A MAD DASH OUT OF CHINA (our first sail)
In this thrilling video, Jason and Nikki Wynn take us on their journey as they are handed their brand new HH44 Catamaran and have only three days to sail the boat out of the country. The pressure is on as they must quickly organize, provision, and prepare their dream home for its first journey. Due to the nature of the boat being built for export, there is no time for a shakedown cruise, and they must sail the 600+ miles across the South China Sea through treacherous waters into the Philippines.
Join the modern-day documentarians, perpetual travelers, and seekers of tall tales as they navigate the challenges and excitement of their first Bluewater passage. You’ll experience the anticipation, the chaos, and the eventual unveiling of their new home. With plenty of hard work and dedication, they prepare the boat for its departure, following the strict timeline as the clock ticks down.
As the boat finally sets sail, Jason and Nikki introduce the crew and share incredible moments, including breathtaking sunsets, starlit nights, and encounters with dolphins. And to top it off, they even manage to address some technical issues, such as an oil change at sea and installing Starlink on a sailboat.
The video gives a firsthand look at the challenges and triumphs of a high-stakes sail and provides viewers with an immersive experience into the world of boat life and digital nomadism. If you’re a fan of travel vlogs, sailing, and a sustainable lifestyle, then this video is a must-watch.
Follow Jason and Nikki Wynn’s fascinating journey and witness their mission to #CultivateCuriosity as they embark on this exhilarating adventure. With stunning cinematography and an infectious sense of curiosity, A MAD DASH OUT OF CHINA (our first sail) is an absolute must-see for any travel enthusiast.
Watch the video by Gone with the Wynns
You know the old saying hurry up and wait well this is a case of wait wait wait for it okay now hurry up because oh the anticipation that has built over the past 2 years of Planning and Building to get to this moment the moment when we
Would finally move aboard our dream home well this is it and now we have exactly 3 days to get organized provision up and sail this fresh out of the Boatyard hh4 out of the country because these catamarans are built for export meaning we have got to export it out of China
And we have to do it before the biggest longest holiday of the year Chinese New Year which starts in you guessed it 3 days this will be our first night on board we decided to stay because there’s too much to do to leave and I don’t know
If we’ll actually get any sleep tonight because this boat has to be ready to go by the end end of the day tomorrow and we’re still you know it’s pretty obvious not close we’re not close oh my gosh yeah can’t even figure out where to
Put stuff to move it out of the way so we can put stuff away good night John thank you yeah good night so that’s John he’s one of the crew that’s going to join us it’s like 8:00 at night he’s like I’m going to go home but you have to shoot some video
Because it’s real bad now but it’s going to be real nice tomorrow by the end of the day and and you just you got to do it so he picked up the camera hit record and the day just went like that now it’s dark there’s a beautiful sunset a lot of
Rain a lot of boxes coming and we just totally didn’t film any of it because it’s just too much we have made a lot of progress enough that we can get rid of all this plastic so it feels a bit like unwrapping a present or like an unveiling I don’t know why it
Feels like a big deal deal but it feels like a big deal so we are having a glass of wine and that is exactly what we’re going to do is unwrap our present which is this boat quite excited about this cuz look at those carbon fiber tables I can still smell the
Varnish it does rotate and all that sort of jazz but we’ll leave it small for now do I trust me with a pair of scissors no okay I was going to get there anyway but I guess not rip it like a present all right unwrap something grab a cushion okay
Everybody gra we got to get the tape off the wine safe yes yeah it’s far away o nice okay we only have the whole rest of the boat today yep I only take hours you got wine I’ve got chocolate we got music clearly it’s low tide this morning
It’s a foggy one it’s a little chilly believe it or not our boat is going to go out into this river through that bridge and out to the Customs Anchorage in about 5 hours yes I can’t believe it’s here wo all right all right Focus we still have work to do
Time is officially up this is cast off day not departure day but castoff day so we have well yeah the boat looks like a real boat now and no longer chaos at least somewhat anyway yeah it’s so it’s a bit of a weird feelings we’re going to watch the boat
Leave and then we have to go uh stay in a hotel for the night and then in the morning we meet the boat at the Customs Dock and we go through our exit process and then we’re allowed back on the boat and we have to take off so I that makes
