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« Rudolfs rescue » I’m guessing you were waiting for news about what happened when we arrived at Valdivia…well nothing ! The sea state was the same only minor differences, we were surrounded by big cargo ships also avoiding the shallow patches. At some point we were 4 boats taking the same corridor out of the bank but always with a minimum distance of 10 miles between each other. We also passed the Tropic of Capricorn, which we celebrated with a little rhum. Today started

Discover the first video here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mTW8cXxC-c Explications en français en dessous Preparatory boat trip Anouchka Scaillet and Lorenzo Gatto have been preparing for this trip from Cape Town to Brazil for over five years. Anouchka's father had built a steel sailboat with his own hands, which he named after his daughter, Anouchka. But he was never able to realize his dream of crossing the oceans. Anouchka and Lorenzo have taken up the mantle and are

« Dorado day » The day started in calm 10-15 kts winds, so around midday we decided to fly the Oxley. Just at that same moment we heard the reel of the fishing rod set off, so JB jumped to go and see if we had caught a fish…and we did ! It was a small dorado, or mahi mahi, just the right size for three. So we know what we’ll be eating for supper ;) Such a bright coloured fish, very pretty. JB cleaned it and cut it the right size for the oven. A few hours later the Oxley bac

Another beautiful sunrise this morning, a bit more cloudy than the last few days. I think we are finally out of the big tankers shipping lane, they are becoming more and more scarce, which is a good thing. Thanks to our AIS beacon they see us as well as we see them on our electronic chart. It is quite crazy to think about the amount of container ships constantly sailing on our oceans, some of them close to 300m in length and loaded as high as a 15 storey building, MSC and Mae

We are finally starting to settle in and even found a moment today to do some woodwork to make the chart table a better place to store small items. This morning we found a flying fish on the deck, tropical waters are getting closer. Swell is still the same, wind strength around 20 kts, we decided to goosewing this morning and that’s how it will remain till the wind is calm enough to fly the Oxley. The colour of the water has changed to a beautiful marine blue and the sea is a

Today we saw many tankers, a regular sighting in these waters, I think we must be in the shipping lane. So we don’t feel so lonely after all ! These big MSC ships are impressive, they are so high above the water line… The sea conditions were calm till 14 :00GMT+2, we flew the Oxley till up to 17kts wind. We also finaly gave a name to our Hydrovane, we called him « Rudolph ». In the afternoon, we decided to go more conservative as the wind was picking up to 20kts. Currently th

Our second day started with birds flying all around us for many hours, they just seemed to be curious. The species we identified were puffins, boobies and the amazing albatross, which you never see on land. The albatross is a big bird and yet it doesn’t flap its wings very often, preferring to hover over the waves. The wind conditions were perfect in the morning till midday(12kts giving us a comfortable 6kts ) and then very light winds during 5h, so we motor-sailed. The sea d

Crew of 3 : Anouchka, Lorenzo and Jean-Baptiste (JB) First day out on the big blue ocean We left Port Owen at 8 :30, saying goodbye to family and lifelong friends that came to greet us at our jetty and then followed us, some on S.V. Gombera , some on the piers, all the way out into the bay. We even got a goodbye hoot by the Yacht Club committee waiting for us to go by the waiting jetty! Once out in the bay we waved a last goodbye to our friends on Gombera and hoisted our spi

My dad decided in the 80s to build his own sailing boat. He found a rusty old hull and deck for sale in someone's (who later became a friend) garden and decided that was a good start. He didn't realise how much work was still necessary to make it into a liveaboard sailing yacht. Anouchka, Saldanha The start in Cape Town's shipyard