This is a basic Gear List for the boat, and our experience with it. Most of the gear that we have aboard has functioned wonderfully, some has taken a lot more maintenance than we would have liked, some a lot less than we expected. A few pieces of the gear that we have aboard are completly overpriced garbage, pawned off on the boating public. I don't mince words here, no one pays me or has given me any free gear. What you read is what we say about the gear that we have when asked about it by others.

I am not shy about telling you that something works realy well, I beleive in credit where credit is due.

If you happen to be a manufacture that makes the gear I have "trashed" here, maybe you should think about either rengineering a faulty product or fixing your customer service to actualy provide service to your customers.

Stevens Engineering 20 GPH watermaker:

This is a unit that I designed and built; it is driven by a 7 horse diesel engine, which also supplies rotational power to a 200 amp alternator. It works wonderfully. Make sure and read the article coming out in the May 2002 issue of Good Old Boat Magazine. With the article you should be able to build your own at a fraction of the cost of an off the shelf unit.

7 HP Single Cylinder Diesel Battery Charger.

The other half of the equation from the watermaker. It does for us what a lot of people install a generator to do: keeps the batteries charged. Uses about a pint of fuel an hour, and runs about an hour a day, sometimes more sometimes less. The solar panels keep up with the loads of the boat including the communications time that we spend on the radio, but can't keep up with the refrigerator and fans combined. Since we had no more deck space, and we needed a good way to drive a large watermaker, we put the little Kobota diesel in and a large alternator on it. So far it has performed flawlessly. Several other people out here have had large amounts of problems with similar set ups. A good installation, and a lot of regular maintenance are the keys to keeping anything that runs this often working well.

Perkins 4-108 Diesel Engine

Nothing bad to say about this engine. Wonderful performer.

Icom 735 Ham Transceiver
SCS PTC-II TNC
SEA 222 Marine SSB Transceiver
Sea 235 Long wire antenna tuner.

This is the communications station aboard Pneuma It handles all of our communications on the trip. We have made about 3 phone calls in the last three months, and are still in daily contact with our families, which is important to us. Were money no object I would have a new ICOM 706 Mark II-G ,just because it has a lot of neat bells and whistles that would be fun to play with; however the 735 is a great radio that is available on the used market for a great price, and adds a lot of security to the boat, and makes the people back home feel good too.

The SEA antenna tuner is the best on the market in my experience.

The Sea 222 marine SSB works afer more than 20 years, has an easy to use interface, and is still supported by the company that made it. A great piece of gear. If you are going the SSB route on your boat I would recommend a SEA, or an Icom.

ACR 406 Epirb

In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy there is a device called the electronic thumb. It allows you to hitch a ride from a passing space craft to get off of any planet that you might be on. We refer to the 406 EPIRB as an Electronic thumb. Hopefully we will never have to use it, so all I can tell you is that it looks nice!

Dell Inspiron 7000 Personal Computer

I like Dell equipment better than anything else on the market. They have a good product and they stand behind it wonderfully. A laptop allows us to do e-mail and to write, which we do to replenish the cruising kitty from time to time. It also runs a bunch of navigation software that we use for PLANNING our routes. We rely on paper charts for real navigation. Paper, even if it gets wet, is still a chart. The computer, if it were ever to get wet, would be a brick, and about as useful.

Icom IC-32AT Handheld Radios

Hand held radios in the HAM bands. What we use when navigating through tricky coral heads, talking between the cockpit and the bow, and for communicating between the boat and the shore party. Icom gear is the best in my opinion, works well every time, what else is there that gear should do?

Magma round Bar -B- Que

Back in the civilized world we barbied a lot of tofu, veggie kabobs, and tempeh. Out here we have used it to make grill bread, and pizzas that are exactly like wood fired ones at those expensive pizza joints! It lost its guts overboard on the beginning of the cruise and they had to be replaced in Sydney BC, Canada, however that was not really the Bar-b-ques fault. When we first got the unit it came with ceramic inserts for heat diffusion, these broke in half and rattled unmercifully. We called Magma, and they replaced them without cost or hassle. Good customer service!

1979 Johnson 4.5 horse Outboard

Mr Johnson runs wonderfully! One of the best outboards that I have ever been around. We use it mostly when in busy places and when we have large distances to travel frequently with the dinghy. Such as in Papeete, Tahiti or Nanaimo, BC. Other than that I have a really nice pair of 11 foot sweep oars that we row around with.

