Yacht Delivery Blog

Merry Christmas everyone! Well, it's Christmas Day, and we're still out here pushing forwards. We can see a little sliver of land on the horizon right in front of us, which is exciting! We have to go around the bottom of a small island, then up a channel before turning right over the top of a larger island and into Tual. It's not looking very likely that we'll get there before dark, and heading into an unfamiliar Asian port at night is definitely not a good idea. So I'll need to come up with a Plan B for tonight.  If you're looking at our track, you'll see there's been a big change in direction. This recent change is a lot more positive than the changes of the last 10 days, which have all been in mostly the wrong direction! And even if they were in the right direction, it was only just!  This change is because the wind died off almost completely – as forecast – and we're now motoring in exactly the right way albeit slowly. Luckily it appears the...

Well, we're on the move again after a brief but necessary stop to fix the generator. We weren't supposed to stop anywhere before reaching the clearance port and checking in with the authorities, but we got special permission to drop anchor as long as we stayed on the boat. Not that we were tempted to go ashore – we were too busy with repairs, and honestly, one island starts to look much like another after a while! The repair job was a bit of a "make-do" situation with the limited supplies we have onboard. I think I did a decent job considering what I had to work with, but fingers crossed it holds up! We ran some tests last night, and things were looking okay after a bit of fine-tuning once the generator cooled down. Our current plan is to clear into Tual. A quick Google Maps search shows several hardware stores and what look like some engineering workshops. Depending on how our recent patch job is holding up, I have a few ideas for improving it. It's a tricky ...

We finally popped out of the end of the Torres Strait! I'm so pleased to have that part of the trip over – it feels like a huge milestone is behind us. For the last week, the weather models have been showing we'll get wind "in 2 days," but then the next day the wind is still 2 days away. So I was very encouraged as we stuck our nose into the Arafura Sea and felt a tickle on my face. We got the mainsail up, and the tickle remained, but not from the same direction! We've been chasing the breeze around ever since. We also had a lot of squalls blowing through last night, which kept us on our toes. The wind would shift and increase, then fade away, before increasing and shifting again. A bit of a wild ride! It appears that the sunrise is bringing light headwinds, which I'm not going to complain about at this stage. The big plus is that we're able to head directly where we want to go. And the bigger plus is we aren't burning any of our precious diesel.

The past 24 hours have been a bit slow. The wind has been practically nonexistent, and what little breeze there was came from directly behind us, so it was useless for sailing. I've been keeping an eye on the GRIBs, hoping to catch a break from a low-pressure system forming to the east. Last night, we got the occasional gust, but nothing strong enough to justify turning off the engine. This morning, there's finally a bit more wind—around 12 knots apparent—so we've hoisted the main and headsail and turned off the engine. We’re making about 6 knots, but we’re heading slightly west of our destination to keep the wind in our sails. And on a more serious note there are now only 39 cheeseburgers left.