Sailing Alone to Australia over 1200 Miles Across the Tasman Sea on a 30ft Sailboat

Sailing Solo Across the Tasman Sea : Sailing Alone Series

Hello Friends,
After more than a year exploring New Zealand it was time to push off across the notorious Tasman Sea. Plan A was to sail to Tasmania and explore its wild islands and coastlines before heading North after cyclone season had finished. Play B was to make landfall at Eden just above Bass Strait and Plan C was to sail to Sydney to clear in.

I had been nervous about this passage for a long time as the Tasman is known to be a very dangerous bit of water. I choose my weather window wisely and pushed off on my last leg across the Great Pacific Ocean.

I have a special episode coming out next that covers my entire Pacific Adventure and talks about how I got into sailing and when I first bought Triteia.

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Fair Winds,
James

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#solosailing #tasman #australia #sailingaustralia #oceansailing #smallboat

[Applause] after more than a year of exploring New Zealand visiting some 70 anchorages it was time to move on for New Horizons let’s do this well it’s that time again time to make passage Bound for Tasmania the goal is Hobart that’s where we want to go if the weather prevents us from reaching Hobart because the southernly the next uh Plan B point of entry would would be Eden Australia which is just North of bash straight and plan C Last Resort is Sydney we just have to run up to Sydney I would that would be total lost Resort cuz it’s really far from Hobart which is where I intend on visiting so we’re going to sale with the wind we have we have a really good weather window right now um so these first like I don’t know 3 or 4 days are really good really good winds nothing too spicy and um yeah just make passage and do our best it’s definitely going to be the most challenging passage that I’ve done weatherwise and wind direction wise because the systems move so fast across the tasmine and it’s a notorious sea so it’s no joke but as the albatross flies the distance is 12200 nautical miles to any one of those three locations from here and um I’m guessing it’ll take me hopefully 15 days maybe 18 but 15 um it would be nice if I could do it in less if we were in the trade winds it would take like 10 days but we’re in the variables and uh you get wind from all directions so it’s time to settle in have a motor sail across tasmin Bay get around Cape farewell and Point Northwest for the 40° [Music] mark [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and we are sailing it’s 6:00 p.m. finally got into the wind I just tied the second Reef in because it’s going to get dark soon and the wind’s supposed to build we’re doing between four and five knots pretty big swell it’s time to get the hydran [Music] on we’re not even into cook straight yet and it’s already getting real mean like I might have to tie the third refin already rude it is spicy out real quick so much for going out on the quiet nope noly [Music] [Music] oh man I did not waste any time getting into Passage mode that’s for sure we’re not even in cook straet yet but it slowed the boat down to like five knots so we’re not slamming into those big waves as as [Music] hard gnarly like we’re literally not even into the straight proper yet so gnarly and my best wind handle even though it was latched onto the Mast went overboard so now I have two wind handles left but neither one of them locked they’re like Frozen with salt so I got to try to get those free not good [Music] oh man last night was rough really rough I didn’t film anything because it was dark and it was chaos and it wouldn’t have translated on film as being chaos but if you’re a sailor and a small boat getting thrown all over the place it’s definitely chaos um yeah it was rough last night really rough right now the seas are really lumpy the winds are probably 15 knots out there and um we are just smashing so we’re not making really great speed we’re doing like four knots but we are above the 40° Mark I guess technically below it we’re in 39° which is where I want to be I want to be between 38 and 39° to do all my Westing um try to keep us out of the Roaring 40s and that way can ride the top of high high pressure systems that come through uh so we are on strategy for the passage but I’m just trying to get back into passage mode and uh sometimes that’s easier said than [Music] done [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] got this tanker a mile away very happy that AIS exists very difficult for a solo sailor you can’t just sit watch 24 hours a day like people do on other boats and it’s generally unnecessary this is the closest of big ships ever come to me at Sea since leaving Los Angeles but we were never at risk of collision beautiful night of sailing though the winds finally came up and uh started to back we’ve been making like seven knots for like 2 hours which is awesome it’s nice cuz the Seas haven’t stood up yet With the Wind so we’re able to really haul ass I’m going keep that Throttle Down