It all sound very simple it is not simple but yeah so we are at the this is The Tail End ah they’re putting down the blue yep it’s going to happen it’s going to happen all our shiny new fenders check them out you remember these from the canbat show
Good Old Fender Tex makes the best fenders I have ever seen we have some very beautiful covers which I cannot wait to show you but I chose not to put them on because apparently the uh docket Customs is pretty gnarly so I just I don’t know being very protective of all
My shiny new things so we’ll just start with this for now everybody’s here for a send off we’ve got Paul and James and Hudson Molly Anna Mikea everybody all the important people are here [Applause] woo ow so the fireworks Molly why the fireworks because it’s to get rid of all the bad
Spirits right oh Molly’s getting shy now oh she’s so shy Molly it means a brand new start it’s good luck a brand new start warded off all the bad spirits so now we’re going to have a perfect passage you know bye hson thank you than you thanks
Paul a month hey it’s been a pleasure yeah you’re happy to see us go don’t lie just because he’s on camera tell him how it’s really been Paul you’re ready for us to get the hell out of here this would be boring fir Don and DED I know oh no you built
This a beautiful boat yeah yeah it looks beautiful doesn’t it thank you James thank you very much looks good well done well done boat guys seriously it’s a beautiful beautiful boat best 44 in the world yeah yeah many happy signing Adventures look forward to watching it huh if you break it you buy
It but then I get a 52 We thought one last visit to the temple would be a a good place to start this big adventure and well and a good place to end this adventure it’s such a beautiful place such a peaceful walk up with a beautiful view to finish it off this our last few hours here in
China we’ve got one more sleep and then we are officially live aboard Sailors again which is very exciting it’s not much more time this is it our last walk about the last moment oh no no oh oh oh okay I think we have to stay
In s the guy’s like don’t open the door it’s a very specific process for Customs this morning and I’m not sure what the process is we haven’t gotten a very good rundown on that okay now get out oh okay now we’re allowed this is our crew this morning
We’ve got Anna and Molly who are like our right and our left hand essentially they keep us in line for just about every and uh we have got Kyle who is our commissioning Captain we have got of course Casey who crew we got Mr Woo the famous Mr Woo you haven’t really been
Properly introduced to him but if you into building a boat at HH you will know Mr Woo he is the man he oversees so many things he’s like the factory manager he’s great and then we’ve got uh John who is also joining us for the passage
We’re going to have a very full boat how you feeling this morning feeling great pretty to go morning Molly morning morning Mr Woo morning morning Anna morning we’re getting the rules and based on the Wind we want to make as much Southeast progress as possible towards the southern tip of Taiwan but
We can’t get too close to Taiwan so we have to stay at least 12 mil away so we’re going to set like a barrier around you want to follow all of the rules and you don’t want to be and you don’t want to be close to taiw No you bird spe the Wasteland such an Entourage yeah you fly there she Is Bur Brown Perfect miss you know to Molly’s been amazing she’s our best friend at HH she’s taken care of us she’s made sure the boat is perfect she made sure we’re good we love you so much Molly thank you very much for everything thank you yes we love you very much we’re going to
Miss you you have to come see us okay yeah yes you will come visit okay okay yeah I turn off the camera for me to hug her yeah okay You’ been amazing very much Channel 69 so they can contact us we should have really impressed them and just gone for the electric I
Know then they might have thought no it’s not working something’s wrong might need to catch that line sorry I took your job no it’s okay it doesn’t matter that was an experience to say the least not at all what I thought the morning was going to be like but it was
Interesting they were very I guess excited to have somebody leaving the dock and it’s not something that happens very often so there was lots of documentation going on and uh yeah we are underway it’s just after 10:30 and we have officially left the dock it’s pretty wild we’re doing It such an exciting day and an exciting morning and started out with uh coffee at 6:30 and then it’s kind of been non-stop ever since then feeling it’s going to be still a pretty long exciting day feeling like I’ve got so much to figure out getting underway I don’t know
It feels weird don’t know the boat enough yet don’t yeah just so I don’t even remember where I put all my stuff like I got to figure out where to where I put all the food that I need to cook today all that sort of stuff so anyway
Going have myself a little pickme up get this bat to Rocket a huge thank you to ag1 for sponsoring this video and for supporting our whole body health because it is incredibly difficult to get all of the nutrients that our bodies need to stay energized and focused even
