Our boat build is finished: LET'S SAIL THE WORLD! — Sailing Yabá 276

You think we're almost ready? I wish we were almost ready. Engine starts, boiler works. We are healthy. We are healthy and happy and that's all that matters. Then we're ready. Then we're ready. Adios! Adios! I just said goodbye to my parents. Adios hija! Like we just said goodbye and I miss them already. Let's go! You like the new platform light? For five years we've been dreaming on the day we would leave to unknown places while working relentlessly to make it happen. I'm proud to say today is the day. We feel that today is the day that our trip is actually starting for real because we're going to unknown places far from everything and everyone we know. So we're gonna start doing also longer trips like this one now. It's 250 nautical miles so of course we're gonna sail during day, night, day, night. So of course we got ourselves an inflatable life jacket so we can wear it all the time and if we happen to fall in the water this tube with gas will make this inflate and then we'll be safe. Because of course imagine being 48 hours wearing a big chunky life jacket that's uncomfortable so that's why we have this one. But of course the whole idea is to not need it and to never watch this inflating. At least that's what I'm hoping for. But I'm making it ready anyway. And almost more important than surviving in case you fall in the sea is having available snacks because this is what actually guarantees your survival at sea. So I'm just making a nice basket for Diane, Gui and myself to feast on. We have protein bars, nut bars, chocolate, sausage, snacks, snacks, snacks, snacks, snacks. It is not the crack of dawn which was our plan but we ended up working until super, super, super late. I think 2.30 and we still have to do a few more things. So we've gone over the boat during daylight and I think we're good. Everything's tied down. It's a 250 nautical mile journey. There is wind predicted I think for the first 10 hours that we should be motoring but that's fine we can see if the engine works because we've been working on that a lot. But how insane is it that we are... We left to Florianopolis before which was for us our first leaving home but we came back. We are now leaving and we are not coming back. How crazy. I know many emotions. I was very emotional last night but now I'm feeling more excited and ready for this journey. The reason we are leaving even though there is no wind is we have a very tight schedule. We have a VIP arriving. Yeah, Loic is arriving in two days in Ilha Bela and two days is the minimum that it takes us to arrive there too. So we really need to go no matter what. Ideally we would wait for better ways to head north but Loic we are not blaming you. We are thanking you. You gave us this deadline and when we don't have a serious deadline we tend to stay in the ship. The boat would never be a thousand percent ready so we could always stay doing something else. So thank you Loic for coming and pushing us out of the comfort zone because we're leaving no matter what. So much was done and this is the real test. 250 miles which is the longest we are doing since bringing the boat down which was sinking so it's always it's already going to be better than that. We did exactly the same 250 nautical miles from north to south when we brought Yabá here to Pixar but it was a totally different situation. The boat was sinking, we were green, we were not ripe. We looked green, we were sick because we were in the engine fixing it the whole time. It was just motoring the whole time because the stays were attached to rotten wood so we couldn't open the stays. And the bilge pumps were connected to the engine like the battery was dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. All the time pumping water out, out, out. So we are really expecting this trip to be way nicer. It will. The sun will go down. We've got Guilherme with us as well. Yeah he's gonna help us on board. Really good company. Also he's a really, really, really good chef so we'll hopefully catch some fish to make some sushi. But yeah like for example sun goes down we can pull down this projector if we want. Watch a movie. We've got Starlink. This is just a floating penthouse in my opinion now. Anyway let's get this engine on. I feel like I'm procrastinating even more. Let's go, let's just leave. Let's go. Oh whoa wait, wait. To the rescue. You fell. Bye. It really felt like our tan was doing its last effort to keep us there. But this time there was no holding us back. Ben saved the day once again. Yeah. Are we free to go now? I'm happy we didn't leave at like 3am. Our initial plan. Every great journey begins with a great start. On the road again. What's the next sentence? I can't wait to be on the road again. Instead of heading straight to our next destination we sailed slowly through the bay so we could pass by my parents house and they could wave their goodbyes from the shore. They watched Yabá disappear into the mist just as I watched their home disappear into my tears. What are you doing? Saying bye to my parents again. Just said bye to MP's parents. Time to turn this boat around 180 degrees. Now we're gonna head to our destination. Bye. Bye Penha. A little bit about our journey. It's about midday right now. We have about five knots of wind northeast our direction or our destination is northeast. 