winds are supposed to increase a bit this evening so I’ll Reef down at dark so it doesn’t run away from us in the night pretty Rowdy night last night uh winds held pretty strong all night they weren’t too bad I didn’t have to adjust the sails at all we made an incredible speed last night we’ve already done 100 miles since noon yesterday it’s 9:00 a.m. I didn’t get much sleep last night though um to add add to the misery the BGE pump stopped working yesterday the electronic Bild pump started having issues and I checked it it was like cycling on and off a lot for no reason and then yesterday it just it it’ll turn on and run but it won’t stop running and now I don’t even think it’s pumping um I might get into that if these C’s calm down later I might get down into the build and try to sort that out I have extras that I could spare I can wire I could wire up but not in these conditions um so I just had the bill pump off and then about every half hour the build high water alarm would come on like slow water Ingress because the from the cockpit seats and stuff and I would get up and hand pump it out and then lay back down so pretty annoying but nothing crazy nothing dangerous and even last night it wasn’t like I wouldn’t say it was a bad night of sailing it was just lumpy like this but we made fantastic speed all night we were flying like a free train all night which is great so I want to do the tasmine very quickly as quickly as possible good morning from Ab calmed SB tra we have a calmed well the wind’s died way off at like 2: a.m. we crap along at like two to three knots all night and then in the last 2 hours it’s just been this sitting still kind of put on the auto tiller to try to keep us in with the swells and um I’m G to try to sort out this buge pump situation now I’m GNA see if it’s just clogged at the Joker valve and if it’s not that then I’m going to wire in a replacement I have I have two spare build pumps but I want to do it while it’s like this we have some big winds coming forecasted on kind of all models in the next I don’t know 3 or 4 hours probably that’s probably what this calm is calm before the storm and yeah so we got to take advantage of this mellow time to get down in the billage and sort this out really beautiful Sun Ray breaking through the clouds over the ocean right now hot cup of coffee so I’m happy okay so the pump’s still working I wonder if that’s maybe there’s a clog somewhere in the line cuz I just took off the hose put it back in the water and it’s working and it cycled on and off on its own so I got to put this in back together and then trace it I’ll take it off at the at the through hole and see if water’s pumping out there and if it’s not then we’ll figure out what’s happening but that’s good that that thing’s working that saves me a kind of a nightmare of having a wire pump okay so I took it off the out and there’s nothing coming out so obviously there’s some kind of blockage in the line can’t have a a check valve in one of these cuz it goes so high up so I got to check that check [Applause] valve so yeah it’s like it was I don’t know if it was something was jammed in the check valve which like you know I’ve always heard people say it’s like bad to have check valves and Bild hoses which makes sense but I have to my pump has to pump like 4 and 1/2 ft out or more from the buge to the out so it was always a problem of like it never pump like a lot of the water would just siphon back in I always have nuisance water in my build but I guess I’d rather have nuisance water my builds than a check valve getting clogged up on passage so I just broke the check valve with the screwdriver I just destroyed it but now the piece is inside so I got to try to get this this end off and we’ll just use the remaining part of the check valve as like a Jo a ho hose Joiner all right so here’s the check valve um I’m going to run the bage pump now and see if it just pumps into the the cockpit locker and then we can put everything back together if it works there we have it it’s working and it shut off on its own that was a much much easier fix than I thought it was going to be now get all this put back together get the cockpit Locker stewed and have more coffee well the winds have arrived uh it was a slow build compared to what the forecast said we were supposed to have took a long time it’s like 700 p.m. right now and they’re slowly building um I only had to run the motor for 3 hours I think or something oh 4 hours and um um yeah just a moment ago it was like blowing 20 but it shows that we should only be on the outskirts of the worst there’s like a pretty gnarly system hitting the coast of New Zealand so looks like we’re just on the edge of the worst of it and we’re still pointing North we are currently directly in line with Eden but we’re going to sail above that and um try to get above this high uh it’s Saturday right now Sunday is going to be pretty pretty windy all night tonight and tomorrow and then we’re going to have like pretty extreme calms on Monday so we’re going to try to get above that high on Monday and do some Spiner sailing but if not then