Articles | Blutui

There are remote working setups, and then there’s this.

One of the Blutui team, Pedro, a Brazilian-born UX/UI designer who has been with the company since day one, recently traded his desk for a deck. Joining a fellow Brazilian family, he crewed a yacht from New Zealand to Fiji, putting both his sea legs and Blutui’s “work from anywhere” reality to the test.

It’s late in the southern hemisphere season. The kind of late where the Pacific growls, reminding you who’s in charge. Swells build, winds shift, and long blue horizons turn unpredictable fast. Not your standard hot-desking environment.

“Early in the trip the mood on the yacht was light, the conditions were perfect for sailing. We had the long-lines overboard and the skipper snagged a magnificent yellow fin tuna,” says Pedro. “Sustenance for now, until the sea turned rough, that is.”

“What were at one time pleasant waves turned mountainous, the height of 3 storey buildings, and all aboard were seasick, literally feeding the fishes,” says Pedro. “The weather deteriorated minute by minute, until the skipper made the sensible call to abort the much anticipated Minerva Reef as the first stop, and to push on to Fiji.”

“The following days were brutal. The yacht was smashed by a sequence of huge waves and the boat was knocked out,” says Pedro, a nautical term where a vessel is pushed onto its side by wind or waves or both, bringing the mast into the water. Far from ideal.

On the work front, Pedro kept things moving using Starlink. Not flawlessly, and not cheaply, but enough to stay connected where it mattered. “It’s definitely not built for heavy lifting out here,” Pedro said. “But being able to stay in touch, keep things progressing, respond on Slack and email, that flexibility makes a big difference.”

Given the cost and bandwidth constraints, the more demanding tasks of sending heavy file transfers have been deferred. Pedro has been working closely with both the New Zealand studio and the London sales team on a series of promotional and explainer videos to support Blutui’s teams in both hemispheres. Large file transfers could wait until landfall in Fiji. The thinking, structuring, and direction could not.

That’s the point.

Blutui isn’t built around where you sit. It’s built around what gets done.

Graeme, CEO of Blutui, sees it simply: “If good progress is being made, aligned with our strategic goal, and our people are actually living their lives along the way, that’s a model worth backing.”

From Whangarei to Vuda Marina, this wasn’t a stunt. It was a 1,200 nautical mile practical demonstration over a two week weather window. The tools hold up. The culture holds up. And with a bit of planning, even the Pacific doesn’t get in the way.

Where to next for Pedro? A flight back to New Zealand in a few days time. The studio team have a sashimi lunch planned to celebrate his return.

You guessed it, yellow fin tuna.