60 degrees northeast to be more precise. It is super flat out here. It is very very sunny. When we left we couldn't see a single bit of horizon or at least the horizon was misty. See back there. But we're gonna take watches of two hours during the day because it's quite boring and at night we'll do watches of three hours so that the other ones so we can have six hours off which is six hours sleep. We shouldn't have more than two nights out here. It's whale season. Hopefully we can see a few whales. That'll be absolutely epic so we're keeping our eyes peeled. I don't know. Engine's doing well so far. We're expecting wind to pick up around 6 p.m so as I said it's noon today. In about six hours we're getting northeast even stronger which is not going to help us. However at midnight or 2 a.m we're going to have a strong south wind which is going to push us up north which will be nice. So hopefully at night we'll be able to open a sail or two. First watch is about to finish. In about 10 minutes we can see loads and loads of fog coming. It should be all right. We've got AIS, radar. I don't know. It won't be too much out here anyway. When we get there close to Sao Paulo there'll be some big ships and stuff but maybe just fishing vessels. This sun is gonna last. We are still on our first motoring stretch. We have done 30 miles. 220 to go. Something like that. It's time. Almost sunset and I thought it's nice for the dogs to go for a walk. Now they only pee outside. Hayao likes peeing on the deck. I'm not so worried about him but Liki even when we go for a walk with her on land she will run away to a little corner to a rock where she's nice and private and alone and hygienic and she'll do her thing. So my plan now is I've got a tarp, an old tarp that I'm gonna lay down. I've got a full bucket of sand from the beach that will pour over it and pretend she's going to the beach. If that doesn't work, I don't know how it works with dogs but I have a little bucket, a little pot I scooped up of a place where Liki peed on the sand early this morning and if that doesn't work I might just sprinkle some of that on so she smells that that's a pee area if that makes sense. Otherwise I don't know how we'll do it but and he was out. I told the guys I know you're gonna catch a lot of fish during the trip but just in case wouldn't it be a good idea to go to the fish market today and get something fresh so now he's starting to cook with the fish they caught yesterday at the shop. MP your food is ready, I'll take over. I cannot believe this is my line. How's it going? All good, growing much faster now. We're going downwind. Now 6 30 a.m that was the last night watch. The sun is coming up which is amazing not only for comfort and seeing based on windy or the wind prediction the wind will stop at 7 a.m or not stop it won't be 26 knots anymore and the waves I would love to exaggerate but really they were showing up above the platform behind me. In about half an hour I'm going to be relieved from the watch, have an hour of sleep and then we'll open some sails. The sunset is looking amazing so far. Sunset I can't even talk anymore. Sunrise, a little bit of color in the sky already. The waves are lower, smaller, amazing. And now that I woke up it's better rough for my standards. ideal we've got a sail open but the wave is still massive. Not a bad thing during daylight but at night you kind of want to be able to see like you can't see the waves at night so you can't surf down them or control so we hope that by this evening it's calmed down a bit. Oh yeah we're doing about we're doing at least five knots with just the sail open which is nice. I don't know if you can see but the sailboat is wet and it's not rain it was a wave well not a wave many waves that were catching us on our behind and just smashing everywhere so it was a bit intense but now over again. It was so much calmer that just sailing we were going to slowly start the engine back on but the reason I got the camera was to celebrate with you that we just I can say here at distance which means that we just passed half of our journey which is 250 so over the 125 plus one and now we just need to do the same that we did until now just repeat. And now with the motor on again as you might be able to hear after sailing a little bit today the wind has dropped a lot luckily the waves are also a lot flatter than yesterday this is going to be our last sunset you can see now it's really going to be an amazing one it's going to be a flat night a calm night so we'll probably keep the engine on if it was a different trip different destination or whatever we would have planned it differently so we could sail the entire way we would not have to rush if you know what I mean but uh moreover when the sun rises we should be able to see Iliabela which is now 110 miles away and then we'll have to find a nice anchorage. The fishing line is still in the water but no fish have been caught yet I don't know give me some tips guys it's not normal that no fish go for this at all but yeah keep you posted with stuff and Pete's got first watch then it's Guilherme at midnight and then me at 3am. Should be nice. I wonder how many sunsets you have to see like this before you get bored of it I'm falling so fast I can hardly even see Good morning on our last morning and Pete over there is it the hell we can't see through the salty windows this journey was a little bit of a test on the first night very calm on the second night we played a lot around the sails however now it is zero knots of wind not even a breeze so motoring it is we've got 30 miles to go there is Ilia what's that island called over there again Alcatraz island but that's not the one we're going to there's a massive one over the edge which even looks like land that's how big it is like like like the mainland this morning I got up and had a shower the first shower on board of Yerba heated by the engine and not electricity feels quite good and our cooling system of the engine worked perfectly as well we were expecting to motor the last five hours but look