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Can’t see anything out here I mean you’re just like sailing into the void got to get familiar so pulling out of here it was a little little different tow exactly Bo and I’m trying to do the non heads up on the display cuz that’s what everybody that’s proper sailor
They’re like you can’t do heads up you have to do North up so it’s totally everything’s totally backwards now would not be the time to try to learn too many new things yeah I’m good if I feel like I’m I’m losing it then I’ll call for help or flip it to
Heading up or you could just go to heading up yeah but I want to I want to try this way well it’s calm got Kyle here doing some testing on the engines capturing some data John on watch over here KC while setting the starlink up I got starlink ready and I
Got to wait till we leave Chinese Waters then I’ll turn it on yeah and then Nikki trying out the induction for the first time so far so good making my first meal on board very exciting what are we have this is are like a they’re like Bean Cur strip so it’s almost like
Tofood noodles very popular in China and I really love them cuz they’re nice and mey and good texture with some other veg and a uh sesame dressing on top so that is her our first official meal board and that’s crazy to think about really I can’t like we’ve been moving on and
Trying to settle in and everything else but we were just eating with like everybody else at the factory for each meal cuz it was just so chaotic so yeah first time to use everything it’s very fun it’s like a new surprise every time because I don’t remember where I just we
Just shoved everything in places in sort of a general areas it took me forever to find the food and my specialist anyway get it down I’ve been working up a few little extra lashings tethers for the tender just in case little temporary something I’ll make something permanent
Later on but three loops and a a bowling with a lot of locks and a long tail on both Sides let’s take a moment to introduce you to the crew first up is the HH catamaran team Kyle is one of hh’s commissioning captain and John is joining the rigging and commissioning team at the factory in the Philippines then there is arguably our best crew member ever okay Casey what are you
Doing today what I’m getting our predict win data Hub up and running he and his wife Aaron are longtime patrons they’re owners of h44 Hall number five and both of them are retired SpaceX rocket Engineers we’ve become good friends over the past couple of years and Casey has
Been invaluable to say the least we’ve got it hooked into the boats Neema Network and a GPS antenna this will give us tracking so everyone can see where the boat is and then for us we will get live weather so we get weather updates and boat performance information with it so it’s pretty
Cool see it right there what do we have what what’s going on looks like something stuck around the prop yeah oh so much for the Rope Cutters I know they probably cut the big rope and left the little rope oh so John volunteered to go in he just likes swimming here
And it’s cold yeah I’m just going to check that this clear okay this is toy refreshing day one John saves the day well done he’s off to a good start now we got dolin sck up here on the heck’s happening busted a U-turn right in front of us it
Wasn’t territorial I don’t think it was just like a jerk move he’s a dredger he was coming out he decided to do a U-turn right in front of us turn around then he dumped all of his stuff as he was heading back and he lifted up out of the
Water like 20 ft so I don’t know what that was about maybe just wanted to see our boat I don’t know nobody was out on the on the bridge like waving at us or anything we just got a little honk so who knows it’s weird though officially out of China Waters yep
International now baby take our flag down well day one so far off to a good start it has uh been very calm which has been really good because it’s given us lots of time to kind of just settle in without any real chaos and Kyle needed
To do some engine testing and stuff to report back to to HH and so this kind of really was the perfect day for that and then of course just kind of getting used to the boat because we’ve just focused on moving in and getting all of our
Stuff in there and hurry up and get the heck out so there’s been no time to like settle in so it doesn’t feel like our home yet it feels foreign it’s sort of like staying in a hotel room or something it’s but I would say I yeah I
Don’t know like an Airbnb or something like that cuz it Doesn’t feel like ours it feels like something I’m still getting used to like I know it’s fine and I’m excited to be out here but it feels foreign very foreign I was just coming up I was like it feels like
Sunset maybe I should get up and check on everybody and see if I need to get some video do you need me to shoot anything you can go back to bed are you sure yeah do you need the microphone or anything I got this okay why are you wearing it oh so good
