TSPS-member David Devlin successfully completed his five-month voyage from Japan to Australia on August 17. Departing on March 25th from Shimoda, David sailed south to among other places, Ogasawara, Saipan, Faralaup, Yap, and Papua New Guinea, before making a dash across a tempestuous Solomon Sea and a calmer Coral Sea to arrive in Cairns under ideal sailing conditions. As David says, “After all this little boat has been through it is nice to have a such a pleasant sail into her first port in Australia.”
David’s journey had more than its fair share of hardships (you can read his blog here), but through it all, David maintained a positive attitude in the face of such difficulties that was, in short, inspirational.
On behalf of the TSPS Bridge and TSPS members, we congratulate David for his achievement, and look forward to seeing David when he returns to Tokyo.
It would appear that TSPS member David Devlin, so unfortunately waylaid by a coral bommie (outcrop) on May 15th at Faraulep in Micronesia, has completed the temporary repairs necessary to his vessel’s skeg and rudder and is about to depart for Yap, a sail of about 385 miles. There, he will complete the repairs at a boatyard before continuing on to Australia. This is from a recent update on his blog:
Thomas, Chan and Chan’s son Melvin navigated for us yesterday on a nail bitting trip out to sea through the lagoon’s middle entrance. It is a dog leg’s entrance and we found it both difficult to navigate going out and then returning in to. Think we will use the narrow but straight entrance we used when we first came in when it comes to leaving.
My mouth was dry and I was shaking the entire time. Not only concern over hitting again but concern over the repairs holding up. We motored around a bit and found water in the bilge. Emptied it and found it did not return. I have had this happen before. There are so many places for water to get trapped and once you get out to sea and rocked around it starts appearing in the bilge. We then put up the main sail 3rd reef and ran with the wind toward Yap doing 3.4knots. The wind was between 15 and 20 knots and the waves 3 to 4 feet. We turned around came back through the lagoon entrance, attached back up to our anchor and celebrated with 3 not so very cold but very enjoyable bottles of wine with our new friends.
There has been no leak whatsoever since. I have therefore decided to sail to Yap. The earliest would be tomorrow afternoon but still a few things to get done so more likely Thursday. All weather permitting.
We will lodge our sail plan with Guam Coast Guard and also Australian Maritime and won’t go if they say don’t. We plan to only use sail to steady the boat to reduce pressure on rudder. Will keep our sea anchor ready to deploy from the bow should we get strong winds or a storm.It is nearly 400 nautical miles so we are bound to hit a couple of squalls.
I am not going to write all details here of our repairs or the how we plan to sail to avoid a barrage of arm chair advice and comments. I have chosen to work with 4 good people on this and they have devoted a lot of their time. We have spent a lot of time discussing and debating every detail and I feel confident we have done the best we can and the boat will withstand the journey.
David
All of us at TSPS wish David an easy and safe journey.
David Devlin aboard Yarramundi on Faraulep Island sent an update via satphone today. We, like everyone else concerned, are relieved that things are well in hand, and his spirits are up. Being stranded, even temporarily, thousands of miles out must be stressful, but as mentioned in our original post, it could be worse. The images on the homepage show the extent of the damage and the temporary repairs made.
Here is David’s email to his friends/supporter crew here in Japan:
Thanks for your many many many text messages and getting everything out there. Appreciate it heaps.
We are not in an emergency situation and are not stranded. Just delayed for a while. We have had two marine surveyors look at the photos on the blog and give us clear instructions on what to do.
We have one package containing basics to stop the leak, stop the insects and top up the beer supply. It arrives on supply ship H1 Wednesday and Captain Dominic is looking after it for us.
The parts to make us seaworthy were sent from a Guam boat shop to Yap and arrived this morning. Missing the supply ship.
They are at the Pacific Missionary Aviation office in Yap and pilot Amos Colins is looking after them for us (I believe). They will air drop them to us for $4600 within 3 or 4 hours of requesting. Not going to do that. But if there is a medivac situation or similar we can piggy back off that. For example Woleai is just 80miles from here and has an airstrip. There are 2 funerals there this weekend including that of the Chief’s wife so there is a chance that a big wig from Yap might fly out. Then we would only have to pay $200 for them to fly by here and do the drop. I am also talking to Arthor and Sam of the Yap fishing association. They are prepared to come here but they themselves are waiting on parts from Japan for their own boat. Just a side note – the supply ship is carrying the bodies so they could not delay. If they were not we could have asked them to wait and paid the captain a fee. But the Cheif is his father in-law. Everyone is related here. And as we are helping with things on the island – Nicky starts teaching English tomorrow – we will no doubt get a lot of help in return.