at this we are now entering the channel between Iliabela and the mainland of Sao Paulo you can see all these massive massive ships here are just waiting to enter the port we're alive and we're arriving it's called Iliabela here on the right which is on the starboard side which means beautiful island I don't need to explain why beautiful that we arrived guys epic you know what I never doubted this moment and I'm not talking about the rough sea we had last night I'm talking about five years ago maybe when Yerba was nothing but a wreck Ben and I were working our butts off to one day sail to a new place like this and probably back then we were not super confident about this moment but if we never gave up rebuilding Yerba it's because we believed and look at us now when we first bought Yerba we never imagined that it was going to take us five years to believe in this moment but looking back at everything we did during those five years we wouldn't want it any other way we are thankful to every screw we had to replace because that was the lesson learned I cannot believe this maybe when we throw anchor then I'm going to start believing it a new place Iliabela beautiful island wow I'm here trying to talk and make sense of all the emotions I'm feeling but the words are just not ready yet of course the day we are arriving to a new place there is a regatta happening and a million sailboats in the water that we have to avoid I've seen that there are two options one is keep the engine on keep our maneuverability just in case because we are quite heavy and it's not that windy for us to have especially downwind you don't want to be jibing in between but I do want to sail we're doing this I'm in neutral doing five knots which I'm very very happy with 4.6 yeah 4.6 knots but I am keeping the engine engaged or at least on in neutral just in case you have to give it a little extra boost because I don't want to have to turn and jibe and have a floppy sail and lose rudder efficiency so safety first going to give everyone priority but I am going to sail a bit I have changed my mind engine is off sail is open we're doing more than four knots with one sail which I am stoked with and we are going to arrive in 1.7 miles and I think all the sailboats are after the anchorage the regatta you mean yeah look at this look mum no hands I also want a spinnaker like that so we can clean we're being called for beers here right the end you did good look at that ship over there I'll go and see it soon we have arrived anchored to the docks for a walk because that was needed and now we just want to conclude our trip so what are the conclusions and the stats conclusion is it was epic and I'm very happy with how Yaba performed in waves so if you're looking back now that you couldn't see sky between the platform and these solar panels the waves were like that at night my conclusion about it is that I was a bit scared we did how many miles 282 miles of course on a straight line it would have been 250 but we did 282 because sailing downwind isn't always ideal because the sail flaps so we had to like not tack even jibe well you had to go off course a bit so we had wind from the side and not from the stern and then again how would you say in percentage uh motoring motor sailing and sailing the first we left until like the next morning we motored because it was a northeast wind so we motored that then the first night was insane so we could have opened the sail with a downwind but it was just I didn't want anyone on deck at that time which was a I think safe I would say 50% motoring 40% motor sailing and 10% pure sailing yeah ideally we would sail based on the wind we would sail to the first destination we skipped two destinations kind of we would have sailed there wait for another wind to come in or wait for a storm to pass and so on that was another conclusion that I was thinking of is to not sail on a deadline to go places when the wind is on your favor also so we don't get those kind of waves again even though Yaba behaves perfectly she never showed a single sign of being on her limit I didn't enjoy it like I showed a sign of being on my limit because I was scared of those waves going above the solar panels but the entire yeah and Phi came up the stairs she and she said no and she went straight back down this crew did amazingly Jeremy's not here we dropped him off at the pier with Yvan right now there's a big regatta going on so they are going to have a look at that but we're gonna have a look at that tomorrow another conclusion I had a water maker on top of our wish list and now the autopilot is on the top for me yeah definitely like you could just press autopilot go and check the engine quickly come back or make a coffee yeah make a coffee also going downwind it really helps having an autopilot another stat is that it took us almost 52 hours for this trip so we did 280 something miles in 50 what's that 5.5 knots average yeah 5.5 knots average and we weren't full throttle with the engine I'm happy with that guys we made it a new era is starting now in a little bit of the old I've got that box to still go through which is all the coolest well we'll always be working on the boat I've got something here that's gonna go up soon all cool stuff but we'll always be working on the boat for now also exploring new places a new era has begun a new era of exploring unknown places has begun countless nautical miles remote islands and calm bays wait ahead we know the seas won't always be smooth but we will be getting tougher with them too we are thankful for every lesson taught to us that brought us here and excited for all the ones that are still going to be learnt cheers to new horizons and to this new chapter in the life of