Videos
Video: Overview of the IC-M25 Buoyant Marine VHF Handheld Radio
In the video, marketing manager Ian Lockyer goes through some of the main features that have made this stylish radio popular with leisure sailors, paddleboarders, kayakers, and many other water…
Followtheboat: Night anchor watch in a pirate zone
This meant that after several days of freedom in the jungle, Esper‘s crew had the ‘graveyard shift’ from 01:00 till dawn. It was our job to be on full alert…
Followtheboat: Running aground and sailing defensively in pirate waters
But we had to move on and in this case it meant heading out into the Sulu Sea and the most dangerous waters in Sabah. We made decent going and…
Jungle sailing: Followtheboat on hitting logs and running aground
But first we had one more night in the tranquil jungle. Before it was time to turn in, we took the dinghy though an overgrown tributary to an oxbow lake…
Sailing up river: Followtheboat go in search of elephants and monkeys
The Kinabatangan River has rainforest lining its banks, but just behind are vast swathes of palm oil plantations. This means the rarest animals are squeezed into a small area of…
Sailing up river: Followtheboat take their sailboat into the Malaysian jungle
Sailing deep into the rainforest up the Kinabatangan River (Malaysia’s second longest at 342 miles) is like nothing we’ve done before in 15 years of cruising. Jungle sailing was a…
Followtheboat visits Sandakan – famous for war and wildlife
We visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and, with hardly any tourists around, were able to get close to those extraordinary human-like creatures. The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre gave…
Engine fail and storms at Turtle Island: Followtheboat join Sail Malaysia’s Sabah Rally
The static on our VHF radio made it difficult to hear properly and we couldn’t see him, so all we could do was hope he put his anchor down safely.…
Followtheboat: Going over to the dark side on a motorboat cruise
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.…
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…
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…
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…