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A Few More Things to Think About

 There was some hope that the forecast would change, as it did a few days ago, but it’s stubbornly sticking to much the same pattern. We have a front bringing some northerlies, followed by a small low bringing southwesterlies, and then a high-pressure system bringing southerlies. It’s all happening at exactly the wrong time. Any of these systems arriving in a different order probably wouldn’t affect our arrival time too much, but with everything lining up as it is, we may have some decisions to make as we get closer to New Zealand. Of course, no matter how much we obsess over the weather updates, it isn’t going to change anything. We’ll try to position ourselves to take advantage of the wind shifts, keep out of the strongest winds and keep on keeping on. At some point, the forecast will stop being something in the future and start being something we have to deal with in real time. This was before I thought we had to have cold beans and dry noodles for the next 5 days. O...
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The Universe

 The forecast changed slightly in our favour yesterday, with the low-pressure system forming further south, but it has now gone back to showing much the same thing as two days ago. Both weather models are showing essentially the same, and it’s anyone’s guess whether we will make it into Opua before the headwinds arrive. The wind is back around the east, with about 18–20 knots apparent and 23 knots true, gusting occasionally to 26. We have two reefs in the main and the full headsail, making around 7.5 knots and a little more when we get a push down the waves. This morning we had one reef in the main then the wind picked up to 26 knots, so we put another reef in. Then it calmed off and we had to head south to keep the sails full. Forty minutes later it dropped away again, so the headsail was furled. Then the wind disappeared completely, so the main came down. Another 45 minutes later, the main was back up and we were cracking on again. It’s all very good exercise, if nothing else. Th...
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A Delicate Flick of the Wrist

 We had the main down during the night as it was pretty breezy and looking squally on the radar. At first light, things were looking a little tamer, so I decided to put it back up with two reefs in. And then just as we are about to pull it up I noticed, by a chance of one in a million (I hope), the halyard was snagged on the tang fitting for the stay right at the top of the mast. Hmmmmm. It was a bit of a head-scratcher, so we had to do a bit of surgery and unthread the halyard, tying fishing line to the end of it so we could retrieve it. The plan was to get the wind on the port side and motor, allowing the wind to help pop it off the tang. Next came the difficult bit. I climbed up onto the boom and, with absolutely perfect timing, a delicate flick of the wrist and a well-timed wave coinciding with a sudden gust of wind, absolutely nothing happened. It turned out that a delicate wrist and good timing weren't quite enough. Apparently, what was needed was a subtle blend of brute forc...
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Planning

 It’s been a reasonably quiet 24 hours with not much to report. The wind picked up to 30 knots at sunset and the sky to weather was an unexciting shade of dark grey, with bands of rain and several angry looking red blobs on the radar. Expecting the chance of squalls during the night, we dropped the main, which had three reefs in, and ran with the furled headsail. The wind was pretty far aft, around 120–130 degrees apparent, so there wasn’t much lost in terms of speed by taking the main down. Surprisingly, the wind eased off but continued to be gusty, and we ended up starting one engine to keep the boat speed up in the lulls. Around 3am the engine was shut down and some headsail was unfurled as things appeared slightly more settled. There are still some big waves coming through, though, and it was a pretty bouncy night with plenty of thumps and bangs. We are around 1,300 nm from New Zealand now, and the long-term forecasts are giving me a little bit to consider. Given a steady breez...
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800 Miles Down

 After the drama of yesterday with the dinghy, it’s nice to report nothing else raised its head. It’s been partially cloudy, and I wanted to get some spare power into the battery bank, so we dropped the main, which blankets the solar panels in the afternoon, and turned further north to get as much sun as possible onto the panels for a few hours. We also made some water while the engine was running. Once we got going again, the wind picked up during the late afternoon and we went down to the third reef in the main and heavily furled the headsail, with gusts up in the high 20s for most of the night. By early morning we still have 25 knots from ESE, and the wind has a little more east in it, giving us a good push in the right direction. I took a few turns out of the headsail but we still have the 3rd reef in the main. We are already 800 nm from Tahiti, which is a nice chunk of the trip already done. The long-range forecast isn’t too stable, but broadly shows a good run for...
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Still Making Miles

We are still making excellent time towards the waypoint. I was thinking last night about how the quality of the blog deteriorates as the passages progress. There is only so much I can write about wind direction and sea state before it all starts to sound the same, so it partially becomes a form of mild entertainment for me to come up with a daily tale.          It's not all mermaids and rainbows  To be honest, I always hope nothing happens to write about, because if it isn’t boring sailing, it usually means something has gone, or is about to go wrong, which I prefer to avoid. Anyway, I have got something to write about. The bridle that holds the dinghy in the davits snapped last night and the back end of the dinghy was dragging in the water. This isn’t just a dinghy. It’s more like a little speedboat with a centre console and a 30hp motor, so having the back end hanging in the water was not ideal. It was a huge mission to get it back without any...
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Miles in the bank

 We managed a very impressive 98 nm in 12 hours from noon until midnight, so we are certainly making some progress towards NZ. And that was a straight line from a waypoint so the reality would be a little more taking into account our track isn't straight. We are also now over the honeymoon period and into the teething problems, which is exactly what you would expect when you fly to a boat you’ve never seen in your life and leave two days later to sail thousands of miles. The view from my head scratching spot as I try to think of blog material.  Most “normal” people would spend months getting ready for a passage like this and becoming very familiar with the boat. Of course, in the process they would also discover what needed seeing to before the passage. We don’t have that luxury, so we are finding things as we go. One thing we have discovered is that the stitching on the stack pack has suffered some UV damage, and the straps holding the lazy jacks are starting to f...
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