Yacht Delivery Blog

Location: Nearing the Gold Coast, Australia The finish line is finally within sight! After a long journey, we expect to be in Southport around 1300 on Saturday. It’s a huge relief to know we're on the final leg and will soon be  in Australia. The weather has decided to go back to being a bit grey and overcast, but we're not complaining. The wind is light and from the east, so the motion is smooth and the miles are still getting chewed up at a good pace. It's a comfortable ride, and that's all that matters at this point. The fuel transfer from the bladder in the cockpit to the main tank went off without a hitch. The best part? We had a fantastic BBQ on the back deck with all the new space. It felt great to have the cockpit back to ourselves. We've got another BBQ planned for later today to make sure we work our way through the remaining supplies. No point in letting Australian biosecurity have a field day with all our food! All the final preparations are in place. Th...

  The weather has shown a welcome change in our favour over the last 24 hours. The wind has gradually swung around to come from right behind us, and it's picked up a little to around 15 knots. With the wind and waves now giving us a nice little push, we’ve been able to ease the RPM down slightly while still holding our speed, and we're burning just over 25 litres per hour. We've also picked up a favourable current of about 1 knot, which is a fantastic bonus. That's a steady 24 extra nautical miles every single day for free. When you're on a long passage, every little bit of efficiency counts. The conditions settling down has also meant we could finally tackle a big job: transferring the 2,000 litres of fuel from the bladder we had in the cockpit into the main fuel tank. This has a couple of big benefits. It gets that significant weight down low and central in the boat, which improves stability, and it also frees up the entire cockpit. The newly-opened space is a hug...

Day 4  The passage has hit a huge milestone. Sometime around 0200 this morning, we passed under the southern tip of New Caledonia, and it felt great to be able to make the turn westwards. This feels like the start of the final run to Southport. With the new course, the grey, lumpy skies of the last few days have been replaced by sunshine and a beautiful blue sky. The wind has shifted to come from the southeast, and the uncomfortable pitching we were dealing with is now just a slow, gentle roll. The boat is so much more comfortable, and it's a huge relief. One of the great things about a boat like this, compared to sailing, is that the majority of the day is spent on preventative maintenance checks. You don't have to deal with winching sheets, trimming headsails, or reefing in a hurry, which is great for me but maybe not so great for an interesting blog! On the bureaucracy front, the majority of our clearance paperwork for the Australian Border Force has been submitted. There ar...

  The wind has held steady around 15 knots today, and the sea is still pretty lumpy. It's a bit of a messy chop, and while it's nothing 'Tugnacious' can't handle, it does make for a slightly more uncomfortable ride. You have to brace yourself a bit more when walking around the boat, and we've had to make sure everything is properly stowed to stop things from sliding around. It's been a completely grey day, the kind where the sky and the sea just blend into each other. There’s no sun, just a flat, overcast horizon. It makes for a less scenic view, but it's a good day for getting into the rhythm of the passage. We've all settled into our watch schedule, keeping an eye on the systems and the horizon. Life on board is ticking along as it should. The boat is just chugging along, doing exactly what she was designed to do—handle these kinds of conditions with ease. Everyone is in good spirits, and we're all looking forward to the next stage of the trip ...

  Date: September 14, 2025 Location: West of Fiji, heading toward New Caledonia The first night at sea was exactly what you hope for on a passage like this: calm and uneventful. The big, slow swell of the Pacific passed gently beneath us, and Tugnacious, the Nordhavn 76, just kept on plodding along, holding her course beautifully. It’s always a good sign when the boat feels this comfortable in her element. The weather forecast we got before we left was a bit of a fib, but in the best way possible. It had predicted a bit of a headwind that would slow us down, but it seems to have overestimated the wind speed. We're maintaining a great pace, sitting comfortably at 7 to 7.5 knots and only burning about 27 litres per hour . It's fantastic to see the boat performing so efficiently. As we were heading out, it was a busy little highway out there. We saw a few container ships and a handful of other yachts all departing Fiji. I even heard one of the yachts on the radio talking to custo...

Location: Departing Denarau, Fiji And so it begins! The journey from Fiji to Southport is officially underway. I arrived in Fiji yesterday and had a fantastic handover from Karl, the boat's owner. It was a proper, detailed session, which is always a treat and makes the whole process so much smoother. It's rare to get a handover at all so that level of thoroughness was a huge help and saved a lot of time, and I'm very grateful for it—it makes a huge difference to a delivery skipper. This morning was all about final preparations. We filled the tanks with a massive 15,000 litres of duty-free fuel. By midday, customs and immigration were on board to complete the paperwork, and with their stamp of approval, we were good to go. The moment you first take the helm of a new boat is always a mix of excitement and a little bit of nerves. No matter how much you've been briefed, you're never quite sure how she'll handle. Will she respond to the helm? How will she behave in t...