Leg 1 Auckland-Mangonui (aka The Ancient Northlandish Torture Method Known As 'Bikram Sail-Slapping')

19 Feb 2011, 2pm start
Anticipated time: 27 hours. Actual time 43 hours.

The start outside Devonport YC was very hot in light wind, lots of boats on the start line but not much shouting ... CV was in danger of being luffed/jammed at the starboard end of the line by the boats under us (line was set at about 60 deg to TWD) so given the length of the race we elected to jibe and start slightly late rather than start a huge race with an incident. Our Midnight Express friends hit the pin at the start, and had to re-cross the line, putting them in last place - but John and Bretta more than made up for that later. Team Vause once again helped enormously before the start, as did Westy. Westy had to go back to Wellington but Karen and Pete drove up to Mangonui to meet us. Family and friends from Australasia had also arrived to see us off on the start line.

We popped a spinnaker up as we rounded Devonport, and sailed in light conditions out of the harbour.

Vesna steering, Rangitoto In Background

We seemed to be all alone, with lots of boats on both sides of us, which led to the realisation that we were in the middle of the channel in adverse tide, we had to decide which way - in close to shore or on the Rangitoto side of the channel. We were on starboard Jibe so tempted to carry on, but the Expedition software said to go in, right in, so we jibed, took a flyer out left near Long Bay, and did well. One for Expedition. So much so that in light air off the Whagaparoa peninsula in fickle conditions we were second in the fleet of 38 (of which we should be about the 24th fastest boat). From Kawau Island to Cape Rodney was nice sailing, warm, 15 knots of wind, kite up, over 8-9 knots of boatspeed at times. Unfortunately that was not quite enough to really light up CV, so the heavier boats were still up with us and the high power-to weight ratio boats lit up and took off. So we were inshore and the rest of the fleet seemed to be heading that way too.

Seemed like the right choice, but Expedition and the 'Predictwind' data it uses had another surprise for us, anticipating a big R shift with 10-15 knots outside the Hen and Chicken Islands (and much lighter inshore). So we jibed, sailing for a little while at 90 degrees to our intended course, to Cape Brett, and then sure enough we got the big wind shift and with the pole right forward cranked CV along, heading in exactly the right direction fast. Two for xpedition. There was a little rain too, so maybe minus a half for that. We carried the kite for a total of 12 hours when it was time to bring it down.

Then with most of the fleet well inshore of us, tracking along the coast, we
were planning to go straight to Cape Brett, with the tide behind us, in light air. Normally not a big problem.

Sunrise over the most southern of the Poor Knights Islands

But just after the sun rose rather fetchingly behind the Poor Knights islands, the wind dropped to effectively nothing and sea went glassy smooth. Smooth, that is, apart from the big, slow, rolling 2m swell that not only stopped the sails from filling but slapped the sails and the gear from side to side with a crash. On every wave. For about 14 hours solid.

Gorgeous weather. But not for sailing.

Not fast and not fun. Expedition thought we would round Cape Brett with the tide behind us, and so plotted a course for us straight at it. But we got caught because we were so slow. Minus one for expedition. On reflection, however, a more complete answer might have included mention that we were much slower sailng than anticipated,so got caught by the tide change. Tne only beautiful thing to be admired at Cape Brett during this time of frustration was the rising moon. It was a huge orange leicester cheese coloured full moon - nothing like we had ever seen before having seen the same moon rise many a time!


After Cape Brett, to releive the monotony of 10+ hours of hot weather, slatting sails in no wind, etc etc ... the sun set. Still no wind for a few hours, but there was a forecast southerly of 10 knots that, maybe katabatic breeze. No matter what it was called, it was a great relif to be able to move. Later, mostly because Vesna was asleep and therefore couldn't worry about being close to rocks, we took the inside line on the Cavalli Islands.

To follow the theme of this leg, the breeze died completely just as we approached the finish line, and we drifted across the line agonisingly slowly in the incoming tide.

Drifting across the finish line at Mangonui

Midnight Express and plenty of other boats made a great job of getting their boats to move in the difficult conditions, we really missed not having a large upwind sail - hardly need them in Wellington! - we finished in the bottom 1/4 of the fleet.

Things improved from there: Mangonui Cruising Club put on a superb team and great atmosphere.

There was chaos in the highly tidal anchorage when the tide changed, then more as a sea breeze started against the tide direction.

