Peter and Pierrot are halfway the Pacific now. The bad news: Pierrot twist his ankle, the fish disappear with the fishingear and Ya meets some squalls. Read on for more good and bad news! Full and by Sat Apr 20 2024 00:54:00 GMT+0200  Since we hit the 3 degrees south theoretically we could go in a straight line with a course of 245 degrees to Gambier. But because we are on a sailing boat we never really go straight, we do the best we can with the wind, waves, and currents. We opt for the better course so that we can take the maximum speed out of it and so that we can be the most comfortab ..read more

Ya’s position can be found here We did the Doldrums Sat Apr 13 2024 3 degrees south, we will reach it in a couple of hours, we are finally safe. Out of the Doldrums! It has been a long struggle against wind and currents those last days, but we stayed hopeful to get through. Good weather reports, a sound ship, our navigations skills and a dose of perseverence brought us to here. And also, thanks to all the candles you lighted! Parasailor Sun Apr 14 2024 We had just a little bit of wind, and pretty steep from behind and a swell perpendicular on it. A nasty combination, with sails easily banging ..read more

Crossing the Doldrums, as all sailers know, requires lots of energy – and some luck. Luckily on board of Ya the crew makes the most of the situation. They just keep hoisting and lowering the sail according to wind and current. And all the time, they keep their eyes on the prize: crossing the Doldrums! Good food, good mood – and some superstition. Read on! Lucky Pierrot Sat Apr 06 2024 When Pierrot took over for the night watch, there was hardly any wind, and from the wrong direction. At first light Peter woke up when Pierrot made a tack. The wind had increased. Peter could take over the watch ..read more

In their first week on the Pacific, Peter and Pierrot had good food but bad winds. The start from Panama was great, but then came the bad winds. Read all about it in this weeks’ blog! Screenshot from https://fossilfreearoundtheworld.org/map-where-we-are-now-position-of-the-ya/Great start Sat Mar 30 2024 Our voyage to Gambier Islands starts great. PredictWind forecasted favourable winds and currents from last midnight till April 1. At 21:00 we lifted anchor and we slowly left Panama City with its metropolitan skyline. At 23:00 the first little wind came. We could sail. In the morning we came in ..read more

Panama Canal Transit and … the Pacific Finally, after a very long waiting list we transited the Panama Canal. Together with Sue, with Jack and Sol, and don’t forget Poki the cameraman and maker of this movie. A top quality movie! Poki filmed our Panama Canal Transit. More from Poki on https://vimeo.com/user1230810/videos The very moment that you see this, we – Pierrot and me- have already set sail for the Pacific, a more than 3000 miles route, to the little islands of Gambier in the South Eastern area. The first 800 miles will be challenging , with wind stills and countercurrents. We could ev ..read more

Every sailor has sailed against the waves against. When on the engine, you see the big difference between going on flat water or waves. It doubles or triples the necessary energy. Why using it against you? Why not use it for you? That is how the Xander and Sven thought, just 18 year old. Xander sails regattas, currently the 29-er. Then you are aware of the wave energy! The two guys started a school project, to get electricity out of wave energy. A real life experiment. In general it works like this: You put a floating container in the water. A closed pipe, a canister, anything that floats. Th ..read more

The Sustainable Sailing book is also noticed by the national newspaper Trouw, and uses a full page to describe what the book is about. Here the contents of article, in the English version. As well as the original Dutch article. A trip through the water can also be more sustainable (Translated from Trouw, Sustainability and Nature, p 8.) Now that the sun is out, water lovers are starting to get the itch. They want to enjoy sailing, on a sloop, sailboat or yacht. Eager skippers can master the art of green sailing. Let’s be clear: anyone who abandons the plane and gets on a sailboat instead is do ..read more

How fast do developments go? In 1980, a good solar panel could not even convert 8% of the solar energy to electricity. When we started the Sustainable Yacht project in 2010 , the best solar panel available on the market could reach 20%. Three years later, we could install solar panels on the Sustainable Yacht ‘Ya’ doing just over 20%. And the more panels will be on the market, the faster the developments go. Faster and faster Doing a mere 20% in 2010, in 2020, there were solar panels developed converting over 30%. A 10% increase! In 2023 a Chinese factory developed panels with a 39% efficienc ..read more

The key philosophy of living  and sailing Sustainable Yacht ‘Ya’ is to use only what you need. So, if you like to sail, then sail and don’t use the engine. Or, if you need a cup of tea, just heat water for a cup of tea and not a full kettle. That kind of things. But, we also check for efficiency. How efficient are the electric engines? The propellers? All devices are checked upon this matter. On board these efficiency measures help a lot. All efficiency measures help us to stay fossil free on board, However, efficiency measures don’t appear to help society. For example, isn’t it remarkabl ..read more

There are many innovations in the solar industry, but only some reach the market and are spread. And, will they get interesting for boats? Some years ago a new flexible and thin solar panel seems to stand up. It is often called CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide) thin film panels. They were originally developed for roofs. But, skippers, yacht owners (and people with flat roofs), attention here! The efficiency of CIGS solar panels has improved! Yachts normally have limited space for solar panels. So in general the most efficient panel (20+%) is used. Sinoltech http://sinoltech.com/eproducts ..read more