New Zealand to New Caledonia

11^th May 2008

Fliss ....

Time to say goodbye to New Zealand as the weather window looks perfect for our passage to New Caledonia. The wrench of leaving isn't that bad as the weather has turned very quickly into winter so the thought of warm sunshine appeals.

Checking out went smoothly this morning and we were away by 11:00 after cleaning and stowing the dinghy. We were accompanied out by almost every other boat in the anchorage as they all took advantage of this period of predominant Southerlies.

We have had west south west winds so far at between 15-20 kts, messy left over seas from the last few days of 30 + knots of wind.

12^th May 2008

Pete....

A little fun at about 23:00 last night when a squall gave us 30kts and I was rudely woken by Fliss to get some turns on the headsail (the main was already double reefed as always at night).

Fliss...

During the night I watched a yacht race past us with full sail and thought I hope he doesn't live to regret it, within 10 minutes the squall hit us without warning & my thoughts went back to the other yacht. I bet he had an exciting time and reduced sail rather hastily.

It's hard to predict a squall as the clouds don't look menacing some give increased winds & some don't. What we have found is that the squalls here don't change the wind direction unlike the squalls in the Atlantic where you would go around in circles until they pass.

It's interesting really that we appear to be in the minority in reducing sail at night most other yachties we meet would rather take their chances in order to cover a few extra miles each night. It's also amazing how many yachts do not maintain a watch at all, some just go to bed and leave the radar alarm on and others just sit down below watching movies.

Good winds, 20+ knots and we're making excellent progress.

13^th May 2008

Pete.............

I dropped the little hinged doobree that I attach to the Aries so that the arm of the tiller pilot can drive the vane. However....we have a backup doobree that the original tiller pilot fits. Unfortunately, the modifications that I had to make to the gantry that holds base of the new tiller pilot for it to work successfully now means that the old tiller pilot no longer operates correctly. A quick modification with a chisel sort of worked and I took Fliss' watch to make sure it was not going to give issues. It did not give any trouble until 5 minutes after I went off watch when larger seas required the tiller pilot to resort to full extension and retraction. This then popped the arm off the Doobree and left us without steering.

So, more drastic modification was required immediately for me to get some sleep (01:00). We reefed some headsail and swung Naz through the wind and hove-to so that I could work on the problem. As I pushed the tiller hard over, it caught on the old tiller plot wire (that is much too short after many previous mishaps) and the wire yanked out of the plug and also broke away from the soldering s on the electric motor.

After about 2 hours of fiddling in the dark with soldering, chisels, saw etc etc, we now had a tiller arm that would drive the Aries (I don't trust the old one to keep working directly on the heavy tiller). Off we went again and I eventually crashed out exhausted. Fliss has had her usual problems getting sleep on passage so we are both in a mess. Luckily, we have both slept today and may start to recover by the time we arrive.

A new part for the new tiller pilot is simple enough to fabricate once the Aries is not being utilised. I will make sure that the new design accepts both old and new tiller pilots!

14^th May 2008

We are motor-sailing at the moment with, probably, a little localised breeze set up between the heavy rain to either side of us. The forecast is for Easterlies to set in at about 15kts before midnight tonight and to remain for the rest of the passage. This is due to a Big Fat High that is slow-moving over North Island NZ (1031mb) With the squash between this and the equatorial low, we should expect 15-25kts all in the right direction for a fast passage and hope to be securely in Noumea sometime on Saturday.

With any luck, we will not be meeting successions of squalls and the winds will be consistent
allowing us a more peaceful passage than we have had so far.

15^th May 2008

Fliss....

Yesterday we had no wind but in the afternoon the wind came back from the East as forecast.

Pete decided that given the wind direction we could pole the jib out and run goose-winged but looking behind us there were a huge bank of clouds which without a doubt would be squalls, it's going to be an fun packed night!

Pete went to bed at 7pm and an hour later I called him to help reef the jib as the winds were picking up a few minutes later he retired back to bed.

