just for squid, another brothers proa that they attempted to sail across the tasman. Video of that trip and on living aboard with kids here, its worth a watch. http://www.

We lived with 7 people (5 boys)on board a 45ft gaff rigged herreshoff for many years. mainly based in marinas around NZ but spent a few years just cruising, (Chatam islands, bay of islands, marlbrough sounds) and they my folks left with the 2 youngest boys in 1995 to protest against the nuclear testing in mururoa and never came back. Now days they still live on the boat but are based in tasmainia and love it over there. Our boat was pretty budget, without a word of a lie we could fly 8 sails at once and there were no jammers or winches (other than the manual anchor winch for a 50kg anchor...)

Sorry Tim I did promise you photos and a video. Here is all the footage put together. The stuff of you guys doesnt look all the exciting but in many ways i think that is really good, it shows how effortless the boat goes fast and just how much faster it can go, where as my boat looks like its at terminal velocity at around 18-20kts! http://www.youtube.com/user/BooBooNZ#p/u/6/TQRypEWiP_A

I think you worded that perfectly Ken.

Here is my 2 cents worth. The question about how long a sail lasts is a hard one to answer, I guess you can kind of relate it back to car tires, it depends on the amount of usage, type of usage and quality of the initial purchase. Tires will last for a long time before they are actually to worn out to get you from A-B anymore, but your performance will be down, and they could blow out at any stage. Even when they fail a warrant they still have a year or so of use out of them before they are completely ruined. For sails its even harder to pin point how long they will last as there as so m

I would think half the issue is the old stretchy cloth, its allways goign to bag up when partially furled no mater what you do to it or how big or small it is. of course the bigger it is the larger the percentage of your sailing will be with it partially furled. modern laminates allow you to go with an almost full size #1 and still hold their shape when furled. we still recomend going with a #2 designed size which is normally 135-140% and raising the clew slightly for better reaching and so you dont have to adjust the car too much. half the problem is that Dacron physically lasts so bloody l