Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

We finally made it out here to Great Barrier Island which, quite coincidentally, is called Aotea in Maori – something we did not know at the start of day.

The start of day was actually characterized by a calm anchorage. The strong southwesterlies so apparent the previous day had disappeared. We hoped the winds were simply obscured by the mainland and we hadn’t made a terrible mistake delaying a day. All the forecasts called for winds in the high teens so with undeserved trust in them we set off.

We had the sails up quite early and, just in case of a sudden onset of the wind, we had two reefs in the main. With under 10 knots of wind and the incoming tide against us we had the port side motor on to help us get away from the land and, for evening delight, heat up the water.

It took about an hour and a half to find the wind. Once in it we soon had the motor off and were sailing at first at around 6 knots, then 7, then up into the 8’s and 9’s. The wind was right behind us so rather than run wing on wing we jibed our way towards our destination. The trip was ultimately quite exhilarating and, with the chop behind us, quite comfortable.

We approached Great Barrier Island via the south of Kaikoura Island to the west of Port Fitzroy. As we rounded the corner and placed the main island to our south we got a respite from the winds and used it to take our sails down. The pass between Kaikoura Island and the mainland is only 40m wide and we wanted to be under engine power and in full control of the boat as we passed through.

Once through the pass we motored up towards Port Fitzroy. As we approached the port it was apparent that the south westerly wind was gusting straight up into the port making the anchorage potentially quite rolly so we took a right and anchored in Forestry Bay just to the south of Port Fitzroy.

After letting the anchor set, moving the boat a bit then letting the anchor set again we headed ashore to stretch our legs. With the tide nearly out we got the dinghy as far as a rocky beach but had to step out into mud. The dinghy wheels installed last year were really helpful getting the dinghy across the rocky beach to where we tied it to a pole.

We walked along a rain soaked path to the nearby DOC hut where we met the guide busy on her computer. She told us to grab the “Out Here” pamphlet while she finished up. We were now seconds away from discovering the Maori name for the island as after much searching for an unfindable “Out Here” pamphlet the guide finished what she was doing and promptly pointed us towards the Aotea pamphlet. From this and some discussion we have an idea of some walks we could do on the island.

We then walked to the bustling metropolis that is Port Fitzroy by way of a bridle path which took us up above the stone track the cars use.

The bridle way (completely absent of hoof prints nor dung) brought us down by the village shop (which was open) and the tourist shack and bookshop (which weren’t open). We had a little look around the shop which also had a cafe which opened on Fridays to Sundays (but is closed next weekend). We then took a further walk to the Yacht Club bar/restaurant which was without an owner and also closed, but for good.

Having now fully explored Port Fitzroy (we thought) we headed back to the shop and picked up some bread, milk and frozen squids (fish bait). We walked back to the dinghy by way of the road passing the ferry dock which had a burger bar (which was, you guessed it, closed but chalked up the possibility it could be open today).

Back at the dinghy to tide was now fully out and it was a completely mud infused affair getting it back deep enough to get away from the shore and back to the boat. Fortunately I neither lost nor ruined my flip flops in the sucking mud.

The evening was filled with Spaghetti Bolagnaise, a movie and deliciously hot showers.

Today we’ll keep it light. I may try a little fishing and we plan to walk to some nearby waterfalls followed by lunch at the burger place (you never know, it might be open). This afternoon we plan to move the boat around to the bay to the south of us and anchor there ready for a climb up to the top of Mount Hobson tomorrow. The weather promises to be fine for today and tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

We had a very quiet day Saturday sitting in this anchorage. A few boat chores were done but nothing exciting. I’ll therefore take this opportunity to share how many ways we have of charging our house bank.

We now have 16 Trojan T-105 6V batteries for our house bank. Each battery is rated at 225 Amp Hours. They’re paired making the equivalent of 8 12V 225 Ah batteries giving us a total of 1,800 Ah capacity. Being lead acid, though, we get to use about a third of this.

The original design of the hybrid system had two 72V banks of batteries to power the motors. From these came a pair of 72V/12V voltage reducers to power the house. Because of varying demand on the house circuit a small house bank was put in place to cache the power.

Early on we found we didn’t like this set up for a number of reasons and by the end of our first season we had put in a 140A house charger and upped our house bank size considerably.

The recent conversion we had to diesel assumed we had a standard configuration boat so it came with a new means to charge the house bank to replace the 72V/12V voltage reducers/cross chargers. This came in the form of 2 40A chargers running off the generator. These are able to work in parallel with our 140A charger so when we have the generator running we can put 220A into our house bank.

When we moved aboard the boat our insurance company demanded we had a backup to the generator start battery. This was because the generator played a key role in the motoring of the vessel. We had installed a means to cross connect the house bank with the generator start battery. This also means we could, if we had to, charge the house bank using the generator alternator.

There’s more of course. Each new engine has an 80A alternator so when we’re motoring, usually with just one engine, we get to push a few more amps into our batteries.

And, of course, we have our solar panels and our wind generator to help too.

Since we launched, and because we’re not running the freezer, power management aboard the boat has been a no brainer. We’ve only ever run the generator to do a wash and on a couple of cold evenings to warm the boat. The rest of the time we’ve done nothing. It will be interesting to see how things change when the freezer is on.

We will be moving today but where is yet to be determined. A system has come over and we now have south westerly winds. The boats have all shifted around in the anchorage and our different chain lengths have created new neighbours. From the realtime radio broadcasts from stations around the area the wind speeds are averaging mid-20s and peaking in the 30s. If this remains the case we’ll wait until tomorrow to go to Great Barrier. By then the swell will also be in our direction making for a smoother passage. The only downside of delaying a day is one less day to enjoy our destination and one more day stuck here.

In two hours we’ll be moving somewhere regardless as the wind shift has left us with a bit of fetch (distance over which the wind can blow over water) resulting in a bumpy anchorage. The smaller boats around us are rocking a lot and some have already moved off.

Winds are forecast to be quite light and more northerly than I’d hoped. We’ll just have to get out there and see what we get. Who knows where we’ll end up.