What's going on out there?
Like these boats are about to crash into each other.
I'm Kristina. And this is John.
Together we just packed up our lives,
Kristina Costalos joins me now.
Put our careers on hold to sail around Australia.
In Tucana, a 50 foot Jeanneau Sun Odyssey.
She needed some work but now we're ready to
for the real adventure to begin.
If you're new here. Welcome.
and thanks for joining our crew.
We're so close to starting our voyage.
On this episode we've jam packed it with all our final preparations
before the worst possible news broke.
PRIME MINISTER: I want to commend the Victorian Government and the Acting Premier.
I really just wanted to give you an idea of what the boat
looks like bare.
We just just put the stanchions back on which us unfortunate because I would have liked to show you
what it looked like naked.
But, I will show you now and we'll do a before and after.
The barbecue's been taken off to be cleaned.
No lifelines.
We just put these new stanchions back on.
Outside we replaced and re-thread the new lifelines through the stanchions.
They act as a fence.
While inside...
It's is an absolute pig sty in here.
I am a little embarrassed. I wasn't going to show you guys this.
What an absolute shemozzle.
These are the conditions we are currently living in.
We had to take everything out of the cupboards to access and replace all those stanchion backplates.
So that means all the lining is off at the moment and the looks like a pig sty.
But on a positive note, John has been organising all his tools and he's also done this side as well.
So far we're having a productive day, we have taken the barbie off the back.
The stern rail is now bare.
and
we are cleaning the barbecue. It is a little filthy.
But that's okay because she is going to come up a beauty.
We are going to give this barbecue some love.
What did you say? No, I'm not doing more TikToks 😂
Just explaining the barbecue situation because it is full on.
We also noticed a leak coming from the cabin top window on the starboard side.
So we wanted to resealed as quickly as possible.
At the same time we got a call that we'd desperately been waiting for.
Good news!!
We have to move the boat at 8 o'clock John.
No sleeping in tomorrow.
Did you hear about the news this morning?
The boys rocked up and I was still in my PJ's.
Lucky I was wearing clothes, alright!
Bye!
Good morning. Today...
the mast finally goes in.
John has woken me up 7am aft er going to bed so late
because we were getting the... I don't even know if I'm going to be able to use this.
My face looks so puffy John.
So, the mast is going in.
John and I for the very first time took it out of its pen.
We motored the boat all the way here.
Finally, we've been waiting for this day for a couple of weeks at least.
The mast was first.
Then the stays.
Then the boom.
The backstays and the forestay were next.
While the electricians re-wired the mast.
Barnies little pet bird who's hungry just while we're trying to put the mast in.
His name is Wingy. He's been through the wars the poor chap.
Once everything was attached, Tucana had some adjustments in the water.
Her new rigging, was fine tuned.
You may notice to there on the bow, we have a new tender.
Just trying to find ourselves a tender.
After looking at a few options and doing a heap of research
it was clear to us Highfield was the way to go.
Our first on our little tender!
Hey, thanks for our new tender!
How do we look?
Does it suit us? Yeh!
Ahh, be careful, don't puncture it!
We went with a Highfield, Classic 290, hypalon version.
On board we also have a 6 person liferaft.
I found it on Facebook marketplace.
It's usually around $2,500 new.
This one is only a few years old and
and it's in service and it's only $900.
So that is a massive saving for John and I.
I think it's about 38 kilos actually.
That's heavy!
There's also a special device we've tucked into our life jackets.
So we're programming the OceanSignal MOB1
It tells other ships in the area if you've gone overboard.
It lets other vessels know the details of the boat.
And why would we use something like that?
So this little gadget, if you fall overboard, and the lifejacket inflates it will set off this little signal from this unit
and it's a VHF signal which then gets transmitted with the MMSI and the GPS location back to
any vessels in the area and it will come up on the chart plotter where you are
relative to their boat so then they can find you.
So essentially that could save our lives?
