In my one year anniversary blog , I promised a post of numbers, numbers and yet more numbers. Compiling this has satisfied my inner nerd, and also made me realise there’s far more info that we should be tracking too.

But still, it’s enough to paint a bit of a picture.

Countries

Countries Visited by sea: 4 (Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand)
Countries Visited by air: 2 (Singapore, Vietnam)

We had hoped to visit another 4 countries in our first year (India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Chagos), but sadly the delay caused by our boat work has pushed them into year 2. On the other hand, it did give us an opportunity to visit Vietnam and Singapore.

We could have stopped in at Singapore with Steely, but it’s a LOT of paperwork as they’re one of the busiest ports in the world, and are very much geared up to deal with commercial traffic rather than tiddlers like ourselves.

So we ended up just sailing past – it was great to fly in there for a visa run and some job interviews and check out the sights of an awesome city.

Vietnam, on the other hand, was never on our agenda at all. It’s almost impossible to sail to, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s well off the beaten track in terms of the trade winds route, so physically getting there involves lots of motoring and beating against the wind.

And secondly, the government there has never really understood the leisure boating industry, and so it is prohibitively expensive as you are charged the same for entry as commercial traffic, if you can even get the government to allow you to land (if you’re really interested, check out this report from a cruiser who did manage to get there a few years ago).

So getting to actually visit Vietnam (which has been on Jen’s bucket list forever) was an unexpected bonus of our unscheduled delay. Lemons and Lemonade etc !!

Miles

Total Miles Travelled on Steely: 6,796 nautical miles (12,586 km)
Number of hours underway: 1,222
Average Speed when underway: 5.5 knots

The shortest possible distance to complete an official circumnavigation is 21,600 nautical miles (to officially sail around the World, a vessel must start from and return to the same point, must cross all meridians of longitude, and must cross the Equator).

From that perspective, we’re well on track, have sailed over 30% of the way in the first year of five, and also crossing the equator.

However, our planned route will probably take us much further. We haven’t actually measured it, but I suspect we’ll sail well over 30,000 nautical miles by the time we get back to Sydney.

Our 5.5 knots average speed is pretty much exactly as we would have expected. When we’re motoring, that’s the speed we cruise at, running one engine at cruising revs of 1,500 rpm. At max RPM with one engine, we travel at about 7.3 knots, and with both engines maxed, we’d make hull speed of 8.5 knots, but there’s really not that much point, and we’d burn 4 times as much fuel as just one engine at cruising revs.

Under sail, our speed varies much more of course, but somehow still seems to have averaged the same as under power. Go figure!

Motoring v Sailing

Total Engine Hours: 735
Total Miles Motored/Motor-sailed: 4,042
Total Miles Sailed: 2,754
Percentage sailed (41%) v Motor/Motor-sailed (59%)

So, this set of stats has been something we’ve focused on from day 1, and to be honest we think we’ve done OK, even though we would have preferred to have sailed much more.

As a steel boat, we’re heavier than most (32 tonnes versus an average for a fibreglass boat of our length of about 18 tonnes), so we do need about 8-10 knots of wind to really get moving.

One of the downsides of having a certain amount of time pressure in our circumnavigation plan (due to both money and also chasing seasons) is that we don’t often have the luxury of being able to drift slowly in light wind – we tend to be chasing a deadline to arrive somewhere. Accordingly, once the boat speed drops below about 3 knots, the engine tends to go on.

Not much opportunity to sail when there’s absolutely NO wind - this was exactly half way between Australia and Indonesia.

We’re hoping that Year 2 will be a little less rushed and we can ghost along a bit more while patiently waiting for the wind to build – time will tell.

The final confounding factor is the amount of wind itself. Although most of a typical circumnavigation is sailed in the trade wind belt where you can expect 15-25 knots of wind from behind every day, SE Asia where we are now is much closer to the equator, meaning much lighter and more variable winds.

Next year we’ll be sailing south through the Indian Ocean and we’ll be expecting much more wind the further south we go.

Boat work v Cruising

Total Number of nights: 365
Number of nights on Passage: 42
Number of nights Cruising: 155
Number of nights in Marina/Hardstand doing boat work: 168
Percentage days boat work (46%) v cruising (42%) v passage making (12%)

In the last 6 months, we’ve cruised 3.5 weeks, and spent 5.5 months doing boat work. That’s led to our most disappointing statistic from Year 1, with the proportion of boat work (46%) to cruising (42%) and passage-making (12%).

We knew we had a chunk of work to do in Thailand, so had allocated about 20% of our time in year 1 to being stuck in a marina or hard stand to complete this. But unexpected delays in the big jobs, plus a raft of smaller ones, and then a large chunk of time remediating the issues with the roof, meant we’ve given up almost half of our first year.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that when we get out of here (Pangkor Marina, Malaysia) in a couple of weeks time, our averages here will improve significantly.

Anchoring vs Marinas

Number of nights Cruising: 155, of which…
Number of nights on Anchor: 131
Number of nights in Marina (fun/leisure): 24
Percentage Anchor (85%) v Marina (leisure) (15%)

Staying on anchor is generally free in this part of the world, whereas marinas cost anywhere from $30 - $150 per night, so our goal is to try and spend at least 90% of our time on anchor. We also prefer it as it’s typically quieter, more picturesque, and you have a nicer breeze, which is very important in the tropics.

Our 24 nights in marinas for fun/leisure (ie not counting stays for boat work) included 9 days in Hamilton Island, Queensland to take part in Hamilton Island Race Week. Originally we had intended to anchor out for that too, but when we discovered the marina berth was included in the race entry fee, well it was a no-brainer. And we’re glad we did – the atmosphere in the marina was fantastic

The other time in marinas was generally when we had guests coming – it’s much easier for pickups and drop-offs, and for those individuals who are more prone to seasickness, it also allows them to still join us without throwing up!

Visitors

Number of visitors from Home: 13
Number of nights with visitors staying aboard: 74
Number of nights with just the three of us: 123

This is our favourite set of statistics – and really pleasantly surprised us. We wrote in our very first blog post that we suspected that our favourite part of the trip would be when our new life and our old life intersected in the shape of friends and family coming to visit us, and so it has proven. It’s always an absolute highlight.

As I was thinking about it, I realised that the number of nights when it has just been Jen, myself and Dixie was surprisingly low (not including the time for boat work, of course). 74 nights with guests is a great start, but I’m sure we can do better in the year ahead.

Miscellaneous Stats

These don’t relaly pertain to anything, other than the fact that I’ve been keeping count and thought it would be fun to share…

Number of days since leaving Australia where temperature was below 30 degrees: 0
Number of fights between Pete and Jen: 5
Number of Boat problems or repairs: 114
Number of occasions wearing shoes: 12
Green chicken curries consumed: 57
Books started/completed: 41/26

So that’s our first year in numbers for you - let me know if there’s anything in there that surprised you, or if there’s other information you’d like us to track along the way.