In less than 10 minutes the wind gusted, Charlie the autopilot tried to correct our course and then stopped and turned itself off leaving us screaming out of control. As you have probably worked out the wind backed the poled-out jib and a wave finished us off by pushing the boat further over causing the main to crash gybe. This whole sequence of events took no more than 5 seconds. All hell broke loose with the pole beating the living daylights out of the head sail & forestay, the main which was backed had yanked the boom preventer off taking the stanchion off the deck, in howling winds and rain a case of panic ensued... Pete was pretty calm but I felt a nervous wreck.

We hove-too so that Pete could assess the damage. Rather him than me has he had to go on deck in the driving rain with the Nadezhda hobby-horsing for all she is worth.

After things had settled down we changed shifts and he did my watch. To be honest with you my nerves were shattered and the thought of having to stay up didn't appeal.

I've thought about what happened and there was nothing I could have done as it all happened so quickly, there was no way that I could have got to the tiller in time to bring her back....

I think the only damage has been the stanchion but Pete will do a full check once he is up...

Charlie has been playing up recently so really we should have put the wind vane on... ain't
hindsight a wonderful thing!

I got up and 3am this morning & took over from Pete, all was ok but I got rained on again.

16^th May 2008

Pete.......

After last night, things have gone a little more smoothly with Aries doing most of the hard work. We have spent a lot of effort catching up with sleep again with the bed never being allowed to go cold. The day has been quite pleasant with a beam reach and we have been spanking along with 2 reefs in the main, jib and staysail doing 6-7+kts. The night watch is so far very pleasant with absolutely clear skies and no nasty black looming squalls in sight. We are hoping that we have gone through the squall zone and are heading towards more steady breezes.

Looking forward to landfall - our new baptism has not been the most enjoyable and Fliss and I have been threatening each other with mutiny! I am looking forward to repairs and upgrades to Naz to make sure that we don't have any more accidents of the nature that we have had so far.

When in Noumea, we hope to do a lot of window shopping whilst keeping the purse tightly guarded. It is said to be expensive just like any other French colonial outpost. We have stocked the boat with all sorts of goodies before leaving NZ and hope to only buy the bare essentials in terms of fresh produce. Unfortunately, we know that we will not be able to resist the fresh baguettes, pate, cheese, salads etc. Even so, Fliss has promised that our first morning will be a full English breakfast and we can sneer from our cockpit at locals with their petty (petit?) croissants and insubstantial mini-tubs of jam.

In terms of weather, we picked up the back edge of a low pressure and rode it North with the following high pressure system also giving us a lift in the same direction. As we now are well North in the HP system, the winds are coming from the East and more on the beam. With luck, we will reach Noumea before the HP system passes completely underneath us and the winds turn more North Easterly. It looks as though we will just make it.

Fliss....

Lovely night as we gently glided through the water, out of the corner of my eye I spotted another yacht was was appearing to be catching up with us. I checked for dark clouds and decided to risk unfurling more sail, I then sat back and watched them disappear behind us and out of view. Oh the joys of sailing!

Had the wind been stronger or unpredictable I wouldn't have done it as I wouldn't have wanted to explain to the captain that we had to re reef as I didn't want Naz to be overtaken. I don't think he would have best pleased.

17^th May 2008

Pete .....

We will arrive at the Boulari Pass at about 16:00 to get through the most tricky navigation and it is about 4 hours from there to Noumea. So, we will eventually arrive after dark and hope that there is a nice customs pontoon to moor against so that we can chill-out until they arrive sometime in the morning.

The last 2 days sail has been very good with some good speeds and some strange ocean currents that are with us for a while and then against us other times whilst always affecting our track.

Fliss .......

After a final push we dropped the anchor 15 minutes before the sun set, landfall is a wonderful thing.

I think that Pete & I are ungrateful at the conditions that we had. Ariel & Marcy had 25+ knots of headwinds all the way to New Caledonia with horrible mucky seas.

Ariel have said that when we leave for Oz they will leave at the same time as we seem to pick the right window, I hope this isn't the kiss of death for us!