Category: Sailing

After several weeks in Vanuatu, where we enjoyed the people, the volcano, the fire dancing, snorkelling and diving, we have now left for Bundaberg in Australia.

We had hoped to venture to the more northern islands of Vanuatu, but various things conspired against us: Mainly waiting around for packages to come from abroad.

We had also hoped to visit New Caledonia (which we have just sailed past overnight), however with the ongoing unrest we were not convinced it would have been the most sensible decision.

So midday Friday, we left Port Vila and set sail. The weather forecast was not ideal, but it was an improvement over the previous 10 days and if correct there is a window to get us into Bundaberg without getting too beaten up, albeit with far more upwind sailing and motoring than we would like.

Two days in, the seas have calmed down; they were rather confused to the west of Efate and the wind has been variable. We had a lovely morning cruising along under the parasailor yesterday, then the wind changed direction and we had a port tack beat until half an hour ago when it dropped meaning we are currently under engine, which at least keeps the batteries charged. Yesterday saw some short but very wet rain showers, but today, whilst it’s partly cloudy it’s still dry. The temperatures are already dropping and we have both taken to long trousers overnight on watch rather than the swim shorts we have been accustomed to. Unfortunately the temperatures are only going to decrease, which we are not looking forward to. We still have just under 700 nautical miles to go and we expect to arrive on Friday.

We have now left Fiji and are heading to Vanuatu. We filled up with fuel and checked out at Vuda Marina this afternoon, and are now motor sailing West in about 5 kts of breeze, hoping for it to fill in a little so we can turn the engine off.

Vuda staff gave us an amazing send off, performing a ‘good luck’ song on the dock and attaching a ‘lucky charm’ flower garland to Ocean Blue. We have 500nm to go, have had dinner and are settling into our watches.

12/1/21

The last few days have been pretty uneventful. We have had a mix of no wind, and some beautiful sailing under clear blue skies. Our routing has meant we can’t make the most of the sailing opportunities, we are instructed to maintain a certain course and certain speed to ensure that we don’t arrive at the low pressure system too early. The grib files show it now directly ahead of us about 120 miles away and we are already experiencing the weather associate with it. The sky is now cloudy, the wind has picked up a little and is slowly backing as the low pressure moves from west of us to south west of us.

We have had no luck landing fish, though we haven’t tried very hard. We lost a second one two days ago – something large that ran off 900m of line. We recovered 800 then it simple dumped the hook and took off. It was a pretty good workout anyway!

Other than that we have been amusing ourselves with jewellery making (Lesley), working for Derek and stowing all the light weather sailing stuff in preparation for the next 36 hours of passing behind the low. We have a great little tablet loaded with movies to watch and our kindles have many books on them so we are keeping busy.

Our satellite communication allows us unlimited messaging with the two other boats sailing with us so we can keep in touch with them too throughout the day to compare weather and share information and trivia.

All round things are going pretty well. Its slightly frustrating not to be heading towards New Zealand for the last few days but we anticipated it. At some point tomorrow we expect to make that left turn, the it will be full speed ahead direct to Opua.

DTG: 835nm

8/1/21

Our router has now given us a new waypoint (somewhere to aim for), which is much further north of the rhumb line. This is needed because there is a weather system developing to the north west of us which will travel across our route around the 12/13 January and we need to be behind it (to the north) to remain comfortable. In addition the forecast lack of wind has become a reality. So we are now traveling much more slowly and not directly towards New Zealand – bugger! In reality we knew this was likely to happen, but it is still a little frustrating. The plus side is that is now quite calm and flat – even the washing machine was on this afternoon. Everything is working well on board and we are both fit and well. We are in regular contact with the other two boats and although we are a bit more spread out now its good to know there are other vessels in the vicinity – we haven’t seen anything or anyone else since we lost sight of the other boats shortly after leaving Maupihaa.

DTG 1210NM

POS: 16 04.7S 142 22.327W

Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Raroia after 2 days 9 hours at sea. We entered the Atoll and crossed to the Eastern side for the most peaceful night we have enjoyed for many weeks. No ocean rollers and almost no chop. What a pleasure.

