Yacht Delivery Blog

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, ...

We popped out the bottom of the Tuamotus late last night and now have a relatively clear run to Tahiti, aside from one more small island. The wind is directly behind us, but it's not quite strong enough for us to move as fast as I'd like, so we're using the engine to help our speed. Our estimated time of arrival (ETA) in Tahiti is very early Friday morning, so we'll sit off the coast for a few hours until daylight and then head in. Remember the old sailor's saying, "All the wrecks are on the rocks" and "Another night at sea never unalived anyone"? That advice holds true for navigating the pass into the marina area, which is definitely not a place to enter at night unless you were born there. This trip has been extraordinary, taking us on a journey that's probably only completed by a few hundred people a year. And almost non would do what we have done and sail so far in one go. It's around 4,600 nautical miles from Panama to Tahiti, and wh...

We saw land yesterday, which was extremely exciting. Another positive was that the land was exactly where it was supposed to be, which, of course, is a huge relief as it means everything is going according to plan. We are currently passing the next-to-last atoll and then have a small group of atolls to navigate between, namely Hikueru and Marokau, before heading south of Reitoru. This shouldn't be too challenging as the space between Hikueru and its neighbor is 15 nautical miles. But 15nm is only 7nm each side and if we are sailing at 7knts thats only an hour. During the night, the wind started to shift to the east. This meant we had to either head slightly south to keep the headsail full or drop the main. Since we were planning to go north of Amanu, heading further south wasn't an option. Therefore, we are sailing with just the headsail and still making good time. The sea remains quite choppy, and the sky is squally with patches of blue. Fingers crossed, the blue wins the batt...

Yesterday, we motored all day and most of the night in flat calm conditions. Then, at 2:57 AM, it was as if a wind switch was flipped, and the wind started blowing 35-40 knots. The wind angle is around 90 degrees, not quite as easterly as I expected. We had the deeply furled headsail up until now, and at 7:00 AM, the wind is slowly dropping to around 30 knots. When Adam gets up in a couple of hours, we'll pull up the reefed main and get this show on the road! I'm eagerly waiting for the GRIB s to be updated, but I don't expect the wind to go above 30 knots now. We've had one or two monstrous waves into the cockpit, but Namarie can handle it. It seems like Namarie and I have something in common: after the last 40-knot winds on our way to Panama, we both felt we had proven ourselves and didn't need to do it again. Yet, here we are. With years of experience in the yacht delivery industry, Yacht Delivery Solutions is your trusted partner for safe and reliable transpo...

As we make our way across the Pacific, it's hard not to reflect on the unpredictable nature of this journey. Last night we saw our first boat in weeks, and it came extremely  close, forcing us to change course by 30 degrees, and then its long line was almost directly across our path so we had to avoid that. Luckily the long line had a flashing LED on the end. With challenging weather ahead and a chain of atolls and reefs to navigate, I've decided to head slightly south to improve our position for the final leg of this 10,000-nautical mile trip. The southern end of the Tuamotus is a bit more spread out, and sailing slightly south will allow us to keep the wind further aft, giving us more options for our route as we bear away in a day or so when the forecast is showing a bit of a blow. While the electronics on board modern boats are fantastic and make my job much easier, they can also create a dangerous situation if something goes wrong. Not long ago, we relied on timing all arri...

We've been making great progress, which I suspect you can see on the tracker . I had hoped to smash the 180 nautical mile barrier in the last 24 hours. We managed 90 nautical miles in 12 hours, but the average dropped during the very early morning. Conditions are perfect, and we've picked up a solid southeast breeze hovering around 13 knots, giving us a great push in the right direction. The long-term weather forecast suggests we can expect to keep this breeze for at least the next ten days. It's completely overcast again this morning, but yesterday we started to see some blue skies and fluffy clouds, the kind of weather you'd expect with the trade winds . We're still seeing fishing boats from China and Korea, harvesting whatever they can from the rich waters of the Galapagos. And these aren't small boats – they're over 60 meters, so their appetite is huge.  We haven't had any splashes on deck, and there are only occasional whitecaps, so I had my hatch o...