Covert Castaway Sailing with SV AWEN

We chat with Catherine from Wild Travel Story about their sailing adventures and tips for living healthy and sustainably on a boat. Check out their book, The Hunter & The Gatherer. She shares great stories from their years cruising.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make th...

Our first impressions of the Outremer 52 now that it's been launched and sailing on the water! Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs, buy a boat and explore the world. Join the conversation on our Sailing AWEN facebook p...

We give an update on recent travel to Melbourne and Bali and now we're preparing to go sailing and get our new catamaran, the Outremer 52, which will be out of the factory very soon! Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs...

We speak to our neighbor Tom who works at North Sails and has the best job in the world. He shares about materials and R&D for 3Di sail building.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs, buy a boat and explore the world....

Happy New Year everyone! We wanted to kick off the year with an update of what's been going on and share our plans for the year ahead.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs, buy a boat and explore the world. Join the co...

Our Outremer 52 catamaran is in the mold! And other exciting sailboat updates as we explore Melbourne, Australia.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs, buy a boat and explore the world. Join the conversation on our Sai...

Today we breakdown the major navigation options to consider between weather forecast, route planning and weather routing. Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs, buy a boat and explore the world. Join the conversation on...

Today we cover communication systems and options for liveaboard sailing and circumnavigating, including Starlink. Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs, buy a boat and explore the world. Join the conversation on our Sail...

How much redundancy is needed to sail around the world on a performance catamaran?  We explain our philosophy and the options we have selected as backup based on our cruising plans. Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs,...

We share a summary of the training sessions we have gone through over the years and emphasize what we believe is useful in the context of a couple sailing together where one person has more experience than the other. Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle chang...

We're excited to talk about our new Outremer 52 Performance Catamaran. If you check our Sailing Awen YouTube channel you'll even get to see cool pictures and animations. We also share our experience from the Cannes Yachting Festival and from our first sail on an Outremer 55. Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as w...

Life is a journey... You make decisions, you change your mind and you end up somewhere for reasons you had not thought about. We share our story about a 'home base' hoping it might help others. Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, qu...

Today we share the factors that define a performance catamaran and what considerations mattered most to us in narrowing down what we wanted in our second sailboat. We spoke to a professional on the topic and describe our decision process. This episode is the audio-only version of our video on our Sailing AWEN YT channel, so you can check that out in all it's glory by heading over there!   Welcome...

Our friends from The Blue Saga share their electrical propulsion experience with their custom performance catamaran and what it's like sailing with an electric motor. Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to be sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we share what we are learning as we make the lifestyle change to sell our stuff, quit our jobs, buy a boat and...

In this episode, we share our full story, our sailing liveaboard adventure in the last two seasons and how changed our minds about our catamaran. This is an audio-only version of our story posted on our Sailing AWEN YouTube channel. Be sure to check that out and subscribe. We have exciting news to share in the coming weeks, so don't miss it!!! Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience...

How do you pack light and live light on a sailboat when you plan to live aboard? This week we talk about the art of living simple and light.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to becoming sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we make mistakes, celebrate victories and transition to the sailing life to explore the world.  

This is an update on our previous podcast about visas, Schengen time and residency when it comes to traveling and sailing in Europe and the Mediterranean. You would think the rules would be straight forward, but really it's shades of grey.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to becoming sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we make mistakes, celebrate vi...

Warning: this episode gets a little geeky on electronics systems for sailing but wanted to share what we are learning about B&G and essentials for a new sailing catamaran.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to becoming sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we make mistakes, celebrate victories and transition to the sailing life to explore the world.  

Nikki Henderson, sailing instructor, team leader and Clipper Race skipper, shares advice for couples about how to work better as a team and set a positive culture on the boat. I was able to spend time with Nikki during Outremer Week in her classes and during the regatta days and her advice was remarkable!!! Thank you Nikki for sharing your experience and being a great source of inspiration. Welcom...

What learning and training is needed to safely sail and live on a sailboat and what do you need to know to diagnose problems and manage risk on the water? This week we summarize our 9 days of classroom and on the water training including diesel, electricity, weather, maneuvers and sail changes, celestial navigation, survival and safety - and a regatta during Outremer Week. Welcome to Covert Castaw...

Deciding on a sailing and rigging plan is one of the most critical and expensive decisions to make on a catamaran. We will share the different options and why making this choice can be so difficult.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to becoming sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we make mistakes, celebrate victories and transition to the sailing lif...

We are getting schooled on what it takes to sail a performance catamaran. Hear all about what we are learning and the training programs we are taking advantage of as we make the shift to sailing a lighter boat and deciding on our new sail plan.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to becoming sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we make mistakes, celebra...

We get started with the team that will help us through the new production process and visit the International Multihull Show in La Grande Motte to meet our points of contact for electronics, sail plan and other major aspects of our new configuration.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to becoming sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we make mistakes, c...

The boat switcharoo from a comfort to performance boat, how did we get here? It's not because we want a racing boat, it's for other reasons that we dive into further. Today, we do a summary of our revised sailing philosophy as we approach the build out of our new boat for around the world sailing - and it's not really about performance as it's currently defined.  Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fu...

We're back to kick off Season 5 living out of suitcases and without a boat at the moment! Lots to cover about our life on the road the last couple months and we are so excited to gear up to tackle the boat building process once again! Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience making the transition to becoming sailing liveaboard cruisers. Join us as we make mistakes and celebrate victo...