• New Zealand,  Vanuatu

    Bob Works New Zealand

    As promised, this next blog is about all the work we did to Bob in New Zealand after our camper van trip and before setting sail to Vanuatu. This probably won’t be of much interest to most of you but other boat people might be interested and in particular other owners of West Indies 36s.

  • Efate,  Vanuatu

    Vanuatu!

    We have arrived in Vanuatu!

    The passage ended up being a very tiring one. After the frontal passage that we were going through in my last post the wind never really settled as it was expected to. We officially entered the tropics the next day when we passed 25 degrees latitude. To mark this occasion

  • At Sea

    Half Way to Vanuatu

    The last 24 hours have been very slow indeed. I haven’t totted up our daily run yet (I do that every day at mid-day) but I suspect it will be somewhere around the 50-mile mark, and not all of them towards our intended destination.

    The wind has been fitful, with squalls of 30 knots and then lulls of nothing, which makes for a tiring time. We have only a little sail set so that we are OK in the squalls but that does leave us wallowing the rest of the time. The wind has also backed so that it is coming directly from where we want to go. Rather than putting a lot of energy into beating up-wind we are simply

  • At Sea

    Finally Finished!

    We’ve been working flat out on Bob for the last couple of months to get her ready for sea again. I’ll write more about that work in a future post, but here’s an overview:

    – Thwart-ship deckhead support beams removed, re-laminated and re-installed.

    – Windlass re-conditioned

    – Lower shrouds re-designed and replaced

    – Various overdue engine works

    – Port water tank re-sealed

    – New VHF antenna installed