Yacht Delivery Blog

  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...

  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...

Well, it seems the wind gods are still having a good chuckle at our expense. No significant change in the wind to report, I'm afraid. It's still hovering around 10 knots and stubbornly parked right behind us. We did have a few moments of excitement yesterday when it decided to liven things up a bit. It picked up (and by "picked up," I mean it reached a dizzying 14 knots!) and shifted to the north - so from the side, giving us a nice little push in the right direction for about an hour. But, it was just a tease, and then it was back to the same old story. Last night, we almost had an "all hands on deck" situation. The wind seemed to be picking up, and we were ready to hoist the mainsail and make the most of it. But just as we were about to spring into action, the rain started, and the wind promptly died off completely.  So, yeah, not exactly the most thrilling blog update, or the recipe for a fast passage as I had planned. But hey, we're still moving ...

We cast off on time yesterday! A sea breeze was blowing as we hoisted the reefed mainsail and made our way towards the pass. We did a bit of a test sail and unfurled the headsail in the protected waters of the bay before heading out to the open sea. But as we reached open water, things were looking a bit "spicy," so we put in the second reef. We made good time heading west for a few hours at 8-10 knots, and, of course, I fell into my usual trap of calculating our arrival time (never a good idea!). Gradually, the wind started to increase and shift further east. Keeping our angle to the wind meant we were steadily heading further south, and as the wind started to pick up so we slowly started to furl the headsail as we went. By around 4 pm, the sky had darkened considerably, looking particularly ominous to the south. With the wind starting to gust to over 30 knots, we put in the third reef and gybed. With almost perfect timing, the wind eased right off, came around to the north,...

We're here in Fiji, eagerly awaiting our departure! We have a customs appointment at 10 am to finalize our clearance procedures. We arrived at Oxygen a few days ago and had the pleasure of a thorough handover from the boat's owner. This was a welcome surprise, as we're usually thrown right into the deep end! The weather forecast looks decent for the first 24 hours as we head west-ish, planning to sail slightly south of Vanuatu on our way to the Torres Strait. However, there's a developing disturbance near New Caledonia with heavy rain predicted. We're aiming to pass it on the north side to avoid the worst of it before continuing west over New Caledonia. Rhona did a frantic dash to the supermarkets yesterday and managed to return with everything we will need for the voyage. While she was gone we hung around off the fuel dock jostling for position with ferrys, water taxis, high speed tourist boats and unfortunately a cruise ship also decided to berth near by so it was...

In the beginning, there was the sea. A vast, endless expanse of blue that called to me with a siren’s song. I was just a young lad when I first felt the pull of the ocean. The lure of adventure and the promise of freedom were too strong to resist. So, I did what any sensible person with an insatiable thirst for adventure would do: I ran away to sea. My journey began with buying a copy of Bob Bonds ' Handbook of Sailing ' and then seizing every sailing opportunity that came my way. From small dinghies to large schooners, I sailed them all. Each voyage was a new lesson, a new experience that added to my growing knowledge and love for sailing. Then came the day when I bought my first boat, a 31ft beauty that was as stubborn and willful as the sea itself. Owning my own boat was a dream come true. It was my ticket to freedom, my passport to adventure. I spent as much time as possible hanging out with sailors, listening to their tales of high seas and distant shores. Their stories fu...