As for the scenery – simply stunning. The water is a clear blue, becoming turquoise as it shallows and the palm trees gentle sway in the trades on the islets. We can see why the guidebooks call these the ‘Islands of Paradise’. When we get some real internet we will post pictures from the Marquesas and here.

After 17 and a half days at sea, we have arrived in Hiva Oa, French Polynesia.

The last day at sea was a little frustrating as the wind died and we resorted to motoring in between the gusts. However we are now anchored and about to embark on our first full night of sleep.

All is good on board.

POS: 9 23.4S 137 09.3W

The daily pattern of the wind remains the same – a slight increase after dark, then a slight moderation in the early hours.

Shortly after an increase in the wind there is typically an increase in the sea state. The seas are coming from the quarter – about 30 – 45 degrees from the back of the boat, and they overtake the boat. They pick up the stern sending us on a bit of a sleigh ride (depending on their size), then pass by and we wait for the next one. If they come from exactly behind the boat just pitches and accelerates, whereas if they come from one side, the boat also rolls – sometimes it seems quite violent, especially in the pitch black. Its not harmful, but can be a little unnerving especially for Lesley who much prefers slow and steady to fast and furious. I was greeted in the companionway by a somewhat traumatized face at about 23.30. The movement of the boat had woken Lesley and she was clearly not best pleased with the idea of watch duty in the current conditions! We were being rolled from one side to the other and the rumbling and roar of the water passing down the sides of the boat as we surfed at up to 12 kts down the faces of the waves with the sky so black you couldn’t even see the horizon was not her ideal choice of midnight past time! Of course if necessary she would have taken over, but I was enjoying it so settled in for a long night.

Come 3 am the breeze had died down a little and consequently so had the waves so Lesley appeared and I got some rest and by the morning she was in fine spirits having declared that despite the conditions, she had not had to trim the Parasailor or alter the course once during the watch and it was actually quite fine – she had done some work, watched some recorded TV and read her book. Its all down to familiarity and experience – ocean sailing sometimes pushes the bounds of your comfort zone but the more you do it the more you get used to it and hopefully the less you fear it. Toasted freshly baked bread and Tea saw Lesley retire for a well deserved rest.
Considering just a few years ago even the thought of crossing the Atlantic on a fully crewed boat terrified Lesley, to now be so close to finishing the longest ocean crossing people normally do anywhere in the world just two up, meaning she is basically single handedly sailing the boat whenever I am off watch is an amazing achievement!

For the rest of the day the routing software showed a pretty much straight line to Hiva Oa, our destination, so there was little to be done regarding sailing the boat – a few tweaks to sheet angles and course and enjoy the sunshine and catch up on a bit of sleep. With flatter seas we both managed to do so.

Nothing broke and we made good speed – we took another 193 nm off the distance to go so a successful day all round.

As I write this, somewhat belatedly we have 109 nm to go so with any luck today will be our final day of this journey!

All is good on board.

POS: 8 27.3S 134 48.6W

With a dull thud a spinnaker sheet parted. One of the benefits of Dyneema is it stretches very little so when it snaps there is virtually no recoil and very little noise. Little enough not even to wake Lesley who was about an hour and a half into her off watch period – probably the most frustrating time to be woken. So I wasn’t greeted initially by the biggest smile as I shouted down to say I needed her on deck to help replace the sheet.

The sheets came with the boat and have done a lot of miles. In 2016 when we crossed the Atlantic they took a bit of a hammering and we noticed wear on the splice where the quick release shackle is joined to the end. These are the only sheets that we have joined by metal shackles. They are very expensive shackles that can be ‘spiked’ by ramming a conical rod into a circular hole in them and they will open under full load instantly releasing the spinnaker for a quick drop. However that technique requires a fully crewed boat with a crew out on the end of the spinnaker pole. The race boats do it all the time but short handed its not an option.

For three years we have been watching the splice deteriorate. Unfortunately after several year’s use it becomes virtually impossible to re splice the working end of a rope – the fibres harden and get ingrained with salt etc.. And the rest of the sheet is fine so we keep putting off changing them. So it was of no real surprise that it snapped as the wind had increased and hence the forces. We had hoped it would last this trip but it wasn’t to be. Knowing that it was a possibility we had thought about what we would do if it broke so it was a relatively easy task to re-attach it although it did require dropping the spinnaker pole to re thread it. Such is the joy of the Parasailor though, that throughout the job it kept flying (from the fore guy) and kept driving us onward at over 7 kts. Quite a remarkable sail.

