Posted on by Hoef_Inge

Sailing from Fakarava to Raiatea with a broken rudder

It’s only a 3 days sail, but anything can happen when sailing from Fakarava and Raiatea in the Tuamotus in French Polynesia!

Sun Aug 24 2025 06:53:00 GMT+0200 (Midden-Europese zomertijd)

Smoothly

We went anchor up and it went smoothly. Predictwind forecasted 20+ knots of wind, force 6 and we had to go through the North Pass of Fakarava, with currents up to 7 knots. We planned to pass on the slack, just when the current would alternate its direction. It went smoothly.
On the ocean Brent served a great pasta with soufflaki and with a stew. Delicious, it went smoothly through our throats.

Noises and noises

Mon Aug 25 2025 06:42:00 GMT+0200 (Midden-Europese zomertijd)

The Ya sails smoothly through the waves, although they are 3 meter high. You hear the waterflow along the hull and some splashing here and there. The 20-ish knots of wind creates sounds through the rig and there is also a funny sound made by the luff in the new mainsail.
Brent is new in board and all these sounds are new to him. But there are noises and noises. Peter distinguished a squeeze that was not familiar to him. He discoveted a damaged rudder bracket. Directly we secured it with a line. But we are glad we discovered it before the rudder gets loose or so. Safe for now.

The housing of the rudder bearing ripped. In this picture we are in the harbor and we already removed the rudder blade

detail of the rudder bearing


We will have a repair in Raiatea.

Moussaka

Tue Aug 26 2025 06:10:00 GMT+0200 (Midden-Europese zomertijd)

We found a beautiful piece of veal meat from the flank and Brent fries it with some onions and a bit of oregano.
Then he sliced some potatoes. Then an aubergine. These slices, he salted them first, to get the bitterness out. You scrape off the salt later.
Then you put the slices in a pot, layer by layer: potatoe, meat, aubergines, and a roux sauce. Grated cheese on top and in the oven.
Serve it there where nobody would expect it, like on the Southern Pacific between Fakarava and Raiatea.


It is delicious!

Autoprops

Wed Aug 27 2025 08:06:00 GMT+0200 (Midden-Europese zomertijd)

Normally we live energy neutral. But yesterday we charged an extra 3.2 kWh. It is our record of the last 10 years. It is just caused by the two Autoprops, the propellers we use. These are so efficiënt because they automatically adapt their blades depending on the speed and the use.no electrics or so, just by using nature. Peter loves them.
Today we got another 2.4 kWh out of them. Peter loves them even more. Brent is enthousiast about them.

We arrived safely in Raiatea, where we will have to fix the rudder. We keep you posted!