The Wind at Our Back

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 huge relief. The plan now is to put it to good use—we're going to have a BBQ and eat as much of the food as we can before we get to Australia, so we don't have to surrender it to Biosecurity. It's a win-win situation.

Everything is holding up well, and we're making excellent progress. We'll be able to enjoy the last few days in even more comfort with full a full belly!

Arrival in Sydney: Delivery Complete!

This morning, the Excess 14 slid gracefully into her new berth at Middle Harbour Marina, marking the successful completion of her delivery from the Gold Coast. The final approach into Sydney Harbour is always a great sight, a fitting end to a coastal voyage. This passage was a comprehensive real-world test of the boat's capabilities. She proved to be a joy in light airs, demonstrated strength and stability in heavy weather, and showed impressive maneuverability during a tricky docking. It’s clear that the Excess 14 is a versatile and robust catamaran, perfectly suited for everything the Australian coast can throw at it. The final tasks onboard are ones of quiet satisfaction: coiling the lines perfectly, writing up the final log entry, and giving the boat a last clean and polish. For Yacht Delivery Solutions, it's a pleasure and a privilege to deliver a vessel of this quality. Handing her over to the brokers at Flagstaff Marine clean, secure, and ready for her new owners is t...

Done and Dusted in Brisbane!

We are done! The boat's tied up safe and sound in the marina, the crew has packed their bags and headed off, and I'm here doing the final clean-up before I leave at 6 am tomorrow morning. I have to admit, I was pretty anxious for the last 24 hours. I was on the edge of my seat, hoping those saildrives would hold out for the final stretch. I even changed the oil in both of them around 3 am, because we were going to make landfall around 5 am and its quite a way up the river, and the tide was going to be dropping as we went up, meaning they'd have a bit more work to do. And the final approach was definitely… engaging. There was a fair bit of tide coming out of the river, which dropped our boat speed down to around 4 knots. We also had the added obstacle of river traffic to contend with, and the channel margins were tight – about half a meter on either side. It was one of those situations where you're constantly running through scenarios in your head. I was thinking things ...

Last 24hrs

This is our last full day and night at sea. Tomorrow, we'll be tied up in the marina in Tahiti , and I'll be turning off the engines for the last time. The main and headsail will be dropped and stowed away, and I won't be touching the sheets or halyards again. It feels peculiar to think that Namarie and I have kept each other safe throughout this incredible journey, and in a few days, I'll be on a plane heading home. On this yacht delivery Namarie and I started in the Bay of Biscay and headed south into the Atlantic, getting to know each other along the way. We made a brief stop in the Canary Islands, our last contact with Europe before heading further south and leaving footprints in the red dust of Cape Verde. We left West Africa behind and headed further west across the Atlantic, dodging hurricanes and grabbing fuel and provisions in the southern end of the Caribbean. From there, we pushed onwards through the Caribbean Sea to Panama and the canal. Pretty soon after, ...

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