The supply ship H1 next leaves Yap again on June 14 and should get here June 18. So worst comes to worse we sit here for a month and I am forced into some R and R and Yarramundi would get a real work over with all those little jobs completed which I never got to. Still have not looked at a book since we left Shimoda as have been so busy.
But, if there is a yacht passing by sooner and can carry out package from the PMA (Amos Colin’s) office that would help us get underway sooner.
Finally – I am very worried that our satphone and laptop will get damaged from saltwater or just the hot salty air. So now that we have the technical issues solved, the parts order and ready for shipment I will only take it out of its w/p case twice a day.
Once again – appreciate the help that you and everyone else is providing. Will post a blog tomorrow thanking Warren, Jason, Jiro, Mark and Simon too.
Rgds
David
You can keep up on what’s happening aboard Yarramundi at David’s blog.
We wrote briefly back on March 26th of David Devlin’s departure for Australia aboard his sailing vessel Yarramundi. His journey is to take almost a year and cover some 6,000 nautical miles. Over the past two months, David has sailed to Hachijojima, Ogasawara, Saipan, Guam and others, and is now about a 1,600 nautical miles south of Tokyo at Faraulep. It is there, however, at Faraulep that Yarramundi hit a coral outcrop (a bommie) and cracked her hull at the hull-skeg joint. (A skeg is usually an extension of the hull placed in front of the rudder to both protect and provide a mount for the rudder.)
David and crew have worked tirelessly getting the inflow of water under control. They dove on the hull and eventually reduced the leak by using underwater epoxy putty and sealant. They managed to reduce the gushing-in to a trickle and are now dealing with a liter of water every four hours, so the crack is well under control and posses no immediate risk to Yarramundi. Another problem, however, is this fix is purely temporary and will not withstand the rigors of open ocean sailing, especially at this time of year when seas are typically 4-6 feet high. David must effect repairs on the island strong enough to resist the forces of the sea and then sail the boat at reduced speeds for a week or so to a hual-out facility over 1,000 kilometers away. To do this, he has ordered a repair kit from Guam, but here Yarramundi and crew have hit yet another barrier. It seems the inter-island boat will not arrive until June 14th and they just missed getting the kit on a missionary flight to a nearby island. An airdrop is out of the question because of the high costs.
So David has enlisted the help of his friends in identifying alternative means of getting the repair kit to him on Faraulep. TSPS has posted a request for help to the most popular cruising website on the planet and received wonderful responses from sailors around the globe. They’ve offered temporary fixes learned from suffering similar problems such as melting polystyrene in gasoline to get polyester resin, and through-bolting the skeg to both sides of the hull using flat metal bars. We’re passing on this information to George Leaning who is in contact with David.
Those who know David are completely confident he will successfully pull himself out of the difficulties he is in. He is very resourceful and patient, and the crew has the skills necessary to make the repairs at Faraulep. And to be honest, if you’re going to have these sorts of problems, a paradise island in the Pacific is as good a place as any to have them.
We wish David the best of luck and look forward to news of Yarramundi raising Guam or some other such port in the near future.
You can keep up on what’s happening aboard Yarramundi at David’s blog.
TSPS sailor David Devlin set off from Shimoda port aboard Yarramundi, his Jeaunneau 34 on March 25 bound for Sydney, Australia, a voyage that we understand may take up to a year to complete. His course south will begin with stops in Shikinejima and Hachijojima in the Izu Islands south of Tokyo, before setting off for Ogasawara in the Bonin island chain, some 480 nautical miles south-south east of Shimoda. We’re not sure in which direction David will point the bow from there, but he’ll likely be stopping at some of the islands that dot the Philippine Sea and other areas because in addition to running his business and sailing, David is also an avid underwater photographer. We’re pretty sure he won’t pass up on opportunities to dive in places like Palau, Truk, or Yap. Along the way, a few fortunate friends will accompany David aboard Yarramundi on various legs of this 6,000 nautical mile voyage to Sydney. Lucky them!
We’ll keep you posted as more specific information about David’s trip comes to us. If you’d like to follow his voyage south you can read about it on his Sailblog, ‘Towards Sydney’.
You can see David, Yarramundi and other TSPS boats underway in this video.
On behalf of everyone at TSPS, we wish David a very pleasant and safe voyage on his way toward Sydney.
