On October 1st at 0800 hours, the Ruach left IJmuiden, The Netherlands, bound for Newcastle Australia. We are pleased to be able to inform that on October 13th, she arrived safely at the first stopover of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, completing the first leg of 1733 nautical miles. The past three weeks have been significant in the initial leg of the 14,000 nautical mile journey. The weather so far has been favourable, although the crew have struggled with mainly light- very light winds of 10-15 knots after exiting the English channel on the coast of France, and heading south down the coasts of Spain, Portugal and Morocco, via the Bay of Biscay.
We docked at Tenerife for a few days before beginning the second leg of the voyage towards Barbados in the Caribbean. You can regularly check the global position of the Ruach on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) on the Marine Traffic website which tracks the direction, speed, and route of our vessel (Note: AIS relies on another AIS station for the signal to be acurately received)! It’s pretty amazing to say the least.
Here in Newcastle, we are making preparations for the Ruach’s arrival to Australia. We’ve initiated several key meetings to plan awareness tours, wharfage with port authorities, and broader connection with politicians. There is so much opportunity for us to engage with the city and region at a broad level.
We’ll be fundraising as the ship arrives to refit the Ruach for it’s deployment in PNG. This is an exciting time for us as we pioneer YWAM Ships in Newcastle!
You can also follow the voyage on our Facebook and Instagram pages.
