Captain's Log

V20/25, Sydney - Sydney

15 December 2025

Day 08 – V20/25, Sydney -Sydney

Ahoy there land lovers!

Our youthies have officially become salty sea dogs taking over the ship for the long-awaited command day. Votes have been tallied and results are in… Drum roll please…

Captain – Mitchell

Sail Master – Hamish

Officer of Watch – Mac

Navigation – Noah

Watch Leaders – Milly, Ed, Soren

Chefs – Maddy, Erin, Jade

To prepare the youthies for the day ahead, we had a movie night, featuring “Around Cape Horn” to get everyone inspired for the day to come. We settled into our anchor watches feeling mixed feelings of nervousness, excitement and hope.

The morning started with music playing through the pipes and Kingy’s famously loved breakfast as the youthies prepared for Captains briefings and the intense 24 hours ahead. Officially taking over the ship at 1000 as staffies celebrated on the deck with a musical number and “holiday” clothing.

Youthies gathered on the deck to listen to our new Sail Master Hamish and Captain Mitchell diving straight into the tasks and goals as hand. 6 youthies paddled the dingy to the neighbouring beach in search for the missing navigational instructions. Once our navigation packet was received, our Navigation Officer Noah and Officer of Watch Mac got to work determining our route to Sydney. Whilst the crew got started on the deck mural for the staffies.

With our bellies full and faces slightly burned from the previous beach day, we all went aloft before practicing our tacking lines. At 1600 we weighed anchor, youthies covered the deck heaving in the sheets.

Now we all pull in for the night to come and the learnings that come with and experience of this nature and intensity level.

Lots of Love, Charlotte and Mitchell

Latitude/Longitude:

33 31.723S / 151 16.626 E

Conditions:

Weather: Overcast Wind: 15kn E-SE Temp: 26C

AUTHOR: Andrew Leupen

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Day 07 – V20/25, Sydney -Sydney

Last night came with some high stakes as all three watches completed their ‘Bear-EX’s’. Multiple activities were completed such as climbing the wildly swaying mast’s, setting and furling the storm sails and all of this while under time pressure. After all of this was over, all the watches having successfully completed their challenges during the cold and rainy hours of the night, started the morning with some more tacking practice to truly engrave the skills we have learned over the last couple of days. Today might have arguably been the best day yet! While we mightn’t have seen juvenile dolphins, but there wasn’t a single drop of rain, the seas shimmered with sunlight, and we spent a day at a beautiful, secluded beach (Hungry Beach, Broken Bay). We tanned, played beach games, swam in the fresh water, and bonded even more. Can this trip get any better?! As we are typing this log out to all of you beautiful readers, we’re all deciding what roles we would like to take on command day. A 24-hour period where 24 youthies take control of the vessel we have called home and take us back to Sydney… Hopefully you’ll hear from us again! Our roles can vary from Captain to Sail master, Navigators to Chefs and Watch Officers to General Crew. Despite having massive shoes to fill, we’re sure we can push ourselves and be successful in this stage of the journey. With great appreciation to all of the staffies supporting us during these past 6 days, and now 7, we are confident that we have been taught well and can make them proud yet again after all of their dedication and commitment to us. Lots of love, Erin, Mitch, Noah – writing to you from the shimmering waters of Hungry Beach, Broken Bay

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13 December 2025

Day 06 – V20/25, Sydney -Sydney

Ahoy there landlubbers and armchair readers! Our crew of Voyage 20/25 have had another huge 24 hours leaving nothing in the tank to write the Captains Log tonight. I suppose I'll do the heavy lifting and share our adventures with you while they are up the yards and setting and furling sails on the deck. We started Day Six at anchor in stunning Fingal Bay with a wakey wakey song and an early morning walk around the upper decks. Kingy our chefo set up a BBQ on the teak deck and served up delicious bacon and egg rolls (fresh baked) to start the day right! We are well into the hard skills development phase of our journey now and our Officer of the Watch, Jack and I delivered some high power briefs on Rules of the Road and Sail Theory. Our crew were clutched right in and asking lots of insightful questions that demonstrated they were really learning about our ship and how she sails. After lunch and a snappy round of rope races we weighed anchor and set sail for the deep blue. See you next year Port Stephens - we will be back! We rolled straight into demonstrational tacks which involves a walkthrough of the sequence of a tack, a discussion around how we manipulate the rudder and sail plan to successfully drive ships head through the wind. After four tacks the crew had finished with their training and we settled into our overnight sail plan. Destination - Hungry Breach, Broken Bay! Heading South and one step closer to home. Hungry Beach is the perfect place to stage our Command Day elections and have a teak deck BBQ at sunset. All crew are in high spirits and really enjoying the voyage. Watch this space for a return of our Youth Crew authors tomorrow night. Captain Leups Out +

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13 December 2025

Day 05 – V20/25, Sydney -Sydney

Ahoy their mate, the young endeavour has had a swashbuckling last 24 hours ranging from torrential rain to continuous zig zag steering through the night and a lot of tacking but yet the crew and youthies are loving every second! Shaken up at 2000 and powering through until 0800, the youthies watches were done in precise fashion, with a lot of heaving. Kingy cooked up an amazing breakfast to fuel the adventurous minds aboard ship and let’s just say there weren’t many leftovers. Getting further into the week the youthies have left the ‘crisis faze’ and have picked up energy in everything they do. We have been increasing the engagement in activities (disregarding there two balls lost overboard), games, moral and confidence in sailing exercises. The notorious salty provided us with more of his enticing old timey sea tales and Sarah planned a fun engaging day for us all! Tacking stations are an entire ship revolution requiring a strong foundation of teamwork, knowledge, communication, and leadership. The youthies split into their allocated watches and completed their individual sail tasks then they all hopped on the Jib and heaved as a 24 person unit to fully change the ships sails to adjust to the changing winds. After zig zagging and tacking continuously The Young Endeavor finally anchored at the lovely Fingal Bay at Port Stephans around 1400. The crew jumped offshore and continued their adventure now on land . For some it was a bit of a shock going from sea to land as we have be rocking every day. Then the Youthies climbed 3km to the Fingal Bay lighthouse listening to Matts speaker singing along to his ‘awesome’ choice of music. The Youthies were eager to swim at the beach even when the heavy rain came in, they made the best of the situation however instead of sitting on shore in the rain shivering they laughed and played in the waves until they could be collected and brought back ashore. Safe to say all our of clothes may be wet, but our spirits are still high. Excited for tomorrow, Milly, Penelope and Taylor.

THE VOYAGE

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Day 08 – V20/25, Sydney -Sydney

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