EMIGRE

Sunday, April 26th 2026. Not much to report out here today. The wind has remained light, mostly out of the south. We managed to sail all day and maintain a course slightly north of Kangaroo Island. With approximately 400 nautical miles to reach Kangaroo Island, we had to make a decision whether we would stop at American River on the Northern side of the island or continue South to Tasmania. For this trip I purchased a subscription weather routing service called ‘predict wind’

ANZAC Day Saturday, April 25th 2026 After an uneventful night, we woke to find emigre on course and making reasonable time. So far this voyage has been relatively slow paced. That’s fine by me. We are in no race and have no deadline to meet. As long as we are moving at about three knots and the tiller pilot can steer a straight course, I’m happy. Our average speed for the trip has remained at 4.7knots despite three days of wind mostly below a force four. Emigre has been fully

Friday, April 24th 2026. Lunch is the highlight of every day at sea. (Other than breakfast and dinner) Today happened to be leftover vegetable pie. Not bad at all. The drone of the three cylinder Kubota purring away under the companionway steps becomes white noise after a few hours. It was using very little fuel, approximately 1.7L/hr at 1800rpm. That gave us about 4 knots speed over ground. The mainsail, still at the third reef was sheeted centre. I went forward to adjust th

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