Kai is often quite funny. Niche humour.

Snowing on our boat! This has never happened before. The past two months doing boat work and far more insidious - boat work logistics has been hard work. Massive thanks to everyone who’s helped out. A pretty magical moment for the boys and Elayna but perhaps especially me today. 🥲 Incredible.

We are out of the water and have commenced work on the fwd beam area. The damage we can confirm now was all superficial as we suspected. The fairing piece has been cut away as you can see and no damage to where beam enters either main hull or float. Everyone is very happy but there is still much work to do. The fairing has arrived from Rapido and one of their contractors will arrive soon for installation.

Some much needed time off the boat. There will be a video coming out on the 21st explaining everything that happened. Working on that at the moment. Looking through here at everyone’s adventures is so beautiful.

It’s very rare I sit on my ass whilst my own boat makes it way through the water. This has happened… I honestly can’t remember when. I LOVE people who are good at their jobs. Kai is good at his job. Massive shout out to this guy, one of the best sailors I’ve ever met and just a pleasure to be around. He’s a good influence on the boat in general and also the kids who just think he’s so awesome as well. It’s been good switching off the brain and doing laptop work today. I got so much done! A lot of it for this app we’re in right here 🤓 Have an awesome day everyone.

Trying to use a 9 knot current to get our max boat speed so far, for the clicks brah for the clicks, and we may have been pushing a little hard. There were whirlpools that some onboard were genuinely worried would swallow us whole and a crunching upwind 1st to 2nd reef situation that required some patience and not a small amount of skill to get out of. We were hesitant to put in the second because we were so close to the downwind section of the trip but true wind kept climbing and climbing until we had no choice. So ofcourse right when it’s peaking to 30 I’m swinging off a line to set the reef hook. When it’s blowing 30 it’s hard to pull down a main and ours is quite large. Will look at rigging a downfu$&er for sure. There was adrenaline and a lot of people gathered by the helm/port windows at different points just watching the maelstrom the ocean poured forth today. Darwin slept the entire time. Lenny followed the vibe onboard and was just stoked really. Incredible day onboard for all.

Arose early with renewed vigour, somewhat of a pep in our collective step, and decided to head off before breakfast and before even coffee. With the current behind us our tacking angles were looking more like 70 degree gybes but I assure you the AWA was sub 30. Looking at the tracks made me personally nautically aroused as did the tall ship we took to starboard before, as happens far too often I’ve found whilst sailing, being unable to moor at our pre organised moorage. We radioed in and enquired if we could anchor at the anchorage seems as though we couldn’t moor at the moorage. Unfortunately that also was a no so we sailed south for 3 miles to a dock we heard we could dock at. This turned out to be ok and now we’re having lunch.

Well we’ve been launching this app and been kinda busy so I forgot to hit post on the last trip. Welcome everyone! 🙌🏼 Soo happy to have you all here 🥹

For months our goal has been to get to the “relative” safety of the Japanese Inland Sea (Seto). There’s still Typhoons everywhere but at least the Cold Fronts are keeping them at bay now. We filmed a lot of videos to promote this app. I really love Sea People, I hope it’s useful for sailors and water people everywhere. We’ve busting our ass day in and day out sailing, filming and exploring for the last couple of months. Importantly we actually had a fricking ball pulling it all together as well. Heading through Typhoon Alley in the middle of Typhoon season was wild. Not something to be taken on lightly. Special thanks to the incredible crew we have onboard, Ellie, Kai and Carine.

I’ve never seen so many fish from the boat. Even when the sea was rough there were so many Dorado chasing flying fish. They followed the boat for half the trip. All hard upwind today 12-18 with patches of 0-4 on the leeward side especially early on. Full main and Genoa with 1.5kw of power coming in from the oceanvolt most of the day.

Heading Nth again to run away from these Fytoons. 23 knots for a bit of the trip, such a fun sail. Still trying to figure out if this boat is for an amateur or not…???

The motoring to pulling and dropping anchor is really f$)&ing with my avg speed. But I’m like should I maximise for that or nm travelled…??? I think nm travelled will be the most important in the long run. This will be my logbook for sure and how I will boast when I’m a grandpa. Most recent trip. 15.7 knots with Elayna on the helm was the top speed of the day. All the “good” (professional) footage is on the big camera which we keep for YT so these are all just fun pics i take on the way.

We sailed from Kagoshima, past Kagoshima and found a nice small fishing port to tie off to on the tiny island of Kagoshima. 80+ nm in a single day without setting an alarm to wake up is becoming normal which is ridiculous. Then we hitched a ride to the local Onsen with a gentleman named Rick who said we could stay as long as we like.

Our Hurricane Hole. The only one for 350 miles.

Moved the boat to Subic Bay where we will be getting some work done for the next month before heading towards Japan. Really excited for that trip and everything it will bring to us. On this one both alternators stopped working, I jammed the windlass and needed to repair whilst drifting into the anchorage and had 28tws with full sail up blasting downwind which is not recommended but was really really fun single handed as the sun was setting before rounding an island to anchor in the leeward in something that didn’t resemble an anchorage before heading off again the next day.

I saw this collecting my miles after the first couple of days and decided to leave it for a week or so. A lot happens on the water sailing in that time. I’ve had a couple of mates on board and we’ve been having a ball. 🤙

Showing a couple of spritely young fellows the ropes onboard was quite fun!

I’ve somehow left my phone tracking which is great because each time I log onto Sea People I’ve a new track to post. It’s brilliant. We actually did a bit more than this today but it’s keeping a pretty good log especially since I forgot to push track today. Got the new staysail up, rigged, furled and then out again. Good to have that up our sleeve.