Gig Harbor Boat Works 10 Foot hard Dinghy

Often we can have our hard dinghy over the side, and have rowed to the shore before other boats have their deflatable dinghies out of the lazarettes, let alone pumped up. The down side to this combination is that the hard dinghy does not plane, so we are slower on long runs than other boats around us. The only time that this has been an issue is when we are going scuba diving. We can carry all of our gear in the hard dingy and even dive out of it, getting in and out took some thinking about the first time, but really is not much harder than getting in and out of an inflatable. (Melissa thinks that if you are snorkeling it is easier to get in the hard dingy than in inflatables.)

The dinghy itself was way overpriced and I would not purchase that brand again. The initial manufacturing defects were so great as to require that the first dinghy be completely replaced. The factory's insistence that they were not responsible for transportation forced us to rent a car to drop it off and rent another car to pick up the new one. This lack of customer service alone would rule it out as a brand were I to purchase another hard dinghy.

Aquapro Hypalon 10 foot Rigid Inflatable Boat.

We purchased this Dingy in New Zealand after we had gotten into diving heavily. Had we not gotten into diving as much as we have, our hard dingy would have been quite sufficient for our cruising needs. So far this unit is functioning well. We only believe in Hypalon, PVC is a false economy, saving you 1/2 the cost of the dingy, but with only 25% of the life expectancy. It does everything that we have asked of it so far, namely planes with 2 people and two full sets of dive gear in it.

Unknown Vintage Nissan (Tihatsu) 18 horse outboard.

This was a purchase we made when we got the inflatable dink. It was a good deal, used from a cruiser who recieved it installed on a 12 foot hard dingy! After a couple of weeks worth of work it actualy would run. A new carburator later and it now runs right. It is by far the ugliest and noisest outboard in the harbor. We don't complain after all a 18 horse for about $75.00US is not a bad deal, and it is now very reliable. Would never buy one of these new, would rather have a Mercury, or maybe a Yahama.

Maxxima (Ancient 1973 vintage) marine Stereo System, with a new Sony CD changer hooked in through the tuner box!

Tunes, Tunes and More Tunes. We like our music on Pneuma. It works,-- is it the best? No probably not, and frequently we wish that we had a nice sub woofer, but being on a budget we listen to what we have and enjoy it all the same.

Furuno 1720 Radar

This is an older CRT model that serves us wonderfully. Other than a belt that popped off just outside of San Francisco the unit has performed flawlessly. We like it a lot better and find it a lot easier to read than the newer LCD versions. The amazing thing is that it draws the same amount of power as a newer LCD version, about 4 amps when it is in display mode.

Pfaff 130 Sewing Machine

Another classic piece of gear. This one was built before we were born, and continues to provide wonderful service, sewing everything from our sails (Although it does at times take some fiddling to get it to go through 6 layers of 8 oz sail cloth). It also sews cloths that we have made along the way, or had to repair as they wear out. It has sewn all of the canvas aboard the boat with the exception of the dodger, which I rented a commercial machine to do.

A 5 horse Shop-Vac Vacuum cleaner

Shop Vac makes a quality product, it cleans the bilge when we are at a dock and have unlimited power, and vacuums up a 25 pound bag of rice when it falls down the companionway and spills all over the cabin sole. Takes about 70 amps to run on the inverter, but when you need it there is nothing to compare with the power of a Shop-Vac.

Davis Automatic Anchor Light

Worked well for about a year, then packed it in. Lots of people have had a lot of problems with them. We exchanged it in New Zealand for a new one in July of 2002, so far the new one is working well. Time will tell.

Hewlett Packard 810C Printer

HP simply makes the best printers on the market. It is a little big for most boats, but we had a space that was completely unusable for anything else, so we made a shelf for it, and it lives there wonderfully. The marine environment is the toughest there is and it keeps printing weather faxes, chartlets, Shakespeare, and of course the articles that we write, so that we can proof them better.

A Umax 1200 DPI Flatbed Scanner

We scan most of the documents that we get from the check in process in the different countries that we have been in. It is a simple method of storage, and allows us to print copies when there is no copy center around to get them at. It also allows us to get our 35mm pictures into this web site so that you can see them.

Signet wind instruments, broken twice over ,still broken!

Shit, there is nothing else to say about these things. For the exorbitant price that they get to either purchase them or to fix them, one would think that they would work for more than a few months. Would not buy anything made by these folks again.