She’s so good it is ours it is ours just feels weird just feels weird okay okay go back down and get some rest I’ll see you for dinner you didn’t hear me okay although I probably have to log into it cooking in the dark cooking in the dark
Wow couldn’t ask for a more beautiful start to our sale super calm glassy water bright bright bright stars you can see how Ryan’s spell you can see the Milky Way you can see just everything it’s gorgeous B luminescence as we cut through just beautiful beautiful night slightly
Chilly speaking of chil Nicki made a wonderful vegetarian chili for dinner some garlic bread man she’s a beast I can’t believe she can do it and she’s like prepping soybeans and walnuts to make a fresh nut milk in the morning I don’t know how she
Does it she’s just uh she’s crazy or she really loves me one of the two I don’t know but yeah what a beautiful night we got some wind coming up in like 6 or 8 hours and it’ll start to get fun and then it’ll uh get real exciting after
That so it’s 9:00 9:30 my shift ends at 10:00 and then I go on standby till midnight so I’m going to enjoy this beautiful sale motor sale this morning we were able to kick off the engines we got a little breeze we got one Reef in the main the Solen is
Out we are cruising along at about 9 10 knots of speed and about 15 to 20 knots of wind seas are starting to get bigger because we are nearing the very bottom tip of Taiwan and that’s when the wind picks up even more and sort of comes a
Little more on our beam so should be an interesting day had a a lot of fishing boats last night but not as many as I expected which is a welcome surprise because I was concerned when you look on AIS here you see hundreds th thousands
Of boats when you look at it but it really wasn’t too scary not undoable so that was very nice Nikki’s Down Below have an arrest I’m on Sunrise watch which is one of my favorites so it’s all good and we’re sailing we are moving woo first time time it just feels great 2 Years yeah Yeah you bring a beginning you spark our heart that’s gone to jump SP St like a can show the scars of your darkest night in the Morning Light I have waited for you I have waited so long w we got a couple Dolphins we’re not going very fast so they probably won’t stick around yeah there they are oh hey guys one has a white nose so he really stands out a right she playing yeah checking us out
Hi oh you’re so beautiful how’s your Dany beautiful day couldn’t ask for anything better it’s like uh little bit of wind a little bit of waves but not too much little bit of calm little bit of Motoring lots of testing it’s just been great Dolphins I
Mean what more could you ask for it’s been been what 36 hours at Sea I had shower I feel good I smell smell good I didn’t wash my hair clearly yeah it’s been beautiful I’ve been thinking about it a lot thinking I never imagine we would own a boat like
This it’s pretty cool it’s still sort of surreal there’s so much learning we have to do about each other this vessel and I I’m looking forward to it so far she moves very steady through the water she’s so quiet it’s just such a completely different experience uh I just don’t even know how
To describe it all it’s just being out of sea mostly today I’ve just been reading manuals trying to make sure that I understand and know how to use every device and every little thing on this boat and then just enjoying the day cuz it’s so chill and tomorrow might not be
That way so anyway loving it I have waited for you I have waited so You got to run the sheets find the H how do so far so far it looks good I found this sitting on the trampoline it’s part of the block busted off had to go check everything after we arrived to the Philippines check all the bolts lock tied everything seems so Weird I have waited for you I have waited so long Oh you would not want to run this over with the traveler that would be Bad yummy clean those solar panels He woo feel that Speed it’s a big sail it’s a really big Sail I don’t even have a camera big enough to capture it or wide enough and I have some really wide lenses oh man that feels good we are doing uh 8 and 1 12 knots of speed and 13 knots away woohooo Wo that was close One eggs flying Everywhere English cheddar Mhm and the egg Breakfast man we are eating good yeah thank you Nikki thank you Nikki okay you going to show mine too mine with the the pear apple John’s got some oats or some musle and the pear apple cross between the pear and an apple whoever would have thought that lovely right it’s a beautiful beautiful
Fruit yeah I think all things considered this has been a really good passage we’ve had a little bit of everything last night was definitely more sporting the Seas have built a little bit we had higher winds but nothing too crazy it’s just enough that you kind of have to you
Know put some reefs in and the sh them out the next morning and now we’ve got the Spiner up and so we’re kind of going through everything kind of getting a feel for the boat we’re doing a ton of testing as far as um with the hybrid Eco Drive side of things because