Fishing is somewhat limited when the Parasailor is up because its a bit tricky to slow the boat down to land the fish and if we hook a large one, it can strip the 1000m of line off the reel in just a few minutes if we can’t stop the boat. A little before sunrise yesterday we were going quite slowly in the light winds and the sky was bright enough to make rigging the lure easy, so I took a gamble and threw it in. Less than 2 minutes later,the reel was screaming – even before I had settled back into the cockpit and 10 minutes later a small black fin Tuna was filleted and chilling in the fridge. Lesley made Cerviche as a starter for dinner.

The wind built as the day progressed and the speed picked up, resulting in a daily run of a little over 150nm. Fair, considering that we had been dawdling at about 4 kts for significant periods in the night.

As the distance to go comes down, thoughts are turning towards sleep in periods longer than 3 hours and beds that are relatively stationary rather than rolling and pitching to every wave. We expect to arrive |Wednesday night or Thursday, all depending what the wind does over the next few days so we have a few more nights of short shifts first.

All is good on board.

POS: 7 42S 132 12.7W

Things break on boats. It doesn’t matter if we are talking dinghies or super yachts, things regularly break on them all. The only difference is the cost to replace or fix them.

We have a lot of ropes and wires supporting and controlling things and inevitably from time to time they wear out. In a post a few days back we mentioned a guardwire snapped. Its made of stainless steel and subjected to cyclic loading every time the boat flexes. One second its tight, the next its just that tiny bit slacker, and stainless steel corrodes. Eventually it had had enough and parted where the flexible wire went into a solid fitting. Not a big issue but a breakage all the same.

We join ropes onto sails and other fittings in a number of different ways. Sometimes we tie them, sometimes they are spliced and sometimes we use shackles. Shackles come in many forms. Standard metal ones that need tools to tighten them and undo them, fancy metal ones with spring plungers allowing them to be fastened and released by hand and Dyneema soft shackles. Metal shackles are heavy and can damage things when they fly around on the loose corners of sails. Dyneema is an amazing material. Weight for weight its something like 9 times stronger than steel. Its like a very light strong rope (which is also very UV resistant). We attach almost all our sheets and guys to the sails with Dyneema shackles. They require no tools, are very light and super strong. They are readily available in chandleries but also easy to make so we make our own.

However like anything, eventually they wear out and snap. We swap them around from one use to another because each different task has different wear points and different loads, and although we do daily inspections of anything and everything that might wear, there are some things that are difficult to inspect under sail. We also double them up in high load, high wear areas (such as genoa sheets), so if one fails the other takes up the role.

Overnight we lost one of the spinnaker guys. The soft shackle wore through where it was attached to the clew of the Parasailor. No drama, the sail flew comfortably without it, just not quite so stable, we carry spares, so at first light we replaced it (safer and easier to do in the light and with both of us on deck). We needed to gybe anyway so we combined the two tasks.

So apart from fixing the water generator (a 5 minute job), that was pretty much the excitement for the last two days. The winds have varied, we have had a little rain, plenty of sun and we are closing in on the Marquesas, albeit frustratingly slowly at times. We hear from friends behind that they have had consistent winds all the way, whereas friends in front and ourselves have had to pick our way around the holes. That’s sailing.

We continue to eat well, we now have cup cakes again, fresh bread and we celebrated the 500 miles to go mark (slightly prematurely as it was going to occur in the small hours) last night.

The nights are starting off very dark now, as the moon is not rising until several hours after sunset, but its still very big and almost full, so we have nights of two parts: After sunset, a pitch black start, where the stars are super bright, but the horizon and approaching waves are not visible, it can be slightly spooky hearing approaching waves but not being able to see them, followed by an amazing moon rise as the yellow circle gradually appears out of the darkness brightening over the next half hour or so to give a dim light making everything around visible. This remains until the eastern sky starts showing a golden glow as the sun nears the horizon, and daylight begins. We do see nature at its best.

All is good on board.