Friday 6th Dec, day 7 and arrival into Kota Kinabalu, Borneo

Well, we made it to KK!


We arrived into Sutera Harbour Marina at 16:00 ish, on Friday 6th.
We would have got here in the early hours if we didn’t have to slow our speed down to 5 knots for the last couple of days due to the hitch hikers we have on both prop shafts, but at least we got here.

I arranged for a diver to go down and clear the afore mentioned unwanted hitch hikers.
OMG! By the looks of what was cut away it looks like we picked up several different fishing nets as there are multiple colours and size of nets. It is no wander we had to slow right down.
It took the diver nearly an hour to clear the each side and that was with dive gear so there is no way we could have cut them away just free diving.

I have also arranged for the diver to come back later in a few days to clean the hulls after the boat has been sat in the water in China and Hong Kong they are looking a little grubby and will need a clean before we head to Darwin as Australian officials there like to see a clean bottom otherwise they get a bit cranky and can make you haul out and have them cleaned as soon as you arrive which can end up being a very expensive process, especially at this time of the year and such a wide boat.

The marina here is fantastic and a “proper” marina not like in Hong Kong where we were tied up along side an old barge and spend a small fortune anytime we needed to go ashore. Also it’s about 25% the cost!

While here we have a few things to get fixed/tweaked/repaired and as we late on Friday afternoon there’s no chance of us departing on Monday as I had originally planned.

The guys from the boat factory did an amazing job getting the final few things sorted prior to departure. They were back and forth so many times between the factory in China and the boat in Hong Kong, a 3 or 4hr round trip, and working on the boat till 10pm on multiple occasions to make sure they got everything done that needed to be done for us.

As for the boat itself … I have delivered several different Chinese built boats and they have been “OK”, even a very expensive carbon performance sailing cat built by a well respected builder (I won’t mention names) but this boat is in a different league.
As the old saying goes and a friend of mine in HK said the other day (he’s project managing a 72ft boat from the same factory) they are built like “brick shit houses” and finished to a very high standard. These guys have built super yachts up to 40m so know what they are doing. The service Scott, Eric and the team give is amazing.

I had an electronics engineer friend of mine here in KK onboard when we arrived yesterday to go through some jobs I want him to do and he mentioned how professionally installed all the electronics and wiring looked. All in all a very nice boat indeed, ESPECIALLY the air con!!

One last thing - our AIS which stopped working 30nm or so out of HK started again about 10 mins before entering the marina here in KK! Go figure?


What was wrapped around our starboard shaft 

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Beautiful Borneo sunset in the marina 

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