In a man overboard situation, if you're at night or in rough seas
it's not always easy to keep an eye on the person who's in the water. So this just helps you do that.
Nope, it's flashing red.
What does it say if it doesn't work? Just do it again.
Is that what it says? Yeh, you just have to do the test again.
Not sure if you actually have to hold it this close but.
It's so crazy that you don't even need wifi, it's like morse code.
While we're out at sea sailing we'll also need a way to make power and re-charge our batteries
while the engine isn't running.
And we have solar panels.
How are you feeling babe?
Tired. What have you done?
Go back up. Go back up.
Quickly, go back up.
I put solar panels on the bimini.
John you need a haircut.
It's been two months...
and you look like a dishevelled mess.
but you're doing a great job, I mean this isn't a fashion parade.
That goes into there.
And now we have all the panels on here connected up.
But see how ugly it all is?
I have to. Too much cables see.
I was trying to cut them short and you're like, maybe lets cut some longer ones.
Now we've got all this.
It'll be alright, I'll just have to tidy it up.
Some people said, John's solar panel idea wasn't going to be good enough, but if you look at it
it could be award winning.
John's actually about to crack it, poor thing.
Are you happy with what you've done?
Not really, it's a bit messy. It's a bit rushed?
Trying to get out of here.
Winter is coming
I don't know if that's safe John.
You've got good legs though.
He's also got good skills but our docking needs some refining so
so we invested in some lessons.
The trick is to go where's the wind, what's it doing, how's it going to effect our boat.
How are the two of us going to park it.
See how much easier it is when you can see what you're doing...
Really really good job. So Gordo, what did you think of John?
I'm really impressed actually with what's going on.
I'm very jealous of the two of you, you're going to have such a good time.
Turns out, my friend Phil, happened to be walking along the rock wall.
How ya doing?
Do you want to come see the boat?
Queue: his commentary.
Left hand down, yeh that's it.
Swing it around, right hand, right hand, yep, yep!
Hook it, hook it, yeh
Good work, John, backing it in.
Kristina, she's doing good too.
That's it. Chuck out those things on the side.
Oh, executed very well.
Just gliding in.
Perfect!
When you come around just give me a buzz.
Phil, Cara and their newborn Mila,
gave us a loving send off.
Baring gifts.
That is so nice of you
When you're having a rough day, don't worry about it, you'll get past it.
It's going to get tough, you two out there, do this do that, it's just like.. I told you to tie it off.
That was me like, yesterday.
Good luck! We have to stay in touch!
John, you've been in here for two seconds!
You're supposed to save them for a rainy day.
Can't wait. Wow.
John and I were now fully stocked and ready for our first sail together. Our Melbourne maiden sail.
Cheers! Cheers!
We celebrated with our dear friends who actually got us into sailing on a trailer sailor around 6 years ago.
If you told me then.. that one day we’d give it a crack and buy our very own..
and learn the ropes… Wow.. forever grateful.
And, while we were enjoying the milestone, John’s Dad called.
Make sure you capture some videos. I'm all over it Paul.
Kristina's filming it right now.
What do you think?
Well.. you're ropes are a bit of a mess there what's going on? What's going on there Johnny?
Yeh yeh, well that's the crew. You've got to ask them.
Alright Dad, cheers. Catcha later.
As we approached the Docklands and Melbourne city… we practiced our new skills, docking.
And christened that clean barbecue the following day.. our family.. interstate not far away.
JOHN'S GRANDAD: You're enjoying the fruits of your labour now both of you.
Yep, finally!
But we spoke too soon.
Coming up next. We were READY to leave. I was provisioning food for our HUGE sail when...
This is so stressful.
The worst possible news, broke.
Whole of Victoria has just been put into a 7 day lockdown.
The Prime Minister is about to speak John.
I want to commend the Victorian Government and the acting Premier for their efforts.
We've left a note here, because we don't know when we're going to see Tucana again.
We had one last option.