David Cooke, Race Organiser, putting up details for the next leg to Wellington

Mangonui Cruising Club - Clubrooms

Pete and Karen met us in Mangonui and organised quite sneakily a room for us to stay in. A real bed for the night, a hot shower and of course, a good feed of Mangonui fish and chips! Not only that, but Karen had arranged for the superb meals she had prepared for us to be frozen and brought up in Dave Roberts' portable freezer so that we had two hot meals for each day of the next leg. The support that we are receiving from all our friends and family is humbling - they are just amazing people and it is a privilege to have them as our extended family.

Just a few hours left

We've spent the last few days staying in Auckland getting the boat ready. Generally we've done pretty well and but for a few minor things to do this morning are ready.

Peter Montgomery will be discussing the race on radio 2ZB at 8 or 9am Saturday and Sunday. TV1 will apparently cover the start on the 6pm news today.

The SSANZ website (http://www.ssanz.co.nz/) will have position updates from our scheduled reporting times twice a day.

Wellington to Napier - YouTube Video

Mark Holmes has posted some photos and video of the Wellington-Napier trip on YouTube.

An intermittently depressed engine arrives safely in Auckland, avoiding direct hits from live fire in military training zone: RNI2h Delivery Part 2

Missing from the last post was a mention of Totally Marine who made exemplary efforts to put our gearbox right. Anyone can make a mistake (even I did once, although it was a long time ago and I can't remember the details) and it's a measure of a professional how well they handle mistakes and put things right. Barry was terrific, went to Napier himself on Thursday to fit a new clutch and double check everything, just as he was in sorting out the gearbox problems initially. We'll be using and recommending Totally Marine for the foreseeable future.

Also missing from the last post was a mention of two other problems we'd had after leaving Napier. We had a compressor pipe explode before Mahia, resulting in no fridge/freezer on the boat. There was a large bang followed by a hissing sound -- I happened to be downstairs so it only took a few seconds to find the shattered high-pressure pipe end flailing about under the starboard quarter-berth. Adrenaline levels subsided fairly fast, but not nearly as fast as they went up. Thankfully Vesna had also purchased ice with our supplies so we liked the chances of food staying edible for a few days. And I was oblivious to the nasty potential effects (largely an absence of oxygen) that can result from free freon gas, but didn't have any problems.

The fabulous food provided by Karens Marine Katering (sic) had pre-cooked meals vacuum-packed, so could well have been OK sans ice. So the compressor became just another item to add to the magic (ie never gets any smaller no matter what you do) list of fixes and tweaks. KMK are very kindly supplying fantastic food in quick-access and easily prepared packages, perfect for what we are doing, and the staff are just lovely.

Not long after that, after a great sunset over smooth water, the engine revs dropped for 5 seconds or so - just long enough for concerned glances to be exchanged. Then a discussion about whether possible further engine trouble should necessitate a return to Napier, 6 hours behind us. Engine ran beautifully during this discussion, we carried on. The a few minutes later same thing... Revs down to 1/3 normal, sounded OK and still driving the boat along but more slowly and no obvious explanation. More discussion, same outcome, and no further episodes over the next 12 hours. No worries, maybe some transient goop in a filter or something. All over.

From Gisborne to East Cape we had a beaut sunrise, several pods of dolphins of varying levels of excitability and interest in us. One pod we might have driven through while they were hunting ... swimming at high speed, lots of jumping, little interest in riding our bow or stern waves. In very light weather we took the wee shortcut between East Island and East Cape, looking forward to the light wind which had been coming from almost exactly our intended course being on our beam as we turned the corner. No such luck. The wind direction on this entire trip - even Wellington-Napier, as the astute blog reader will know of from previous posts - seemed to be almost entirely dictated by the direction our boat was pointing, rather than any geographical, marine or weather system influences.

So there was little interesting info in the maritime safety broadcasts from the weather perspective. But amongst the many other arcanely-named/numbered safety information broadcasts was one for 'Area Plenty' - the Bay of Plenty - involving live firing as part of military exercises. A look at the Almanac (no wonder you need one for Cat-2!) to see what that area number they referred to was ... and yikes that's most of the BoP. To avoid it completely we'd have to go south near both White Island and Mayor Islands, adding nearly 100 miles to the trip. Going north of it wasn't an option, hundreds of miles extra. Some quick calculations, and I worked out that we should enter the area at ~6pm (half an hour after the exercise finish time for the day) and exit it at about 6am, a couple of hours before it started again. That seemed like a sensible margin, so we headed straight for the Mercury Islands. We had the wind slightly off to one side of our course, so had a nice evening sail before the wind dropped again.