we’ll motor through it we have enough fuel to motor for 70 hours but obviously we need to save some for the coast currently it’s looking like with the forecast there’s no way we can make Hobart so um a few days ago I had realized that yeah the now the target is Eden um and Sydney is the last resort which is further north but I want to I would rather land Eden so that we can easily get to Hobart once I get in and get rested and check cleared in um Eden is just right above bash straet and we are directly in line with it it’s due west of us right now but we’re going to go up above it so we can catch Norther least to sell down to it um the way the winds blow on that Coast can see rain off in the distance on the horizon and um yeah it’s going to be a lumpy night pretty lumpy night but nothing crazy uh we made incredible speed last night but like the wind shut off at like 4:38 a.m. like someone turned a SP it on a it it just went just nothing it was crazy and the SE so the seas are throwing us everywhere all of a sudden I got up and went outside and I was like what in the hell no wind now it’s kind of come back a little bit and only feels it’s exploding probably 14 knots though nothing crazy but the seas are very sloppy from the blow um we were hauling ass last night we were in rocket ship mode and did by 5:00 a.m. we had done 82 nautical miles from noon yesterday our previous day’s entire day run was 84 for 24 hours so we made really good speed last night and the boat was fairly comfortable I was kind of being thrown around but I don’t mind being thrown around if we’re making good speed um just went on deck and paid out more sale adjusted our point of sale so that we’re more on a uh beam reach not a broad reach and so that’s got us moving again we’ll see how the wind holds just turned the engine on all the wind’s gone huge slop I had to Reef the main put the second Reef in the main to save the slots from getting blown out from all the slatting bared in the head so started the engine I don’t know if the little Auto tiller can handle these Big C’s the largest ocean swells are like 3 m but then the surface is all this slop left over from all the wind running the engine at like 2,000 RPM to try to conserve Fuel and to keep a little bit of the noise always down below down but I’m just worried about this Auto tailer I need this thing when we get to the coast really bad so concerns me but I’m not going to sit here all night and steer that’s for sure I would just drift see there it’s getting sad bummer so I don’t know I’m going to sit out here for a while and see what it does see how I feel about it and then make my decision as to how to go about it there’s just not enough wind for the hydrovane to do its job it needs wind to steer and there’s no wind to steer [Music] by that’s a big wave you cannot tell it on camera but that is a very large [Music] swell [Music] well we just changed course we are now Sydney bound asked Rhonda to contact biocurity and Border Force to let him know that I was going to be trying to clear into Eden and uh the day and all that stuff cuz originally I contacted them and told them I was trying to clear into Hobart so in looking for my Voyage number for Bio security I saw in the fine print the allowed clearing ports for non-commercial vessels and Eden was not listed so I asked her to call to confirm and sure enough Only commercial vessels they said I could clear in there but it’s going to take 10 days for me to get clearance which I’m 5 days from landfall so I guess that’s on me for not like looking deeper into Eden but I had seen it listed on a number of sites including Australian sites that it’s an official Port of entrance so live and learn um pretty big bummer cuz that puts us even 200 nautical miles further away from Tasmania which is where I want to visit but we’ll see what happens with all that first things first we got to get into land and uh get cleared in selling into Sydney Harbor is going to be an adventure after being alone on a small boat for two weeks at see more than 2 weeks um should be intense so that’s all In Motion now I’m actually closer to Sydney right now I’m 600 mil from Sydney and I’m 650 mi from Eden so we’re actually close we’re like half a day sale closer than to Sydney anyway so there’s that so that’s the update um and that’s how you got to be with sailing you got to be flexible and roll with the [Music] punches all right I’m going to try to make corn fritters for the first time Rhonda taught me how to make this when she was on board with me in the summer sounds and she texted me instructions yesterday we’ll see if I screw it up seems pretty simple I can’t believe I know about this before I would have been eating this constantly on passage it seems like a very easy solution okay so let’s read how Rhonda says to prepare this so I don’t mess it up um first I make the batter flour water salt pepper throw in a few chili flakes uh throw in the corn then play with the consist you don’t want it too watery or too dry okay so that seems pretty simple and when she made it for us it seemed very simple um I’m guess you cook it in a