We do have different props than what they put on 01 and 02 just because again they are just testing everything trying to F tune figure out out what the absolute best combo is so we have a lot of numbers and reports that we need to
Give back so they can kind of do a final programming for us in our system so it’s not like working as it will in the end with the new programming but it’s still working exceptionally well it’s very exciting to be cruising along right now and just pumping in so much power and it
Really doesn’t take away that much from our speed you know it doesn’t slow us down that much so we are good on power like just has not been a thing so far which is really nice we’ve had lots of clouds we’ve had motoring that we’ve needed to do done some electric motoring
Some on diesel and then of course now we’re sailing and pumping in the region so all good on that front I feel like there’s just so much to dial in and so much to talk about and I feel like we’ve got to get a grip on it first before we
Start sharing too much about it but so far so good loads of power we’re running everything I’m using everything not feeling like I need to be conservative about anything but now see now it’s getting hot so we’ve gone from like cold weather or a cool weather so now we’re
Going to be in full-on sweltering heat which means everybody’s going to want those ACS crank it so that’s where I feel like the true test come in how much power do we really have is it enough to run the AC on the boat through the day and through the night I
Don’t know but maybe with the regen guess we’ll find out very very soon and look at all that solar I mean it just makes me so happy see I’m sitting on some of it right now no than we got plenty of it Crab cake grits and a lovely feta tomato salad That make you smile yeah loving have a dishwasher on board Casey’s also getting the dishwasher on his Bo same exact one that’s a lot of boats oh something oh something it’s like a a flotilla out there of what I don’t know there it is that’s what the AIS is going off
About a fishing buoy maybe your laptop looks so tiny next to the big screen oh yeah doing some last minute paperwork the agent that we’re using messaged us and said by the way we need a covid vaccine even if it’s old we just need to
Have proof that you you did it like oh crap thank God we have starlink Casey thank you I know right yep starlink to the rescue otherwise we would have be able to check in oh yeah we couldn’t send this stuff no can’t send photos on a radio
No would you like to do us the tour of the uh the Starling install our fancy Starling install yep we uh temporary install we have dishy just uh sitting in the dinghy hanging out on its tripod aimed up at the sky it works okay our roof blocks
Some of it so we don’t get perfect signal but it’s good enough we’re just running the cord it’s temporary install so we’ve just run it tape got a Wi-Fi router sitting up here and then it’s plugged in super easy temporary install we are So we want seven so we’ll go pretty much to eight and then there and then this is probably too big it’s probably not going to work oh it worked so great so one of the other perks of having a electrical engineer is whenever you need to take
Out all your plugs from the Chinese plug to the European plug we have somebody on board that can help me do that so I’ve never done this before so um we’re calling this arts and crafts time and Casey showing me how to change out my plug just barely tight or yeah yeah
Don’t go crazy this on the neutral let we get like yeah a so some exposed metal on this part yeah we got at least that one right we don’t there’s not really a great way to test the others hey there we go one Appliance down only about
Eight more to go got all bag full of plugs there see it’s what you do lazy days that see but speaking of a lot of people are going to wonder why do we have 220 volt European appliances so Bally you’re getting the same thing on
Your belt you want to tell us why 220 versus 120 because the power standard for 220 vers 120 is get basically twice the power for your standard Outlets so American Appliances are generally limited to about 1,000 Watts that’s what your microwave is and European appliances are generally limited about
2,000 Watts so all your cooking appliances will get hotter faster with European or 220 style power which means everything will be a bit more efficient which means we make better use of all of our power on board and you can dry your hair faster I
Can dry my hair faster and I can make toes faster and hold things and the wires can be smaller for the same device the same amount of power the wires can be smaller tends to not be as big of a deal on a boat cuz you tend to wire size
For most of these appliances tends to be more about how robust the wire is you can’t make the wires that small anyway yeah and if unless you’re going to be sailing in the US then which we mostly have been abroad and we plan to be then most every else
In the world operates on 220 not 120 so it’s much easier to buy an appliance like we did in China and just swap out the plug if we want to and that’s an easy fix so it means it’s easier for me to buy Replacements later on or buy new appli figure
