Cruising the Pacific Northwest

One of the unique features of Sea Eagle is that she has both hydraulic stabilizers AND paravanes, which is unusual because she has no real mast. However, the original owner of the boat reinforced the fiberglass stack and rigged up a set of small birds to supplement the ABT stabilizers. This can be extremely useful when the boat is at sea and the stabilizers fail.

Dropping the birds in the water can keep the trip from becoming seriously uncomfortable. On Sunday, Frank and Marlies visited the boat and showed us how to rig the paravanes, using the Forespar Flopper-Stopper poles and some custom rigging (including sailboat winches placed fore and aft).

The system is fairly simple, but there is NO way I would have figured it out without someone showing me what wire goes where.