Yacht Delivery Blog

You may have noticed a significant decrease in our speed. This is because we've encountered completely flat calm conditions with only the occasional gust of 4 knots of breeze. So, while we're still heading in the right direction, it's not as fast as I'd like. We're passing right by Port Vila, and it's quite tempting to stop in for some fuel. We filled up with extra in Fiji before we left, but the GRIB files are showing several days of calm across the Coral Sea next week, and it would be nice to keep moving. I'll see how I feel later. We sent our advance notification of arrival to Port Vila yesterday just in case – this is one of the fantastic things about Starlink and having internet access on board. Not long ago, it would have been impossible to tell the authorities you were going to arrive, and there would have been some explaining to do as they find it hard to understand why you might need to unexpectedly pull in. And it's much easier to explain to t...

The sea is like a giant, oily mirror today and there is no wind at all. There’s a strange kind of beauty to it, though. Although this is exactly what was forecast, it's a shame that we have to burn diesel instead of sailing but instead of reefing sails we change the engines over every 6 hours. That said, there’s something undeniably peaceful about these calm conditions. It's also the first morning I haven't needed to wear socks, so the temperature is definitely on the rise. The tasks for the day will be testing the water maker and pumping fuel from the spare tank to the main tank.  We still have 425 nautical miles to go to Port Vila and we're hoping to get there on Tuesday afternoon. Once we arrive, we can get cleared in and go straight to the dock and start preparing to leave which is the general status of delivery crew. 

The last 24 hours have seen us chasing the wind. If our tracker looks as though I’ve been trying to write my name in the water, now you know why. Typically, a few knots of wind from behind gradually pick up to almost a sailing breeze so we get the sails up. Then the breeze will either drop off or even worse start shifting further south. For us to keep the apparent wind speed up, we have to follow it around until we are so far off course it’s quicker to motor the right way. According to the GRIBs , we will be moving into pretty much zero wind and then we will carry on to Port Vila with the area of no wind following us for the last few hundred nautical miles. Of course, it’s definitely better than too much breeze or headwinds. All is well on board and even though there are only 39 cheese burgers left moral remains high.