1980 Autohelm 6000 Autopilot

It works a lot better than I thought it would. However we have had to replace the plastic parts with brass ones. It frequently requires repairs, and generaly is not to be trusted. It is not a robust autopilot. It does do the job most of the time. Can't handle the boat if it is at all overpowered under sail. We mostly use it when we are motoring. If money was more plentiful I would have installed an Alpha or a WH autopilot. I have installed several of both in other boats, and found both brands to be wonderful. WH would be my preference, as they have much better customer service.

Monitor Windvane

HMMM. This is a tough one to write about. It almost works all of the time. It will only steer the boat if it is underpowered, and trimmed for neutral or a slight bit of lee helm. It has steered for at least 6000 miles. We use it a lot, and swear at getting everything just the way that it wants it so that it will steer. I vacillate a lot on weather I would purchase one again or just put a really good autopilot instead. It will always by the way that it works, steer an S shaped course; it won't sail the boat if she is perfectly tuned for speed, and if the boat should catch a gust or a wave that pushes her around it won't compensate quickly enough, and requires that you steer the boat back onto the course and then set everything up again. Lot of the cruisers out here have had significant problems with the welds on their units, something that Scanmar has been quick to send replacement parts for in most cases, but it is still a huge hassle waiting for and getting replacement parts through customs in far off countries.

In June of 2002 I had the opertunity to take Jemima a boat with an almost identical underbody to Pneumas from New Zealand to Tonga. Having just completed the installation of a Cape Horn Wind vane on Jemima we used it extensively on the trip. I found the Cape Horn to be superior in all respects to the Monitor. It was easier to adjust course, steered a straighter course, was less sensitive to balance issues, delivered more power to the streering aparatus, looked neater, and was much simpler in operation and construction.

Small Autohelm Autopilot to drive Monitor in Magnetic Mode

This is a small Autohelm autopilot designed for a small tiller boat, that I have hooked to the input of the monitor as a way to correct some of the monitors shortcomings in steering a straight course, and light wind performance. It is a good modification, and since the little autopilot sees no loads in this manner, it does well. Also helpful is to put an off road truck shock boot over the exposed section of the ram on the unit, to keep the water out of it. They are notoriously not waterproof.

5 Mag Instruments Co. Mag Lights (Why can't all gear be as good as their products?)

Heaven would be a place where all of your gear works as well as your Mag light! One of the units used to be in my 1977 Ford Bronco. It fell out of the window with some help from a passenger when going down the freeway at about 50 miles per hour. I watched it bounce on the pavement about 5 times in the rearview mirror, then went back to pick up the "garbage". The unit looked fine, although dented, so I put a new bulb and new batteries in it, and voila! it worked like new. I still use it almost daily on the boat. Now if only MAG made wind instruments!

Anchorman 1200 Windlass from Simpson Lawerence.

A good unit, make sure that if you go cruising that you service the unit completely no less than once a month Take spare O rings and spare circlips. The circlips are not stainless, and need to be replaced at about that interval. Get a unit that is at least two sizes up from any of the Simpson Lawrence recommendations. It does a lot of work on our boat, where we have anchored almost daily since leave Seattle in June of 1999.

Cruising Equipment Link 2000R Electrical Monitoring System

A mixed bag. Better than anything else that is out there, but I had to send it back in twice to get one that worked right in the beginning. I would buy one again but make sure that you have time to run it and make sure that it functions correctly. Knowing how much you have taken out of the batteries helps keep the batteries in better condition, making them last longer, and eliminates a lot of guesswork on when to charge.

Kodak 280 Zoom Digital Camera

Digital Photography is wonderful, even if it is not as quality as 35 MM. There is no damage to the photos at the processor, and you get the immediate feedback needed to make sure that your picture is exactly like you wanted it to be.

Numerous 35 MM Film Cameras

I like photography and have been doing it for a long time. I have gone to taking almost all pictures digitally when we are out of the major countries of the world as development of film is very expensive and of poor quality in most places. However that said, all of our underwater pictures are still 35mm, and our shots that are artistic are still taken with 35 mm.

540 Amp hours of East Penn Manufacturing Company Gel Cell Batteries

Gel Cells charge quicker than flooded electrolyte batteries, last longer, and provide more amp hours for the size. They also do not off gas, do not need to be equalized, and require no maintenance They also cost about 2 or 3 times the amount of equivalent flooded batteries. Mine live in a space that they just fit into, and would be impossible to place them in if they were wet batteries, as there would be no way to check the electrolyte level. If you have a good place to put a good set of flooded batteries, they provide a much better economy than the Gel Cells. East Penn manufacturing makes a wonderful battery, and we have had wonderful performance from ours. Highly recommended if your installation requires a sealed battery.

