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NZ->Fiji: Day 3

by KC2RIY, on May 4th, 2012 (At Sea)

Fourth day and night at sea.

It is so nice to be heading in the right direction. The winds and seas are just right and we’re bombing along at 7-8 knots in a straight line to Fiji.

I discovered some further damage to the boat. One of the pulleys on our traveller through which the mainsheet passes had disintegrated. No sign of it at all. The load from the boom was now down on one pulley and the normal 4:1 tension ratio was down to 2:1. This discovery began a series of moves to put in permanent preventers on the boom and then to redo the lines on the traveller so that we’d be back to 3:1 on the pulleys and less load on the remaining traveller pulley. All while continuing to sail.

At the end of that effort we struck what must have been a huge fish. The excitement didn’t last long as the line snapped when I put the brake on to avoid losing the line.

I also put out a few emails to arrange replacement battens and sail cars. The former has quite progressed with a number of our friends prepared to bring some spares up to Fiji and the sail maker ready to hand some over.

Morale aboard is pretty high now that we’re heading in the right direction at a decent speed. ETA is currently during the night of May 7th. The forecast looks pretty good all the way up until the last day when we run into some sort of front. Oh well.

We are feeling the benefits of heading north. While we haven’t had our warmest day since Tuesday, our night time temperatures have been rising. The last 24 hours have been more or less flat at 20C. The sea temperature is up from 18C to 24C. I hope soon we’ll be able to go to tee-shirts.

With four of us aboard we’ve been running a 2 hour on, 6 hour off shift system. It’s working very well. Sam’s on at 1am, then Paul at 3am, then Helen at 5am, then me at 7am. The whole pattern repeats twice more throughout the day.

Helen got to choose her slot first (being Admiral) and is perhaps least happy with her rotation. But all is good when you can get 5-6 hours of solid sleep in a go. Particulary with a couple of extra 3-4 hour sleeps thrown in too.

Category: At Sea | Here is my comment

NZ->Fiji: Day 2

by KC2RIY, on May 3rd, 2012 (At Sea)

Each day brings us something new. The shipboard joke about heading to Tonga was getting stale and had been replaced by our now heading to Niue. The winds were refusing to shift from the South.

Early afternoon the winds died to almost nothing and we ended up motoring for a while. But this didn’t last long and the winds resumed from the WSW, right behind us where they’d been for the last couple of days. Forcing us further and further east.

To gain a better heading, at one point I put the boat wing on wing which is not my favourite point of sail. Everything ran well for about an hour until we were hit by a squall that came out of nowhere. I’d already tied down the head sail and main to minimise the effect of any accidental jibes. These preventers did their job as the wind shifted violently and rose to nearly 30 knots apparent (nearer 40 true) as we flew away from the squall. The preventers also prevented us from getting out of the wing on wing straight away. I managed to release the head sail preventer and put us onto a port tack (now on our way to New Caledonia). On a broad reach that gave us a breather to remove the main preventer and jibe again to put us on the best course to Fiji which was of course somewhere between Tonga and Niue.

Soon after the winds finally shifted around and on a broad reach we were on our way to Fiji. Later, after dark, we discovered somewhere in all this we had bent two of the main batons and the sliders attaching the head plate to the mast had also broken. By now the winds had picked up and we had a reef in the main. We decided we were better off doing nothing in the short term. During my 11pm to 1am shift the winds picked up considerably requiring me to put a second reef in the main. Because of the earlier damage I had to be extra careful. It seemed to take an age to do it all right. By the time the cause of the extra winds (another squall) had passed I was exhausted. When the winds eased we were again heading to Niue. At the time I felt demoralized. We were struggling to get to Fiji and the mainsail was damaged.

By the end of my shift we were again pointing to Fiji. I went to sleep considering our options.

By the morning I decided we needed to bring the main down, fully assess the damage and attempt what repairs we could. We woke Sam up to help as he was on next and Paul joined later. We furled the head sail, dropped the main then put the head sail out again to keep going. The top two batons were indeed snapped in two. We duct taped them together and reversed them so the stresses would be in a different place. The two sliders at the top of the main had also both broken. Fortunately I had a couple of spares which, with Sam’s help, I replaced. To get the top of the main back into the slider we had to remove the remainder of the sliders and install them all top to bottom. In a marina this is awkward. In 3m seas it was a pain. But we managed it.

