Jana Lydon

Run north to Luganville today. 12-15?knots on our tail. Occasional gusts to 22 made flying the ParaSailor a bit risky. OCEAN doesn’t like DDW very well without the kite, so it was a bit of a slog with the sails slapping and the tackle banging about. I guess it can’t all be perfect, but we can dream… Check out of Vanuatu tomorrow. Next stop- Mackay in Australia. Weather window looks good for a crossing.

Started with delightful ParaSailor run, but wind built too much. We hit 11 knots (AWS was too much, though). Pretty place.

Motored. Glass. No wind.

Light winds. Perfect for a lazy ParaSailor day. Averaged 6 knots in about 10 knots of wind DDW. Close to flat seas. That’s what we’re talking about!

Amazing crossing! This was as close to a perfect weather window as one will get coming north from NZ this time of year! 7.6 knot average. 20-25 knot wind from 120-135° TWA, on starboard the whole way! Waves 3-5m following virtually the whole way. Surfed up into the teens regularly. A bit bumpy, but eminently manageable. Put up the sails initially with a single reef in the main and jib fully deployed, then double reefed the main and triple reefed the jib in the middle of the second day as the wind built. Then didn’t touch the sails the rest of the entire trip! The new autopilot system worked flawlessly, the boat stayed dry, the food was epic. The only bummer was we got strep throat a couple of days prior to departure from NZ, and were pretty sick for several days. Thankful for antibiotics! Anchored in Port Vila harbor at the Q buoy at precisely 5pm! Perfect time for the beer! The crew is happy, we can’t wait to clear customs and get to diving!

The boat mantra is “No adventures, just good times”! But we had adventures- lots of things went wrong, but redundancies saved the trip. We had an idyllic first 3 days- good wind, easy sailing And all going as planned… Then we were presented with a slowly developing set of issues. (Kinda like cooking the proverbial frog slowly, they crept up on us). Electronics became glitchy early on day 4- no wind info or boat speed/heading most of the time, (but occasionally restored on its own). Later that day, the Main GPS went out, so had to use backup plotter and its internal GPS, comparing it with handheld GPS and backup charts. That’s not good, but we can continue. Main VHF had no position info (sourced from failed main GPS), so constantly alarming- turned main VHF off and began using backup VHF, (which unbeknownst to us wasn’t receiving…) Day 4 the autopilot failed, so hand steered for the next 5 days. Then, day 5 the Hydraulic steering got air in lines, so we bled it at sea- it was mostly functional, just spongy. This made hand steering possible, but challenging and fatiguing. At least we didn’t need to use the emergency tiller. Then on day 6, the port bowsprit stay parted (brand new refit, visually normal on inspection prior to leaving Fiji). Wow! That was fun! Lashed it out of the way, and recovered and stowed the Code 0. We were closer to NZ than Fiji, so we kept going. Other issues included: discovered some chafing on the jib furler line- replaced; a reefing block failed at gooseneck- lashed replacement block to mast and continued; deck hatch seals leaking in both the port forward and starboard aft cabins; the salon door latch broke and the ice maker quit (big bummer! LOL). We made it (mostly) happy and without any real mishaps, just more work and much slower passage than planned. This caused us to not be able to execute the “avoidance of heavy weather” plan we had. We had to use the “hang in there, we’ve got this “ plan instead. 5 meter seas and gale force winds are more “adventure” than we want! Now to get repairs and such sorted. We have to decide where to go from here. Have we reached the point of diminishing returns? Should we continue to restore, replace and upgrade? Or should we get OCEAN serviceable and sell? Begin with a newer boat and (hopefully) fewer senescent systems? For now, we’ll clear customs, get the boat settled into a berth and take a week to sort things out and re-assess. For now, we’re thankful for Providence and each other.

Transit back from Namena to Savusavu. Made great time in moderate wind and moderately bumpy seas. Sunny skies. Single reefed, making 7-8 knots in 10-13 knots of wind at 60-80 TWA. Surfed up to 11.6 in a gust of 19 knots… Sailing at its finest!