Stella Overboardvideo
1 Year Living on a Sailboat… The Good, The Bad & Was It Worth It?
May 9, 2026 · 21 min · 25K views · Kapuas, Indonesia
Couple embraces on sailboat deck under tropical sky
What this video covers
Camille and Jesse mark one year living aboard Stella, a previously offshore-equipped sailboat they bought in Langkawi, Malaysia with no prior sailing experience and have since sailed through three countries, reaching Indonesia.Watch The previous owner had delivered Stella from Denmark to Malaysia, so the boat arrived with a watermaker, life raft, and basic offshore gear; Camille and Jesse added solar, davits, and jerry cans to go fully off-grid.7:09 Their first month was lost to a gearbox failure made worse by a local mechanic, forcing them to do most of the repair themselves.3:09 Other incidents included a toilet blowout on the first sail, a dragging anchor in strengthening wind, a fishing net fouling the propeller requiring Jesse to dive while underway, and a stuck furler that sent Camille up the mast for the first time.3:44 The watermaker failed and required a full bleed in a rolly anchorage by headlamp.14:18 Sailing remote Indonesian waters with no nearby services, they troubleshoot fuel-line air bubbles, jammed halyards, and engine cutouts — including one that forced them to sail into an anchorage and drop the anchor under sail.11:52 Their core lesson: doing all maintenance and repairs themselves built the diagnostic confidence needed to handle failures far from help.11:31
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