Bali 4.2 catamaran delivered from Tunis to Corfu

The catamaran was waiting at the dealer in Tunis. Getting the crew there in the summer is part of the job – flights via Paris, hotels booked early, a local driver – and so is the paperwork: port formalities and departure clearance sorted with the port authority before anyone casts off. The yacht was checked system by system together with the dealer’s technicians; the owner chose to have some equipment fitted in Greece after delivery rather than in Tunisia.

The orange dots on the map are the track from our SPOT satellite tracker, the little device we call the egg. It sends the boat’s position every few hours, so the owner could follow the catamaran from Tunis past Sicily to the Ionian on his phone.

The passage itself was fast and quiet: low winds, a direct track with Sicily and Malta on the horizon, and a tight schedule that left no room for detours. One unplanned stop in Malta turned out to be a bonus – the owner flew in and joined the crew for the last leg to Corfu. The boat was handed over on the agreed date. Two lessons we pass on to every owner collecting a new boat abroad: expect the manufacturer’s after-sales support to be slower than the sea, and let the delivery crew do the pre-departure check with the yard’s people present.

The yacht

The Bali 4.2 (Xavier Faÿ for Bali Catamarans) is built around open living space – a tilting garage-style door that joins cockpit and saloon and a deck area around 10% larger than its competitors. A comfortable boat to deliver and an easy one to hand over.