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Crossing the Equator: Neptune's Ceremony | Tahiti to Hawaii Delivery - Episode 317
5 November 2025 · 19 min · 15K views · Fiji
Bald crewman hoists yellowfin tuna onto catamaran deck
What this video covers
Warren delivers a Katana 55 catamaran from Tahiti to Hawaii, five days into a passage that has been a hard upwind bash.▶ 0:18 The boat is a well-used charter vessel with recurring autopilot failures (lost roughly 55 times), water in the bilge, leaking hatches, worn sails and rigging, and aging electronics — all known risks accepted before departure.▶ 2:27 Warren himself experiences unusual lethargy he suspects is seasickness, a first for him, while the rest of the four-man delivery crew stays healthy.▶ 0:47 The mainsail head car falls off during a routine reefing attempt, leaving the crew to sail without it.▶ 6:10 A pod of false killer whales — dolphins that grow to 20 feet, common in the South Pacific in pods of 10 to 50 — escorts the boat briefly.▶ 5:31 The crew catches yellowfin tuna, which lifts morale.▶ 8:03 As the boat approaches the equator, Warren, the only shellback aboard, conducts a full Neptune's ceremony: crew members offer personal tokens (an aircraft program nameplate, a stone from Lake Superior), recite pledges to King Neptune, receive a dousing with a slop bucket of food scraps and a flying fish, and are formally initiated as shellbacks.▶ 10:09 The doldrums, Warren notes, typically sit one to several hundred miles north of the equator, not at it — meaning rougher conditions still lie ahead before the Hawaii landfall.▶ 11:30
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