In 1999 my partner, Jess, and I decided to invest in a cruising yacht to be placed in the charter fleet in the Whitsundays. After many years racing dinghies (mainly NS14s) together, we were to embark on a journey that would eventually lead us to owning and cruising a blue water capable yacht and sailing nearly 28,000 together. I had previously read about cruising catamarans so we visited the 1999 Sydney Boat Show and inspected a Seawind 1000. We fell in love and after receiving a lot of positive feedback from the charter businessw we decided that a cat would be the best way to proceed. So we chose a Seawind 1000 and lined up with a company called Tropical Sailing. The boat (#1073) was built in Wollongong by Seawind and because Tropical preferred their boats to have “Tropical” in the name (they already…
SEAbbatical Destination: Vanuatu By Brent Vaughan Port Orla It’s the middle of winter, 26 degrees, sunny and almost humid, but there is a nice gentle breeze that drifts across the ocean. We are in the small coastal town of Luganville on the north island of Vanuatu, Espiritu Santos, to enjoy some of the local hospitality and the most accessible wreck dive in the world. While Luganville isn’t much to write home about itself, it was once a major US military base during World War II and it provides the gateway to exploring these remnants of the past and the spectacular landscapes and islander culture that surround it on the islands of Espiritu Santo. While Vanuatu is most famous for its Volcanoes (its located on a fault line), the originator of bungy jumping (tribes on Pentacoste Island tie vines to their ankles and jump from…
Multihull Central in cooperation with the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, are pleased to present a special FREE information seminar “My SEAbbatical: Cruising and Diving in South East Asia” by Andrew Grace at 3pm on Saturday the 29th of April in the Pittwater Room of the RPA Yacht Club in Mitala Street, Newport, in conjunction with the Pittwater Sail Expo. Andrew Grace took delivery of his new Seawind 1160 LITE catamaran “Pali Pali” in Vietnam two years ago and has been cruising South East Asia ever since. As Andrew is a very experienced technical diver, he and his wife sailed to some of the most remote and spectacular dives sites in South East Asia and captured their adventures in a series of YouTube videos with spectacular vision both under and above the water. A total of 33 videos document their adventure on their YouTube…
YouTube sensation Riley and Elayna of ‘Sailing La Vagabonde’ have just landed a wonderful deal with legendary French catamaran manufacturer, Outremer Yachting, to extend their cruising adventures onboard a new Outremer 45 involving a historic sponsorship deal confirming the power of social media. “We are fans since the beginning and felt their honest and human values meets ours and they might be great ambassadors for Outremer. They had issues finding a loan for their boat, so we stepped in helping them getting a lease” explain Xavier Desmarest, CEO of Outremer. With over two hundred thousand subscribers to their YouTube channel and numerous episodes with well over one million views, La Vagabond leads the growing global trend of intrepid sailors documenting their adventures in incredible locations while on seabbatical, allowing thousands to sample what life is like at sea from the comfort of their homes…