2 --75 Watt Siemans Solar Panels

Something that works when you are not thinking about it, silently without any problems. I wish that they were smaller, or that we had more space to put more of them. Work wonderfully, live on top of the dodger, generates enough power to keep up with everything but the refrigerator on sunny days.

Stevens Engineering Custom hard top, soft sided dodger

I built this and I love it. A composite cored hard dodger that supports the solar panels, keeps the winds and rain off of the helmsperson. It works great, lasts a lot longer than a canvas topped dodger, and most people never notice that it is a hard topped dodger. Lots of boats that never leave the dock, or cruise only the average 7 days a year care more for aesthetics than they do functionality of a dodger. Our is bit on the large side for aesthetics, but on a number of occasions we have been at the helm in a full gale, and never gotten wet! It makes even the poor weather days comfortable. So the little that we trade off in aesthetics is more than made up for in our opinion by the comfort that we receive when we are at the helm.

8 Alpenglow Lamps.

Good stuff here. Very Expensive! These were on the boat when we bought it, and should I ever purchase another boat, I would install them on it. They are mostly RF friendly only getting into the radios on certain frequencies, draw less than an amp each even on high power, and the bulbs last a long time with a great warm light.

2 20lbs Propane tanks

Gotta cook, ours are aluminum horizontal ones. The aluminum ones are expensive, and with the federal government's stupidity in propane legislation have become unfillable back at home. Ours have worked perfectly and been filled by attendants from Canada to illiterate Tahitians, never have blown up, or caused any injury to anyone. Maybe people in other parts of the world are smarter than the propane fillers in the US?

72 Gallons of usable Diesel Tankage including 12 gallons in Jerry jugs lashed into the cockpit

More is always better but it weighs a lot and takes up a lot of storage space. I would go with he same amount again!

Garhauer Blocks, lots of them

Guido Garhauer rocks. His gear is awesome, every piece that we have functions well. In the rigging work that I do I highly recomend and sell his products. He stands behind his products, and provides great customer service. Occasionaly he gets a little snowed under, and takes time to get the gear to you, but it is always worth the extra wait. His adjustable Genoa cars are nothing short of miraculous!! You would think you would have to pay extra for this level of Quality, but you would be wrong, Garhauer's gear is frequently less than 1/2 the price of other brands!! GO Guido!!!

120% Roller Furling Foresail

I am not a big fan of roller furling. However on a short handed cruising sailboat it does make sense to have something that can be quickly and easily doused from the cockpit. In addition to a forestay (Note that what most people call the inner forestay is technically referred to as a forestay, and that the one referred to as a forestay on most boats should technically be referred to as a jibstay.) With a staysail we have a lot of flexibility and the ability to easily reduced sail. Our roller furling unit is a ProFurl. It has performed well after overcoming a number of problems caused by faulty installation instructions and the failure of the threadlocking compound sent with the unit on the little screws which hold the sections of the extrusions together. The Shaefer unit looks to be a superior unit in a number of ways, but is the most expensive on the market. I would purchase a ProFurl again. Tom at the Florida outpost of ProFurl guaranteed that I would never have any problems with mine and went so far as to bet me a case of beer that I would not. Less than two weeks later I had to climb the mast and tighten all of the set screws holding the extrusions together. This was a big pain in the ass and somewhat risky as the sail would not go up or down at this point and was flopping wildly in 20 knots of wind. So if you see Tom tell him that he still owes me a case of Henry Winehards Root Beer.

170% Foresail
Spinnaker

Most people that go cruising plan well for really heavy weather, but forget that most of the time they are going to be sailing in light airs. Take some sails that will push you along when the wind is less than 10 knots too!
With more money avaiable I would have a nice asymetrical spinnaker.

Cruising Full Batten Main by Triton Sails in Toronto Canada

Joe Fernandaz does a wonderful job at making sails. His family has been making them for over 400 years, going back to Portugal. Maybe they even made the sails for Christopher Columbus? Joe says he doesn't have records back that far.

Sobstad Genesis Full Battened "racing" Main

Not a good cruising sail, not as robust as necessary for the day after day sailing that one does, but it does drive the boat nicely, and provides a good spare to put up while we are fixing the wear and tear on the cruising main.