little bit of olive oil you in the pan that’s how I’m going to try it we’ll see if it work all right here we go get our flour oh one of the key Things She Said is it needs to be self-rising flour um which is what I have because that’s what I make scones with so I guess we’ll just do a cup of flour and then wonder if that’s going to be too much see here’s a problem let’s start with half a cup of flour and see what the business is move this over here so you I can see a little better little pepper salt Ronda said I might have to throw away all these open spices when I get to um Australia she said they when she spoke to biocurity the other day they um I have to get rid of all my rice uh any grains my have to get rid of my flour um all fresh food has to be consumed like eggs any any fresh anything has to be eaten uh so pretty crazy all right here’s our batter let me see definitely need more water oh yeah we need more flour for sure better just start slow I think now they kind of got a handle on this I’ll show you what it’s looking like so far I think I need more water this is kind of what the consistency is seems a little thick but I think I should add the corn now so that we really know what the consistency is with the corn I think it’s going to make way more way bigger batch than what I needed with a whole can of corn I didn’t think that through but it’s okay maybe not I like corn maybe I’ll just make it real dense with corn more salt and pepper also the key to success at this point is not dropping this bucket especially on my birth ronda’s probably going to howl laughing when she watches this cuz I just don’t know what I don’t know what consistency it’s supposed to be that seems kind of good actually maybe it’s a little dense on the corn but still going to taste the same I think I’m going to go with that uh I’m going to prepare it with this instant packet thing Santa Fe green chili which is like I grew up in New Mexico so this is like home food for me heat and eat easy Meal made with beans white beans stewed with hatched green chilies potatoes garlic and spices here’s a pi picture of New Mexico I grew up in like right there here we go we’ll see if I did it right or not all right here we go she made them about the size of like a little bigger than silver dollar pancake so we’ll do [Music] [Music] that H I don’t know I think mine are a little thicker than hers were I’m going try and like a little thinner like I made them a little bigger you know bigger surface area maybe it’ll cook look better all right let’s try the flapjack size ones oh yeah these look better all right dinner is [Music] served try one of those first ones and one of these second ones getting a little Facey here we go let’s try it first that second one I made is too thick tastes a thousand times better in random made the Hat chilies are good though get rid of the fatty if they’re too thick there’s like too flowery I probably had the batter too thick also yeah the thinner ones are really good very good especially with they attach chili [Music] beans [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we just got crashed so hard by a wave [Applause] been a pretty active night pretty restless night but nothing crazy that wave was actually the worst wave that H us the whole trip so far so far um yeah pretty restless night nothing really bad but lots of this silliness um but we’ve been making fantastic speed it’s almost noon right now and we have done 114 miles so fantastic days run today I’m very happy with that and we’re still on course we’re going to go a little off course for the next like I don’t know 12 hours probably a little South maybe as the wind’s back but otherwise we’re on course everything’s good um it’s going to be more of this lumpiness but good winds for the next like 24 hours or more but I’ll take the discomfort with the speed so that’s where we’re at so like 11:30 last night we had torrential rainfall most rainfall I’ve seen since Bora Bora maybe it’s easily some of the most rainfall I’ve ever seen in my life with that the wind went away completely and it continued to pour like that for by 2:30 is when I got up and I was like the wind still hadn’t come back and it was only like lightly rain raining at that point and we had been drifting for like 4 hours so um at that point I got up started the engine and we motored for like 5 hours um with like no wind at all sloppy sea no wind it was chill and then by like 7:30 this morning the winds had come back and I was able to get on deck and uh kill the engine and get sailing again been sailing ever since winds are starting to increase a little bit but the forecast says we should have like pretty pretty easy sailing for the next 3 days we’re 3 days from Sydney right now so we shall see that is true um but we’re going to be running broad reach or running the whole time so almost at a point to where we should be wing and Wing right now not quite but I think by this evening or tomorrow we’ll be wing and wing for the rest of the time um and um both the models I’m I really look at which is EC bmwf and pwe both of those look like we’re probably going