During lockdown at Sutera Harbour Marina, we took a spin in a superyacht with Captain Paul Stanton of Island Princess, a Princess 88 on its way to be hauled out.…
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Followtheboat: Is this South East Asia’s answer to the Caribbean?
Like many worldwide destinations, Sabah’s tourism industry has been hit hard by the pandemic. With borders closed and the Movement Control Order in place for months, most hotels and resorts…
Introducing the all new Icom IC-M803 MF/HF/SSB Marine Radio
Over many decades Icom have been manufacturing marine HF/SSB Introducing the all new Icom IC-M803 MF/HF/SSB Marine Radiotransceivers that have provided a sound communication platform for both commercial deep sea…
Followtheboat: Total refit costs and what we would do differently next time
When we arrived in Malaysia in 2013, Esper was in pretty bad shape. After three years without moving in the brackish waters of Kerala, a knockdown off the Maldives and…
Back by popular demand: Icom relaunches IC-M423G and IC-M400BB Fixed Marine VHF radios
Both of these radios have been firm favourites with many of commercial and leisure marine users and the reintroduction of them also means that Icom’s HM-195CMI Multi-Station Commandmic Interface is…
Followtheboat: Refitting Esper’s interior, navigation gear and electronics
Because one of us was on the job in the yard every day, we were able to watch and manage the entire project, which is probably why it’s still so…
Followtheboat: Looking back after thousands of miles and hundreds of anchorages
In this celebration of the 200th episode, Liz and Jamie remember how it all started (Jamie had hair! Liz wore a bikini on camera!). They share some unseen images and…
Followtheboat: Refitting Esper’s deck and topsides
There’s a lot of grinding and faring to be finished before we can apply the paint. We used Awlcraft 2000 paint from Awlgrip in Snow White and Moon Dust. Then…
Followtheboat: The inside story of Esper’s extensive refit
With over 2,000 video clips across 51 episodes over 13 months, our refit playlist is a big commitment to wade through, so in this series we separate out and talk…
Followtheboat: Things are looking up as Malaysian lockdown eases
In Sutera Harbour Marina the pontoon home-made “pubs” are still popular with the seven occupied boats here and Jamie’s in the kitchen making a mess. But when the excitement has…
Followtheboat: Why the best boat to sail around the world is a ketch
While there are many more cats (and cruisers?) on the water than we first saw 14 years ago, you might be surprised by the high number of ketches you’d stumble…
Followtheboat: The challenges of living in isolation on a sailboat
Currently Totem is anchored off the coast of Mexico with their plans to sail across the Pacific scuppered by the pandemic. We swapped notes on our respective situations and how…
Followtheboat: Top 10 sailing tools every cruising boat needs
In the first of our real-time sailing updates from lockdown in Borneo we answer viewers’ questions and try to restrict our top tools to 10. As you’ll discover, it wasn’t…
Followtheboat: Living alongside superyachts under lockdown
The rules keep changing, but we are safe, secure and remote from the worst of it, as this week’s episode shows. Before anchoring up for the foreseeable future, we enjoyed…
Followtheboat: How to avoid snagging fishing nets while sailing
They range from one-man canoes to smoking ocean trawlers. There are different methods of fishing too, from a single line to vast nets carried between two boats. Sometimes nets are…
Followtheboat: Why every sailor should have a bicycle
In this video (which was filmed before the lockdown and Movement Restriction Order came into effect on Borneo) we explain why having bikes on board is proving to be pretty…
Followtheboat: The challenges of shopping during coronavirus lockdown
Then the South Koreans were prevented from coming, which meant almost no tourism. But it worked and we had no coronavirus in Sabah for weeks. Then on 12th March, Sabah…
Followtheboat: Millie the boat cat is very ill
Little did we know we were in for the long haul and for many more visits over the coming months to a total of four different vets. While we waited…
Followtheboat: 24hrs before coronavirus lockdown, borders closing all around us
To renew a visa in Malaysia you have to do a ‘border run’, but what happens when the borders are closing? Sailing to the Philippines is no longer an option…
Followtheboat: Going off-grid in a Malaysian national park
We spent three days walking through the tropical rainforest of Sarawak in central Borneo at the UNESCO site of Gunung Mulu National Park. It was the perfect place for some…