100% Staysail, with reef points, by Triton Sails Toronto Canada

We have flown this sail a bit, it goes up when the 120% becomes too big. It does a wonderful job of driving us along without any loss in pointing ability. It has been reefed once, generally it just takes up room in the bottom of one of the cavernous lazarettes that we have aboard Pneuma. I would never leave without it, yet am glad that I have had so little use for it so far.
I asked Joe to build this sail extra tough, and he understood. When leaving New Zealand the staysail stay broke and the luff of this sail ended taking quite a load, sail shape does not seem to have suffered, I was sure that it was destined for the rubish bin after the incident, but it does not seem to have been much changed!

TNT Staysail (Known as the Handkerchief) Stowed in the Lazarette

This is a tiny staysail; if we ever need to use it we are probably in weather we don't want to be out in. It is made out of 12 or 14 oz dacron, and would just fit into a large milk crate when folded. It also works wonderfully as a riding sail when we are on the parachute sea anchor.

Parachute Sea Anchor

Tried it out once on a 20+ knot day it worked well. Rigged and ready to go.Then we had to use it off of the coast of New Zealand both coming and going. It worked wonderfully.

Parachute Drogue

Never tried it out, hope never to use it. Looks like it could take quite a bit of force and do its job.

278 Feet of 5/16th High Test Anchor Chain

About perfect for everywhere that we have been so far. The right amount; more would be too heavy in the bows, less would limit where and how we could anchor. Make sure that you rig your boat with high test anchor chain. The extra expense is minor, and the strength is double. Don't spare the expense when it comes to anchoring. It is some of the best insurance that you can buy, and helps you sleep a lot better when the wind picks up.

A Complete Offshore medical kit

Have used very little out of it, and are thankful of that. Mostly some stuff for sunburn, a couple of antibiotics for small infections, and some of the topical disinfectants. There is a lot in this case however for everything from the minor to the major medical crisis that might occur on board. Hope that it remains as little used as it has been for the entire trip.

Three smaller first aid kits

2 Synergy Systems Backpacks. (Function as well as the Mag lights!)

These are great! We use them for hauling anything back and forth from the he boat to town, as well as backpacking trips. I have done quite a bit of backpacking with various backpacks. These are better than anything else that has ever been made. The company is unfortunately out of business, although Sport Townsend in Port Townsend still has some of the last of the stock. We find them much better than carts, or canvas bags for getting stuff to and from the boat!

1978 Uniden VHF Radio

Uniden is not normally my favorite radio company (Icom is), however this radio is ancient, and works wonderfully. It has a great receive, frequently allowing me to communicate while others in the anchorage can't even hear the boats calling!

Tons of fun Music on CD and Cassette

You gotta have tunes! Buffet is a must! And 81/2 Souveniers. And Disco Fever. And Slim Shady....and and and...

Various Musical instruments that neither of us can play!

Well, Melissa can play the keyboard when she sets her mind to it. I am a rhythmically challenged white boy!

Garmin 45 Gps (this one worked perfectly for 5 years util it got splashed with water and quit). Silly me did not realize that I should have sent it to Garmin for repair or 1/2 off on a new one, so I tossed it in Tonga.
Garmin 12XL GPS
Astra III-B Metal Sextant
Nav 1000 Plus Magellan GPs
Magellan GPs 3000

Gotta know where you are so that you can avoid the crunchy parts! All of this gets used, yep even the sextant. Doing a sight here and there keeps you ready for the time that you might not have batteries and ties you to the past of all the ancient mariners that have done the exact same thing since the beginning of time.

Various Digital Charting Programs

Fun toys but none of the software out there is robust enough or easy enough to use to put your life on the line with. Most of it is still buggy and crashes when you would most need it.

About 70 LBS of paper Charts to get us from Seattle to New Zealand about 20 lbs more to Australia!

Gotta know where the crunchy parts are so that you can avoid them!

Clocks and Watches

Some very accurate and rated so that they can be used for celestial navigation some that just bang around on our wrists occasionally, some that are for diving etc. Two alarm clocks. Melissa's watch, a Timex Expedition, keeps the best time.

2 Barometers One standard brass boat type, and one charting.

Still the most useful piece of weather forecasting gear on the boat. Get one of the newer ones that records electronically over a period of a week. It gives you more data with less effort than the older style. However if you already own one of the older style, then remember to record the readings with every log entry.

