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, ...

The swell and breeze have died down slightly, and we're now experiencing fairly consistent mid-to-high 20 knots over the deck. We were well on our way to the elusive 200-nautical mile a day run, having covered 50 nautical miles in 6 hours, but victory seems to have slipped through our fingers. We've only managed 96 nautical miles in 12 hours, and our average speed has dropped to a disappointing 7.6 knots. We're approaching the first atolls in the Tuamotus, and it's a toss-up at the moment whether we'll be able to see them. These atolls are incredibly low-lying, only a couple of feet above the water, with palm trees on top. I'd be happy to make a slight detour to sail past and take a look, but that decision will depend on the wind. I don't want to deviate from the wind by more than 120 degrees apparent. We still have 300 nautical miles to go to clear the Tuamotus, and then it's a straight run to Tahiti. Unfortunately, the forecast suggests we might be fla...

Now I'm under a personal gag order to avoid discussing the "watery wingsuiters." I've been racking my brain for a different topic, but it seems that once you've covered weather, waves, and oceanic aviators, there's not much else to write about. Yesterday, we put the clocks back another hour, so the sun was just lighting up the sky when I got up for my watch this morning. It's definitely a cheerier experience than waking up to pitch black until 7 AM. If we adjust the clocks again in a few days, Adam can also enjoy a sunrise, and we can arrive in Tahiti without being too out of sync with local time, and our body clocks won't be too disoriented. We spent yesterday motor sailing with light winds from around 120 degrees. We had the main, headsail, and a Volvo pushing us westwards with 10-14 knots of apparent wind. During the night, the wind died down to 8 knots apparent, so we dropped the main and continued with just the headsail until very early morning wh...

We had a great day sailing yesterday, with some very accommodating winds giving us a nice push. I was hoping to smash the 200 nautical mile a day barrier. We did 95 in 12 hours, but the wind eased off around 2 am, so I'm expecting our 24-hour run to be around 175 nautical miles. Not too shabby, but it would be nice to be cracking out 200 a day. I had a couple of near misses with flying fish last night. While I was standing in the cockpit, one came whizzing towards me, hit the coach roof, and shot past my ear. Another huge one crashed into the coaming below, giving me a huge fright right next to me. Other than that, I don't have much to report. I had left the clothes, a shirt, and shorts I jumped overboard in to soak in a bucket of water to get the salt out. Unfortunately, it was left right at the bottom of the steps into my cabin, and I stepped in it last night on my way to bed, soaking my only pair of socks. Things are warming up, but it's still not tropical, so a dry sock...