GHOST

A blog account of the activities of yacht GHOST.

Vessel Name: GHOST
Vessel Make/Model: Hanse 470e
Hailing Port: Southampton
Crew: Brad and Kat McMaster
06 May 2011 | Melbourne
01 February 2011 | Melbourne
05 December 2010 | Sydney Harbour, Australia
28 November 2010 | Pittwater, NSW, Australia
28 November 2010 | Sydney Harbour, Australia
28 November 2010 | Pittwater, NSW, Australia
23 November 2010 | Pittwater, NSW, Australia
17 November 2010 | Coffs Harbour
12 November 2010 | 100nm NE of Coffs Harbour
10 November 2010 | closing on Australian coast east of Brisbane
08 November 2010 | On route to Oz
07 November 2010 | Baie de Prony, New Caledonia
06 November 2010 | Vanuatu & New Caledonia
03 November 2010 | Noumea, New Caledonia
25 October 2010 | Santo, Vanuatu
14 October 2010 | Aore Island, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu
13 October 2010 | Aore Island, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu
12 October 2010 | Aore Island, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu
05 October 2010 | Aore Island, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu
16 September 2010 | On route to Vanuatu
Recent Blog Posts
06 May 2011 | Melbourne

It's Official

It's a sad but good thing, we no longer own GHOST. She is now owned by an architect in Sydney who has plans of sailing the South Pacific once again.

01 February 2011 | Melbourne

Reality bites!!

It's been a while since we updated the blog. Apologies for that but we've been busy fighting off the onslaught of reality, not really wanting to admit it's over! After arriving it was the welcome party in Sydney, followed by a hectic week of moving ALL our personal stuff off GHOST. On a side note, it [...]

05 December 2010 | Sydney Harbour, Australia

Pictures from the party & sailing around Sydney harbour

See pics:

28 November 2010 | Pittwater, NSW, Australia

GHOST for sale!

Well it's sad news but GHOST is now officially up for sale!

28 November 2010 | Sydney Harbour, Australia

Welcome to Sydney GHOST

Well it was a brilliantly sunny day as we set off from Pittwater in GHOST, entering the Sydney heads about lunchtime. It was a pretty emotional sail through this iconic harbour which Brad has envisaged sailing into as long as he's dreamt of sailing home to Australia. Soon we were pulling up to the [...]

Arrival in Las Palmas (in time for Happy Hour)

11 November 2009 | Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
Jay
In the last few days GHOST has arrived in our final port of call before the start of our big trans-Atlantic crossing. We were awoken at 4am (with some crew members more sprightly than others), with the aim of the day to make Las Palmas before Happy Hour was over. As you can imagine with such a grave and important task to focus on there was much bustling on board to get GHOST ready to slip the lines and head out of the marina before sunrise.

As the day went on the sun came out and motoring gave way to a fantastic downwind sail, surfing down the Atlantic swells. A careful note was taken throughout the day at our progress towards 'beer o'clock' in Las Palmas. This was duly achieved and the crew rushed off the boat, salt and all, for our first taste of the ARC pre-race festivities. We soon learnt that out of the 200 boats set to take part in the crossing, 90 or so still hadn't arrived. Most of these are penned in by high winds in Gibraltar - luckily our previous 4 rough days at sea had ensured we made it before these hit. Since then the crew have been busy attending our first ARC lectures (we are obviously a scholarly bunch). These have ranged from tips on provisioning to expected weather conditions. This has been topped off with some evening runs, more sundowner beers and constant attempts to keep the 'to do' list of small jobs under control as we dip in to the 10 day countdown to the start.
The biggest news has been GHOST reaching its full crew compliment of 6 with Stefano arriving from Italy. He's spent the last 3 years working as a surgeon in California and comes laden with medical kit, fantastic turns of Italian phrase and enthusiasm for the trip. It was settling to hear of his hopes that his beer will 'always be full'!

So what of the individual peculiarities of team GHOST? Well we have discovered one has a serious penchant for hoovering, one a profound fear of crumpets, another a slight issue with keeping food (or anything) on a plate, one is an incredible Chef, one can read a book in less than a blink of an eye and another has an ability to perform complex surgical procedures (ok this skill may be the winner- just). More on all of these in future blogs I am sure.

There is no doubt there's a fantastic range of personalities on board, and with 900 miles now under our belts we're more and more excited by the prospect of crossing the start line and setting a course for St. Lucia....
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