Yacht Delivery Blog

Another day, another set of miles under our belt. Yesterday’s 24-hour run clocked in at 136 nautical miles, which, considering the conditions, I'm pretty happy with. It wasn't exactly a world record, but we made progress. The morning started off promisingly. The breeze picked up, and we had a good chunk of the day sailing along at a decent clip. It's always a good feeling to be moving under sail, especially when you’re making good time. Unfortunately, the wind decided to take an early afternoon nap around 3 PM, so we dropped the main and switched back to motoring, just on one engine to save fuel. Using 2 engines on a cat we typically go around 20 to 25% faster but use twice as much fuel so the pay off, especially at sea, isn't worth it. Then, around 5 PM, things got interesting. The sky to the east started to darken ominously, and before we knew it, we were engulfed by a massive squall. I'm talking 40 knots of wind and pouring rain. It was one of those moments where...

Well, yesterday turned out to be a pretty solid day on the water. We managed a respectable 146 nautical miles in 24 hours. Now, I'll be honest, we did get a bit of a push from one of the Yanmars to bump those numbers up. But hey, as long as we're heading in the right direction, I'm not complaining. Every mile counts, right? One of the more… creative projects we tackled yesterday was the stove situation. With the wind dead astern, it was blowing a lot of the heat away from the pot. And look, I love a good cup of coffee as much as the next sailor, but waiting an eternity for the water to boil?  I considered closing the saloon doors, but it’s just too hot. And firing up the generator just to get the air-con going, because the saloon door is closed? That felt a bit excessive. So, necessity being the mother of invention, we came up with a… let’s call it a "bespoke" wind shield. Picture this: an 8-liter water bottle, securely tied to the stove frame, with a large chopp...

Things are going smoothly, and we're settling into the watch routine. We're currently doing 4 hours off and 4 hours on, which is a bit of a change for me. I'm used to doing 3 on, 3 off. It's a tricky balance, really. Four hours is a long time to be sitting around on watch, especially when it's pitch black and all you can hear is the wind and the waves. But then again, it also means a fantastic amount of sleep. On the other hand, 3 hours on watch doesn't seem too bad, but you always feel like a bit of extra sleep would be amazing. Another option, of course, would be to have extra crew, but that changes the whole onboard dynamic. There would be five personalities to juggle, and things could get interesting! As it is, I have three personalities to manage, so the two crew hopefully would only have one each to deal with. I was on watch last night, and it was one of those incredibly clear nights, with a million stars blazing overhead. I was just scanning the horizon w...

The light winds haven't let up, so we're still motor sailing with just the headsail up. With the breeze right behind us, and the Yanmar ticking over at 1700rpm, we're managing about 125-135 nautical miles a day without having to stray too far off course. It's been so calm that when I saw 11 knots of wind this morning, I actually thought, 'Wow, it's getting windy!'. Every now and again, there's enough wind to turn off the engine. If there isn't enough wind, we put the headsail away, but as long as we're still pushing forward, I'm happy. There's a slight change of plans. We'll now be pulling into Samoa for fuel and water, and to assess the low-pressure system developing near Fiji around the 3rd. If the long-term forecast holds, we can leave Samoa and stay well north, bypassing Fiji and heading towards the northern part of Vanuatu. We'll then turn south as we get closer, likely stopping in Port Vila to prepare for the final leg, or S...

We finally left Raiatea. It's really a beautiful spot even with the few days of heavy rain we had, thanks to some passing low pressures. The rain gave us a chance to go through the boat, check the systems, and see what needed doing before we left. Sunsail were really helpful, which made things much easier. Everything went pretty smoothly until I noticed a mistake on our temporary Australian registration. It said our port of departure was New Caledonia, thousands of miles to the west. I could just picture the customs guys having a field day with that one. After the weeks of delays we had getting the boat papers in order I was a little nervous about another hiccup. Thankfully, a new one was sorted out fast, so no major delays. Of course, it’s cyclone season, so you expect a bit of iffy weather. But this chain of low-pressure systems stretching practically from the Coral Sea all the way east of us? That’s a bit much. And the weather models are showing another 'little bit of someth...