Outut and it explodes we blame casy I just checked the old one seems to be working fine here so I just check LA on here so much fun solent furl release that this go ahead and open that wa what are you doing uh we are going to tension up the salor block all
Right some wrinkles out three two two so there’s a little dyema loop at the very top and he’s using the reacher Howard to connect and pull the sail tight so that way he can tie that dyo Loop even tighter it’s a brand new line everything’s brand new so they rig
It as best they can and then once you sail on it it just needs to be tightened up and it’s not something we’ll have to do very often but it is something that has to be checked and when you see little wrinkles in the solent you know
It’s time to go back up and tighten it obviously it’s much easier at the dock but such a calm day he’s very experienced he said let’s do it now bang some stuff off the list coming do he’s on the hard top down it’s calm as hell but it still
Bounces a lot it’s different up there oh yeah we are at the 50h hour mark on our diesels and it’s time to get rid of the factory oil and put in some fresh clean oil and Kyle did the starboard side I watched him he showed me all the tips
And tricks because this motor has a built-in oil pump which I’ve never used before I always carry that big plastic thing that you know just sits in your lazarette and gets Rusty over the years so this one has one built into the engine hopefully with the electric
Motors we only had to do this once a year because of the yearly service it’s good for me to know and good for me to film it so that way in a year when I turn around to do it again I can watch this yeah tiny drop down there good too
Bad normally we would wait until we were there but mine as well join in on the fun y everybody else is doing projects Kyle showed me a nice trick you just cut a little hole in the towel the shop towel and that creates a little splash guard for the
Funnel Factory didn’t have any small jugs so we’ve got a massive one industrial size yeah let’s see hold for don’t screw it up just go with as well what it looked like it was going to work well just the Dr going one more time what was that that was one one sh woo
Bumpy we forgive you cuz we are at sea but our last boat I would have been like ah what’s another 10 hours would have been a little warmer yeah granted the the first oil change they were saying is the most important because it has the special oil in it
That you have to remove and it’s got all the metals and everything that’s from the new engine that gets like in that oil and grabbed in that oil so you want to get it out right at 50 hours okay last step here we’re just going to double check the
Anode make sure it’s not eatting up maybe we should get rid of it maybe we should yeah it’s a little crumbler than I expected I thought it was all there but it’s not seock open okay we are ready to fire it up sounds good water’s moving checking the oil filter for any
Leaks clean check the anode BR any water clean we’re good all done all done woo first oil change to se first oil change on the new boat touching s bird well we are only about 24 hours away from our check-in point in the Philippines Subic Bay here we come that’s right it has
Been a wild Journey so far everything literally everything everything except for a disaster so that is the good news yeah that’s what I was thinking I’m like it’s all felt so hurry up hurry up hurry up and it’s crazy because here we were on this long exceptionally long wait
Much longer than we anticipated followed up by like hurry up and get the heck out of here so then it’s felt so intense yet we’ve gotten so lucky with like no issues the checking out of the country and sailing out that could have gone completely different no issues in that
Little spot under the the Taiwan like where the Taiwan Straits in that little southerly part it could have been terrible but it was just a little exciting we got so lucky with our weather window they’d love to be sailing a bit more but it’s still been good
We’ve gotten to kind of exercise all the systems on the boat it’s like as far as a Shakedown Cruise I don’t think we could have asked for better so that’s it we’ll uh get to Subic we will do a few warranty things there’s really not much on the list and then we’ll tidy
Everything up or organize as best as we can not like the fullon organized cuz I think that’s going to take a couple months to sort all that out but then we’ll maybe go somewhere beautiful anchor and do a tour yeah we have got so much to show you on this so many things
That we haven’t really gotten into yet and that we’re going to do that cuz you’ve been waiting a long time we’ve been waiting a long time and that is yeah that’s what’s happening next so thank you so much for watching being a part of all of this and uh sounds like
It’s time to put the sail away see you next time bye bye here you go one last look beautiful
Video “A MAD DASH OUT OF CHINA (our first sail)” was uploaded on 02/18/2024. Watch all the latest Videos by Gone with the Wynns on Gretopia