We plan each passage carefully with the hopes of having an “uneventful” passage. However, the voyage from the Marshall Islands to Kiribati to Tuvalu turned into a very “eventful” passages. 

On the first leg of our voyage, we lost our starboard steering gear box in route from the Marshall Islands to Kiribati.  This made our starboard helm, with the throttles, useless. 

On the second leg of our trip from Kiribati to Tuvalu we lost the port rudder arm (or tie rod). 

Let me back up…

The second leg of our voyage from Kiribati to Tuvalu was 702nm.  We anticipated a 6-7 day sail depending on weather. 

We were crossing the international dateline and the ICTZ which are known for strange weather patterns.  Normally, we would estimate a 700nm journey to take 5 days,.

The first 65 hours were beautiful conditions.  We had consistent winds above the beam with 1-2m seas coming at 8-9 second intervals.  We managed a 7.8kt boat speed throughout the first three days.

We had a beautifully bright and full moon to light up our nights.

And we had some delightful sunsets and sunrises

Even a few rainbows.

What Went Wrong?

We were pretty darn happy with our progress on the first half of this voyage.  This despite having one steering helm out of commission. 

However, on day 4 the winds died and shifted directly on our nose.  It was time to drop the sails and turn the iron engine on.  

Matt does a basic engine check prior to starting the engines. 

Starboard engine looked good (minus the steering gear box).  However, the port engine had a NEW problem.

The port rudder arm (tie rod) had disconnected at the attachment point.  This rendered our port rudder completely useless!

Seriously, the odds of having two unique steering issues fail on the same passage are highly unusual.

The good news is that Auto Pilot is working and able to steer the boat by bypassing the starboard gear box and the port rudder arm.  Not ideal by any means.  But we have relatively calm conditions which won’t further stress our “working” systems.

Passage Details

• Total Time Travelled:  112 hours (5 days)
• Total Miles Travelled: 760nm
• Average Boat Speed: 6.5kt
• Max Boat Speed 13.4kt
• Total Motoring Hours: 46 (UGH!)

A few more gorgeous shots from our passage.

Voyage Shots

Although this was not an ideal passage, we made the best of it.  

Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual live events.  We sailed from Kiribati to Tuvalu mid-April 2025.

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