Kevin B

Rough next 18 hours! With a passage log which illustrates the need for contingency planning, since the ocean is vast and powerful. And we are NOT! This is a story of the last 28 hours of a passage that was trying, but ended quite well! I’ll narrate the day for the reader: All forecast models showed 15-18 knots wind backing to the north at 355°-005° true beginning around 3-7pm, with ~2m waves from the same direction. We needed to go ~215° to make our planned landfall, and the wind and waves had been from 030°-040° for the previous few hours- dead downwind, which is OCEAN’S worst point of sail. (As an aside, we are actively looking at correcting that by getting a downwind sail- likely a Parasailor. The Code 0 is OK to about 165°TWA in wind over ~8 knots apparent, but doesn’t like light wind much deeper than 150°). “Perfect”, skipper says! “Fair wind and following seas are coming”, he says! “That should see us making 9-10knots most of the way in. It’s OCEAN’S best point of sail”, he says. “Sounds great”, the crew agrees. We have our sails up and we are our way. About 200 miles left on this last leg. The wind was 15 knots from 035°- dead downwind to NZ. “Not ideal” the stalwart crew say, “but favorable winds should be here in the next hour or two. Then, like skipper says, we should make some good time” “Let’s work to the south of our rhumb line”, skipper says. “Then when the wind backs in the next few hours we’ll be set for a smooth run into NZ with the north wind and following sea that’s coming. It’ll be the perfect way to finish the passage. We should sight Poor Knights at about first light and be into the marina and clear customs in time for pizza and beer at McLeod’s!” And the crew rejoiced- so far the PredictWind forecasts have been really accurate, and skipper has been bang on with his sail plans. “This’ll be fun”, they said! The weather laughed! Then sent us 20-30 knots of wind from 030° with gusts to 35+! And the seas built to 3-3.5m that were very lumpy and from 030°-045°. “Not to worry”, skipper says, “it’ll back to the predicted direction anytime now”. And the weather laughed… And the wind and seas built, but their direction stayed 030°. “It’s good that we double reefed the sails ‘just to be safe’. Once the wind eases and backs around as forecast, we can shake out a reef and relax a bit” the skipper says. And the weather kept laughing… OCEAN was doing the boat version of twerking, whilst the wind stayed at 030° blowing 25-35 knots until sometime around 6am. We surfed into the teens frequently. On the watch from 03:00-06:00, skipper saw 18.8 knots- a new record for us. Skipper wasn’t exactly worried, but definitely was less than happy! The crew were wondering why we were doing this. There we were- sailing along, minding our own business, when the wind suddenly decided to what it was forecast to have slowly done 18 hours before: it backed from 040° to 350° in the matter of two minutes! Crash gybe! And the weather laughed! “Good thing we had the foresight to have the mail sheet in tight”, skipper said. “No harm done to the rig, but now we’re stuck in the catamaran’s version of heaved to”. (There is probably a trick to getting out of that situation, but even with the engines at full throttle- one forward, one back to pivot the boat, we couldn’t come around with the sails up) We had to get the sails in the rest of the way whilst in 3+ meter seas and 25 knots of wind and pouring rain! Not skipper’s idea of fun! Once back on track, we motored along in easing seas and wind. “Well, that was fun”, skipper said. The crew and the weather all laughed! “That’s not our idea of FUN”, they said. When the sun came out, we put up the sails, and had a beautiful finish with fair winds and following seas, as forecast, just not quite as soon as we anticipated. Skipper Rob has his “Three rules”: 1). Yes you can! 2). It might not look like you expect! 3). That’s OK, it’s not about me anyway!

200 miles to go! Now following seas and 20+ knots of wind behind us are predicted. Hoping for a quick and (relatively) smooth ride in. The last few days were rough, then calm and motoring.

Decent wind, but kinda bumpy due to confused seas, so elected to double reef to ease boat motion.

Good wind, not so good seas (lumpy, 2m and contrary). Ran off a 200+ day, including the 2 hours of 4-5 knot sailing whilst in the shadow of Tongatapu.

Motor out of the shallows and into open sea. Farewell to Tonga and warm weather. Heading back to a New Zealand winter, then directly to a HOT Northern California summer.

Beautiful anchorage off Tau Island, Tonga. In 8-12’ of crystal clear water. Love having a catamaran! Sailed back to “Big Mama’s” with good wind in relatively calm seas. Flat and fast! Great first couple of sails for our new crew. Watching the window for the return to New Zealand. Saturday looks good right now, but we’ll see…

Forgot to turn off tracking.