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Flying The Dragon For The First Time & Bateman Bay Battle
4 January 2026 · 24 min · 22K views · New South Wales, Australia
Catamaran flying dragon sail across open blue sea
What this video covers
Adam and Luke depart Crookhaven, roughly 65–70 miles south of Sydney on Australia's east coast, at 5:30 a.m. for a 70.3-mile daylight passage to Batemans Bay — their longest single-day run so far on a planned coastal journey to Tasmania.▶ 2:11 The route requires clearing a river bar on departure, avoiding Sir John Young Banks (which extend 10–15 miles offshore with dangerous seas in southeast winds), and crossing another bar into Batemans Bay before a southerly change arrives around 9 p.m. A pad eye riveted to the boom pulls out early in the passage, forcing a reefed mainsail for the day.▶ 8:06 Wind is absent through the morning despite a forecast of 20–25 knots, requiring motoring; it arrives patchy and gusty in the afternoon, with westerly gusts off the land hitting 25.5 knots and producing a cross sea.▶ 18:27 The spinnaker goes up and comes down multiple times as conditions swing between dead calm and 15–20 knots.▶ 15:52 They anchor above the Batemans Bay bar at 7:55 p.m., just before dark.▶ 22:53 A safety segment recounts nearly running Atlas onto an uncharted reef 200 miles south of Fiji because the chart was not zoomed in past five miles — a yacht hit the same reef two weeks later and was lost.▶ 6:27
Boats in this video
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