Now the mainsail is up again with a couple of curious kinks where the top two batons are broken and taped. Better still the wind is in the right place and we’re sailing to Fiji. We have about five days of good winds ahead of us so fingers crossed, no more drama. There is a front sitting over Fiji which we may encounter in the day prior to arrival. But that’s a future problem. We’ll think about and deal with that when we’re closer.

Category: At Sea | Here is my comment

NZ->Fiji: Day 1

by KC2RIY, on May 2nd, 2012 (At Sea)

Day 1 (the second day out) was a bit of a contrast to the first day.

The sea was more choppy leading Sam to feel a little sick.

Overnight it was slightly warmer and a lot less wet.

We caught no fish.

It was a typical second day at sea with everyone aboard adjusting to life at sea.

Throughout the day and night the winds have refused to move into the south east as the early forecasts promised. I jibed to the north west for a while but didn’t like where we were going so put us pack to the north east again. In these choppy seas going wing on wing is not an option. Stopping at Minerva Reef is now becoming an option and the joke is we’re off to Tonga. Whether or not we stop at Minerva is going to be all dependant on the weather. There is a front up near Fiji and we don’t know what’s behind it. We’ll need to wait 2-3 days to see how the forecasts develop and then make a decision. If we stopped at Minerva it would be for one night or four or more as we’d want to avoid a weekend (expensive) arrival in Fiji.

Overnight the seas calmed and by morning the winds died down somewhat. We now have the Code Zero and main out to keep us going. The forecast looks to strengthen and move more into the SE. We’ve seen that before but this time it looks promising.

Category: At Sea | One reader has left a comment, here is mine

NZ->Fiji: Day 0

by KC2RIY, on May 1st, 2012 (At Sea, New Zealand, Sidewinder)

A quick scan of the morning forecasts was not immediately encouraging. The forecast looked better for the afternoon and pretty light in the morning. Not what we wanted as we were eager to go. Another boat mention motoring up to the Poor Knights Islands to do some sight seeing on the way out. That seemed the basis of a good idea. We could do the same and if the wind picked up along the way we’d switch to sailing for Fiji.

Bruce the customs/immigration guy arrived about 9am and cleared us out. He was as cheerful as ever. We headed off almost immediately and motored out down the river against the incoming tide. Once out of the river we put out our headsail to help us along. About a third of the way up to Poor Knights the wind did pick up so we furled the head sail, put up the main and then put out the head sail again.

We carried on motor sailing for a short while towards Poor Knights Islands before I decided to turn east. “We’re on our way to Fiji”.

The wind still wasn’t too strong and whenever we dropped below 4 knots we put on one of the engines to bring us up to 5 knots. We rarely had the engine on for more than 15 mins before the wind picked up enough to turn it off. The sea was almost flat so the going was easy and noone really felt seasick for too long.

The wind direction was as predicted and took us off nearly east. Also as expected it gradually turned and strengthened over night. We are now on course for our first waypoint which is placed to minimise the swell that works its way around New Zealand. We’re making a respectable 8.5 knots even though we’re running downwind. Not our best point of sail.

It’s been cold and wet overnight making the night watches less than pleasurable. I suspect we have another day of gray weather ahead of us before it clears.

All is well aboard.

Our friends aboard Sidewinder also departed yesterday and we’ve been in frequent radio contact with them. Sam received a call from them during his night watch and learned that David unfortunately has some issue with his leg which has caused them to head back to NZ and check into Opua. We wish them all the best. It means we’re out here on our own this time.

We caught a skipjack tuna yesterday. Not our thing. It got tossed back after a gutting demonstration for Sam.

Category: At Sea, New Zealand, Sidewinder | Here is my comment

Passage Pics

by steve, on October 31st, 2011 (At Sea)

Here are a few pictures from our recent passage. Enjoy.

Category: At Sea | 2 readers have left comments, I want to comment too
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