Sailing Vessel Sauvage

12/11/2025

I wrote about Just wrapped up a new piece for Boating NZ on going solar aboard — from DIY setups to plug-and-play systems. Victron is great! Worth a read! ⚡👇

21/08/2024

The first coat of Antifoul is on. Already looking better - tomorrow the next layer goes on!

28/07/2024

Well hello!

Having had the motor out for five weeks, the amazing team has done a fantastic overhaul, going from a old and ever so slightly rusty green to a fresh blue.

On top of the cab change, we are preparing for international voyaging which means we want a motor we can rely on and we can Trust our lives and more importantly (or at least importantly) the lives of our kids. Probably the first time in the past 30 years that it has had such a major overhaul, checking everything replacing anything questionable and generally making sure that we are ready for thousands of miles overseas (not all by motor obviously, but when we need it, the motor needs to be highly performance and raring to go! 

25/07/2024

After 2 coats of One UP undercoat and another 2 of top-coat AkzoNobel International yacht paint Europe Bilgekote - the engine bay is ready for the motor to come home :)

25/07/2024

Ouch!

21/07/2024

The motor is nearly ready to come back to the boat, the engineers are busy replacing some wiring that became brittle when exposed to saltwater, but later on this week it’s back!

Now is to complete the degreasing of the engine bay, and give a new undercoat and topcoat of white engine bay/bulge paint.

update follow

PS: the blue and grey wires that seem out of place, they are purely providing us with a hoist to keep wise out of the way while we are painting and cleaning 

11/07/2024

All things going well (and boating terms that means not too many things going catastrophically) we are headed to the South Pacific in the foreseeable future!

That means we have some fishing time 🙂
Time to tune skills

https://youtube.com/shorts/klZvKz8_5jc?si=7yIyXR1jRSzj5Usk

11/07/2024

In preparation for the new B&G Autopilot, removal of the legacy Hydraulic Ram for testing. While I had assumed replacement, Navico (amazing folks there) advised we may be able to reuse… already booked a sandblast :)
I should know next week.

09/07/2024

Auckland is back baby!

👀