Yacht Delivery Blog

Yesterday was a day of easy miles. We had a pretty consistent breeze that kept the boat speed up around 8+ knots. But then, around midnight, just as I came on watch, we got nailed by a huge squall! Thank goodness for a good radar! I saw the squall from several miles away and furled the headsail, bringing us up into the wind about 40 degrees hoping it would pass in front. But there was no missing it completely – luckily, we just caught the edge of it as it passed. I could tell what was going to happen as I got hit with an icy blast of wind and thought, "Hmmmmmm." As the wind started picking up to 25 knots, we dropped the mainsail, pulled out some headsail, and got back on track. We watched as the wind picked up to the mid to high 30s, and then we followed it around as it shifted from the north. It stayed gusty and rainy for a few hours. We finally got the mainsail back up at 4 am and are now back on track. The next leg of our journey takes us through the Torres Strait and in...

Yesterday was a fantastic day, a stark contrast to the first three quarters of the trip. The wind wasn't quite as strong as I would have liked during the night, but the sea was flat, the sky was completely clear, and Venus was shining brightly during the sunset. As the sunset progressed and evening set in, all the other stars appeared, with Orion behind us and the Milky Way, the galaxy we are in, sparkling across the sky. Late yesterday morning, we decided to pull up the gennaker, even though it seemed like we were tempting fate after such a successful day. The sock isn't long enough to contain the gennaker, which was already trying to escape. With everything set up and ready to go, Adam stood by on the sheet while I started to pull up the sock. (I am not sure what you call the fiberglass 'funnel' on the base of the sock but it has already been a problem and fell off a few times. I thought it had been fixed with several cable ties. It looks like a shoe horn so we will c...

We’ve made great time yesterday, with an average 24-hour run that will be over 150 nautical miles, I will need to check at midday. We had a nice breeze for most of the day, steadily sitting at around 7.5 knots with 12-14 knots of breeze on the beam. The wind died off during the evening, so we dropped the sails and carried on motoring. There were a lot of fishing boats last night, not compared to Asian standards, but we could see six or eight at once, which seems like a lot for the Pacific. Presumably, they're local boats from the Galapagos. They had no AIS or visible navigation lights other than large white lights they used for fishing. I woke up for my watch just before sunrise, and Adam handed over to me and went to bed. I did a quick check of the instruments and surroundings before putting the kettle on. I then followed with my usual morning routine of chanting internally “COME ON!!! WHYS IT TAKING SO LONG????!! HURRY UP!!!” while staring at the kettle. Standing in the galley lo...