to be motoring the last 12 hours into sy so that’s where we’re at this is start of day 10 and I just did the noon position we did 92 miles yesterday which is good we’ve had really good days runs on this passage there’s like a thousand [Music] seabirds [Music] no [Music] [Music] so so seems like my aridium go has like the bed it’s like wouldn’t send any of my text messages and it wouldn’t let me update my track position it automatically is supposed to update it but to download My Tractor position it wouldn’t let me do that and I rebooted it three times now and it’s just stuck on initializing before it we connect to a satellite and everything and I was receiving texts that I couldn’t send anything and we’ll see now it’s now it’s doing this like endless like Loop of trying to reboot which is a bummer um I just don’t want my team to freak out like Rhonda freak out my older brother David and Sarah and everybody that’s worried about me out here um that’s what I don’t want to happen is them to like Panic we and I I’ve told them this before I’m like this is technology that very could very easily like crash stop working Electronics see um and like I send out like a float plan to everybody before I leave and I’m like if you don’t hear from me within 3 days then Colby little brother Kobe is going to activate my starlink Global cuz I have starlink on board but I don’t want internet while I’m a c cuz I think it takes away the magic of being a c the being disconnected but then your loved ones get worried about you and also I can’t download weather but I’ve downloaded the weather today and it looks great all the way up for the next two days so I’m not worried about the weather thing I just don’t want my people to be like upset and freaking out um but this is a modern problem right only until recently did we have the ability to communicate while we were at C like you know this thing maddening very expensive too very expensive and to do this you know not cool so that’s how my evening’s going um sailing’s been good it’s been been cruising at like 45 knots the wind’s came down a little bit so it’s not quite as crazy um and it’s a beautiful up we had a pretty good night last night running wing and Wing uh a little bit noisy but we made good progress based on on the mileage we covered so that’s good um still no comms whatsoever uh rum go is still toasted today I installed reinstalled the starlink antenna to try to see if I could get it working and when you go to Stow those things there’s like a slider that says stow and it goes into a position like this so you can stow it safely I had it stowed safely reinstalled it it won’t unstow like it’s communicating with satellites but it won’t move to try to pick up any satellites maybe it’s the boat motion but I don’t think so cuz it hasn’t tried to move at all it’s stayed in that Stow position and I’ve like stowed it and unstowed it like 20 times it doesn’t want to seem to come out of that fixed sort of like position so I angled the fishing rod holder that it lives in so that it’s facing up cuz it says make sure I had a clear view of the sky cuz some of them are flat mounted on people’s RVs and boats and stuff so I was like well maybe it’s just pointing up it communicates with it communicates with satellites but it won’t connect to the network so sometimes it doesn’t matter how much technology you have sometimes it just doesn’t work um um I’m not that stressed about it we’re 2 days away we’re just over 200 miles from Sydney and um I’m not worried about it I’m sure my team is like freaking out a little bit um I I also told him I was like look I have an eerb so just because my comms went dead the tracker vanished it doesn’t mean tra sunk it could just mean that the idium go went toasted you know um if my e-b went off then that’d be a different thing um so either way should be in in like about 2 days time from right now um pretty Big C’s running and um I don’t notice it when I’m sitting down and working but then when I get up to look around I’m like oh wow there’s big SE so I’ll show you guys what it looks like outside right now we had a very slow slog of a night last night big Seas not much wind uh I think we did a average of 2.8 knots speed all night last night pretty brutal um the boat’s motion was okay it was just we were just going so slow the seas are still up and confused but nothing like they were even this morning when I woke up uh started the engine at 6:00 a.m. cuz we were doing like one one knot and um thankfully we have enough wind to let the hydran do the steering these Seas make it impossible for the little tiller pilot so all is well we’re just creep creep creeping to the Australian Coastline this is the start of day 12 we did 71 nautical miles yesterday which is our worst day so far mileage wise and [Music] um trying to keep my head in the game at this point it’s like I’m just ready to be there we’re like with we’re 150 mi from sh right now so I just have to like keep my head I’ve just been reading I’m reading a book about mellin just been reading uh yesterday I edited all day edited videos all day but today I’ve just been