EMIGRE

Thursday, April 23rd 2026. Today was relatively uneventful. After retrieving and securing the anchor, I turned my attention to our course. The wind had backed from North East to North West. We were sailing on a broad reach with a wind angle of approximately 160°. Our course over ground was closer to 70°M. I decided to rig the spinnaker pole on the Port side to pole out the jib. It’s only a number three that doesn’t overlap the mast and sets flat as a board when poled out. I w

Wednesday, April 22nd 2026. Departure Day. We woke around 0630hrs after a good nights sleep. With the voyage expected to take well over seven days, I didn’t see any point in racing off at the crack of dawn. My new crew Kevin had arrived on the bus from Albany on Monday evening. He’s an experienced sailor and doctor with a wealth of knowledge about all things boating. He and his wife live aboard their 52ft steel ketch ‘Thomas Tinboy’ which is currently moored in Albany. Kevin

Stainless steel ball valve installed between the exhaust mixing elbow and the water lock muffler. I have received lots of questions on my recent post about repairing my engine after filling it with sea water. The most common question has been how will you stop this from happening again? I will attempt to explain as best can. The Problem Emigre’s exhaust system is very simple. This simplicity is part of the problem. The exhaust mixing elbow is bolted on the back of the exhaust

Albany to Tasmania - Day 3 The Esperance Arrival Saturday, April 11th 2026 Of the many ways you can sail into Esperance Bay, we possibly chose one of the worst. We spent the morning simply trying to get Emigre moving on a course vaguely in the same direction as Esperance. If we had a working engine, we would have motored for sure. When you’re drifting about at one or two knots, not making much headway, you begin to get frustrated. I call it playing ‘Bob’. We played a lot of B

After spending the morning in the bilge working on the engine in light winds and confused swell, I was again feeling green in the hills and spent some time in the cockpit watching the swells roll through. We had a quiet afternoon mostly catching up on sleep. The sky was full of heavy cloud and had been since we left Albany. This was not doing my small lithium battery bank any favours despite having upgrading my solar array from 100 to 350w. Who knew solar panels didn’t work w

Today is a day I have been thinking about for at least twelve months. This time last year I was aboard Keshi Mer at Middle Island, approximately 80 nautical miles South East of Esperance. I was working for a hydrographic survey company supporting their new unmanned survey vessel (USV) “Fremantle 01”. Spending time at Middle Island and surrounding Recherché Archipelago gave me an idea of the vastness of the waters south of Australia. Crossing the great Australian Bight in my o