Hugh Robertson Sailing · video

What this video covers

Hugh Robertson singlehanded his 1989 Pacific Seacraft, Sea Change, around the world from 2022 to 2025, and this account covers the ten longest calms he encountered across that circumnavigation.0:07 The calms range from one day to five days and span the Pacific, Coral Sea, Timor Sea, and the U.S. East Coast.0:49 Specific incidents include: motoring through the doldrums after leaving Panama on April 1, 2022, when tacks spanned 180 degrees and made no progress; anchoring at Tahanea Atoll in the Tuamotus in glassy conditions with the anchor chain visible 15 feet down; drifting overnight off Maupiti's impassable southeast pass while a local fisherman tossed him a tuna; hearing humpback whales singing underwater near Toku islet north of Vava'u; motoring 21 hours through a high-pressure ridge between Fiji and New Zealand on November 13, 2023; experimenting with engine idle speed (900 RPM yielding 2.7 knots versus 1,600 RPM yielding 4.7 knots) in Vanuatu; anchoring at Stanley Reef in the Great Barrier Reef using satellite imagery loaded into an anchor-alarm app to navigate coral bombies; spending days at Ashmore Reef, 450 miles west of Darwin, in dead-calm high pressure; and heaving-to off Boca Raton on the circumnavigation's final night before motoring into St. Lucie Inlet.1:00

Boats in this video

More from Hugh Robertson Sailing

26 differences from most other cruisers, part 2 of 2Apr 202626 differences from most other cruisers, part 1of 2.Apr 202630 stories of sailors less fortunate than me during my ocean-sailing years on Sea ChangeJan 202630 mistakes I made and things that broke on my solo circumnavigation on Sea Change, Part 3 of 3Dec 2025

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