reading uh got a little bit of rain a second ago it’s threatening some more rain but all of those dark clouds are downwind of us now so maybe we won’t get too hammered and yeah we just keep clicking the miles off I injured my shoulder yesterday my right shoulder which is my good shoulder I blew out my left shoulder really bad 2 days from Hawaii and here I was 2 days from Australia and I really stress this shoulder um so that’s not good I have to be very very careful with it um other than that everything’s going good we have plenty of fuel if we have to motor for the next like 24 hours we have enough fuel to get us there so maybe some wind will come up this afternoon and we can sail but the forecast I had from before the aridium went down didn’t look like there was much wind coming back which is better than too much wind so got to choose your battles I guess [Music] we have been getting hit with Squall after Squall after Squall we’re sailing at decent speed now in sort of the right direction but it’s like 6:00 my gut tells me I need to at least put the first Reef in the main just because it got out of control a couple times not the main necessarily but the boat I hate to slow us down at all but I know it’s the right thing to do and I know I don’t want to do it in the dark so let’s go tie this first Reef oh simple as that when the wind’s not up [Music] right we’re just going to creep through the night wing and Wing see what the squalls do with us [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] hell yeah that was Sydney Maritime rescue they were looking out for him my my team got concerned when my comms went dead and my tracker went dead so they just gave my heads up what was up and um they put a call on the radio telling boats to look for tra So I responded that I knew where tra was and uh they just gave a FL flyby to confirm my coordinates and make sure everything was all good so thanks so much to Sydney Maritime rescue you guys are awesome I really appreciate it we are currently 32 mil from entering Sydney Harbor we have absolutely perfect sailing conditions right now we’re doing like 5.6 knots and the boat’s like feels like it’s going two knots which is ideal flat happy quiet but making really good speed considering I was making like 2 and 1 half knots for like 36 hours which was hellish um feels nice to be able to sail into Sydney Harbor I was stoked and I was able to turn off the engine and just sail in like i’ said before this is the only passage I’ve ever motored on and it added up the hours and so far we motored 69 hours of this passage and the main reason was because very very dangerous storms happen in the tasmin sea so you don’t want to linger um and I still have enough fuel to motor I think for another like 30 hours um which is shocking I thought I brought enough to motor for 70 hours we’ve reached 69 and I still have like 15 gallons of fuel left so but I’d much rather sail in as much as possible um and know that I was able to get online and talk to my people and let everybody know I was safe that kind of dialed everything back for me like now now that I know all my loved ones aren’t upset and like terrified cuz I was like I was supposed to be in by the pacing that I had been going I should have been in like 2:00 today so I was over like I was I was already like not in when they thought it was going to be in even though it’s a sailboat and I tell them like you can’t you you can never you never know you got to have a big leeway for sell books but if they love you and you vanished off the face of the Earth for 2 and a half days and for the last you know 10,000 miles they’ve been able to like watch your progress and hear your updates and reach out to you if they need to then it’s a kind of an abrupt stop for everyone um I had a nice two days I just edited and read my book reading this book on mellin over the edge of the world and they had it way worse than I did but my Cals went down that was it you know these dudes had it really bad so um but I’m excited to be closing out these last 30 nautical miles and we’ll get into Sydney and get tied up at the Customs Warf they already know we’re coming everything’s good to go so last little push [Music] so we just crossed into Sydney Harbor into the entrance into the [Music] sound and I have officially crossed the Pacific Ocean solo and not the quickest way and it feels [Music] fantastic what an incredible journey the last 2 and 1/2 years have been from departing Los Angeles to arriving in the Hawaiian Islands pushing My Way South to the two motus and the society Islands on to American Samoa to Fiji sailing South to New Zealand and finally finishing the Pacific Crossing in Australia all in a 30ft almost 60-year-old boat what a journey thanks so much to my Shore team I really appreciate all of your efforts and I’m sorry you had to endure such a stressful passage with my calms going down let’s hope the future passages are less eventful thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed this film if you did make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any of the upcoming Australian Adventures