TL:DR we used just the main for the first 2/3rds of the trip. It went well. Left with 1 reef in the main. It was a bit uncomfortable onboard beating into short period waves and we didn’t want to go any faster. The jib would have overpowered us and I hadn’t set up the staysail yet so after a bit of head scratching I just said “why don’t we just leave it like this…???” Couldn’t point as high but we were doing 7-9 until the sea state settled and we unfurled the Genoa. The helm felt weird - like it was difficult to pull to leeward at times which was good to learn and see how it responded under those conditions.

Everything done by midday. Full sail, full water, full power. Oceanvolt is doing really well now. Need to tighten up the shrouds though. They’re wobbling around like spaghetti.🍝

Again a really nice sail. Beating into it for the first couple of hours in 20 knots with a couple of reefs in the main. Then in the afternoon a downwind run as we rounded the top of Palawan threading the needle between some outlying reefs on an island nearby the northern most point. Gusts to 20 (suspicious of my instruments) and some nice speeds overall. Very happy with the sail but most of all stoked for Elayna who is really getting the hang of reefing, helming etc. 🥲 What a legend.

Big day for everyone and the first really clear water we’ve seen in a long time. We dodged a squall with full main again which was fun, bombed up a reefs edge at 10 knots in the rain at like 20 AWA in the flattest water. Oh. And we dodged some pearl farms as well. 🤙

So good to have .8-1.5 kw coming in for most of the day. Made some water. Life is good.

Threw in a reef pretty much solo for fun to see if I could get it done and how I would get it done. Need to make sure the halyards height is lower before I jump in the bag. And I know what you’re thinking. Jump in the bag? Yes jump in the bag. What the sail bag? Yeah, for a reef. You’re jumping in the sail bag to take a reef? Yeah. It seems to be the fastest best way to get the reef hooks in. Sounds kinda funky Well I’m a funky kinda guy.

Had to motor to make power which means I need to make some adjustments onboard. The excuse I needed to not shower the kids.

8 knots with the headsail. Need more solar or to use less power onboard I don’t like motoring to make power.

Motored for 5 hours until the batteries were full. They accept quite a lot of juice. Sorry for rambling post I’m tired and frazzled after big day. Did last half of the day at wind speed TWA 80-95 considering we only had the main and jib up, none of the big gear like code 0 or gennaker we were really happy. Lots of 9’s. The hydrogenerator really cranks at 10+ knots putting in over a Kilowatt often 1.3+ Lenny tied his first bowline by himself. Also we need pirate nicknames! because we’re in pirate territory and a bit freaked out to be honest. Some fishing boat must have stepped on his mayday button and it went off at us every 20seconds for an hour and a half. Elayna is the Butcher of South Sulu Darwin is ninja cheeter

Ok. Do we think I need to sand this back and bog it right now? Or can I wait a week? The weather gods have aligned and I’d really rather just close my eyes and deal with this after the 200nm to a better port with supplies. Will there be water ingress if I wait? What do we think?

TWS Min 8 Max 22 Spent a lot of the day doing 8’s and 9’s in 14 pointing really high. Tacking at sub 90 degrees all day long felt great. We’re doing things I never thought possible. Top speed 13.6 AWA was an avg of 33 Full main and full Genoa the whole time. Started at 5am finished at 6 so it was a big day. Anchor fell off the front and caused a bit of damage which was a bad mistake. I’ll need to bog some of that up. A lot to consider and learn and a lot accomplished. Feel great.

Sailed and motored to a new spot. World famous dive location next week. All we need to do is find some food.

This was the end of the sail from yesterday. We finished up behind a lagoon doing 20 with the last of the wind before having to pull down that gennaker in a real hurry as id sailed us into a corner real fast lol. We’ve spent the last week sailing hard and doing some very long and technical days on the water, expecting a lot from ourselves, the kids and crew and now it’s time to relax in this little piece of paradise for a couple of days. I love this so much. I’ve entered my flow state. 🌬️🌊☀️

Big gennaker downwind sail and confirmation of several life decisions I’d made. I could cry. We had very very nice conditions, mild sea state. We were doing: 20’s in 16-17T > TWA of 130 in super flat water. 23’s in 18T. TWA 140 The least important thing that people mostly want to know was top speed - 24.5 (probably more) It’s the first time we’d really pushed the boat like that, done some big numbers and seen the above wind speed performance. It was also the first time I was truly impressed with the Rapido. It felt like we were on rails at 17 knots. 😳 Some notes on the sail. We sustained on avg well over wind speed with biiiggg acceleration in the puffs. Slowed the boat down twice by going dead down wind. 170T and were sailing at 10-11 knots. Doing 18 knots “felt” like doing 11 on the Outremer but more stable. Again it felt like we were on rails. The kids were doing homeschooling at about 15 knots that is no exaggeration. I ran out of sea room at the end so an important note is that things appear quickly when you are moving at 20knots. It was surprising even having taken that into consideration. Had to furl a rather large gennaker in quite a hurry before turning upwind. ***The main thing though is that IT WAS FUUUNNN everyone wanted a turn at the helm and everyone was impressed with the acceleration. Big smiles.*** *I should say that we aren’t 100% on true wind speed and have just tried to accurately assess. We aren’t sure because if we are going slow the B&G gear says it’s blowing 15knots and as soon as we sheet in and rocket off the TWS jumps to 18/19 which obviously isn’t what the wind speed was. So for example we would call that 16 knots.

🐊 🙉 🦅 Also I went to check to see if the engine fan was still on. It was.

I miss you baby. Our failed attempt to get back to La Vaga. Visas are pretty basic but bureaucracy in general is the bane of my existence. All of that travel annoyance for a big L at the last checkpoint. Let’s try again tomorrow.

A walk through the rice patty fields. -Lenny doesn’t like mud in his boots. -Darwin really really does.

Another update from Bali. Less than 5 days till we’re back on La Vaga. 🙏