About a dozen Compasses

Ranging from the binnacle compass to hand held bearing compasses, don't drop them, keep them safe, clean and they will get you in and out of places safely and efficiently. Amazing considering they are a prehistoric device ahy? Still more accurate than you can steer even a small boat.

Nikon 7 X 50 Binoculars

Almost as important as the compasses. Lets you get a good look at something without having to get too close to it. Also a lot of fun to try and figure out what species of bird has been fouling the deck for the last few days :-) !

Wabasto Forced air heating system

A bit finicky, but it works; ours is undersized for the boat, it was there when we bought her though, and works so there is no need to replace it. I have installed several hot water systems using boilers designed for Tractor trailer rigs, and would recommend them over the forced air.

Red Dot, engine heat heating system

Works well when the engine is on. You could easily make one of your own for a lot less using a car heater core, and a computer fan. Look in the local junk yard for the heater core, the local surplus electronics store for a fan. a little heater hose, a valve and a T and you have heat whenever you are running the engine on the boat.

Books lots of them

You have time to read out here. Time to think and time to expand your mind. Make sure that you bring good books, not just entertainment, but books that you can learn from and that are going to expand your mind.

American Practical Navigator 1962 Version, (Also Knows as Bowditch)

Actually contains all the info you need for small boat navigation unlike the newer versions that have most of the tables removed! Pick up a used copy previous to the spilt into two volumes, I have copies going back to 1932. The older versions have a lot of information in them which the editors felt was supplanted by technology. The amount of data available to you at your fingertips in this volume is unbelievable. If only they used a different material for the cover that was less prone to molding!

Various hand held Calculators

Monetary conversions, budget figuring, navigation checking, and the like. After all how many liters of fuel do you need, how many gallons?

Sea Freeze 12 volt refrigerator

Works well when at anchor, at the dock, or on a passage, little maintanance required. The way to go for most small boats.

Stevens Engineering engine driven refrigerator

Another product of my installation and design. Works well if you have to motor long distances. Requires more maintanence than a 12 volt version. Cools faster when the main engine is running. Would not have installed it if refrigeration were not one of the areas that I work in.

Lots of fun stuff to cook with
Lots of fun stuff to cook, well most of the time anyway! (A little less after being out for 6 months!)

People require food to live. We like to have fun with it. We cook better than most people cook on land in their homes with a lot less space. It is something that we like. We like to cook and we like to eat good food.

Crewsaver inflatable life jackets, 4 of them

We always wear our PFDs when the boat is underway. It makes sense to have something that you are going to wear and wear it. You never know when you are going to fall overboard, you are a lot easier to find with a PFD on and you are more likely to survive the incident. Our PFDs also contain harnesses which keep us hooked to the boat when we are sailing at night or blue water sailing.

Million candle power 12 volt spot light

Some times you need to shed a little light on the subject! (OK a lot of light in this case.) It really is helpful if you ever find yourself looking for somethin gin the dark. Crew overboard, markers, other boats etc.

Lavac Manual Head

(I will never own any marine head but this one ever again! It is awesome!) Almost as good as a Mag light! We have had 5 brands of head on the boat since we bought it, there is no reason not to have a Lavac. Buy one and forget about it. We got tired of the "shitty" job of rebuilding all the rest of them, so we bought a Lavac.

Plamona Propane water heater

They won't sell these to you if they know that you are going to install them on a boat. Ours came with the boat, works well when we use it, (Rarely, we prefer to heat water on the stove, as it takes less water as there is no cold water to get out of the all of the hoses).

Down the Hatch wind scoop

You have to have a windscoop to cruise the tropics, simple. We tried several different brands, the one from West Marine proved to be the best and last the longest.

Stevens Engineering Breeze Enhancer Mushroom wind scoop (Still in field testing and refining stages of Development!)

It works great, but sometimes falls over with a loud bang, stability issues remain to be solved, then I'll probably write and article on how to make one. :-)

Lots of tools to fix the things that break continuously, on our boat and other peoples

Take all of the tools with you that you need. That way even if you are a little shy on the knowledge of how to fix things, you at least have the tools when someone comes to help you with it. Without the tools you are going to have trouble fixing anything. I think that tools are probably some of the most important things on Pneuma, they have a storage area that reflects that. Buy good tools don't get cheap stuff, tools are not the place to economize. A broken tool won't help you solve a problem, and can cost you a lot more than the money that you saved buying an inferior tool.