It was well after dark, in only light breeze but a moderate chop (guess which direction the chop and breeze was from...?) and well into the military exercise zone when the revs dropped. Then the engine developed a remarkable degree of independence and flexibility regarding revs and power output, despite the throttle being set to ~75% of full forward. The revs would stay low for minutes at a time (boatspeed 3-4 knots), then spend some time at ~50% (5.5 knots), then hum along (7 knots!) for 30-60 seconds, then repeat the cycle with no consistent order or timing. With the potential of being fired upon in the morning (OK so not really likely, but it makes a better story) we didn't like this very much. So there was frantic reading of 'diesel engine problem solver' and similar titles (engine running continuously but varying with a slow mania during all this time) while I confirmed it was almost certainly a fuel supply problem and the most likely 'lesions'. So I set about draining the water trap, changing filters, etc etc. Messy and difficult with the boat moving around and lit mostly by mouth-held torchlight ... with the net result that for 10 mins we couldn't start the engine at all. The low point was dropping the air bleed screw somewhere into the front part of the engine bay and hearing it bounce a couple of times on the way down, but no splash into the wee layer of diesel resulting from the filter changes at the bottom of the engine bay. There was a little muttering during the 10-minute search by torchlight.

Eventually I fixed the problems that I had initiated in trying to fix the first one, and returned it to exactly the same situation as before I started. There was no sensible option but to leave it running at a lower throttle setting, and use the sails to add as much speed as possible. We made it out of the war zone with about an hour to spare.

Every time the wind dropped out and we used the motor, it was the same. It never stopped, but didn't work properly either, except for a couple of hours of consistent running on the way into Auckland harbour. We sort of got used to it, and at least we had an engine that sort of worked.

Whenever we could sensibly sail, we did, and had some really great rides... in particular, Mercury Islands to Colville on Sunday evening. We were close-hauled, natch, but with the autohelm steering, CV gliding upwind in the groove towards the sunset at 6-7 knots in exactly the right direction, a warm breeze requiring only t-shirts and shorts, just two of us on board, and a nearly-cold-enough beer while reclining on the bean bag-- things were quite tolerable. We had seen a sunfish near Mercury Islands, and at East Cape a flying fish glide a good 200m past the boat.

The traditional end-of-journey rum and coke at 5.30am in our Westhaven Marina Berth didn't feel right but we had one anyway, I guess since both of us had an hour's sleep it was more a very late night than an early morning. We again had great service from the Marine industry. Ovlov Marine put us onto a good boat refrigeration company, and both Des from Cool-it and the Ovlov team went out of their way to get to the boat before we had to leave just after 3pm that day. Josh from North Sails was happy to pick up some sails that we wanted to have checked and serviced from the boat later.

So we'd made it to Auckland. Distance: 362.0 nautical miles; Elapsed Time: 61:23:10; Avg Speed: 5.9 kts;
Max Speed: 8.3 kts :-(

And the engine with the extra personality? Probably tiny crack in an old, tired fuel hose, not enough to leak diesel, but enough to suck a little air into the fuel system.

11 days to race start

The Gisborne Bypass

After thinking and writing so much about (not) getting to Gisborne, the bright lights went past our port beam at 2.30am. 

We left Napier at 3.25 pm, after an interesting refuel from a bowser more than 5m above the boat. Conditions were inglorious in Napier, muggy and rainy for carrying supplies etc, but glorious once we got going... sunny 26 deg C, 12 knot balmy southeaster at 30 degrees apparent, champagne sailing (actually cider, an accidental purchase due to beer-esque packaging).  Sadly, the lovely breeze dropped out near Mahia which we rounded at 10pm and became a 3-knot easterly so we had to disturb the tranquility with the iron sail for a while.  

It's now 12.45, and we're about 40 mins from the East Cape - East Island gap.  We've 14 knots of breeze from the NE (this trip staying true to form by so far not having anything but upwind conditions).  We're hoping the the wind direction won't change when we turn NW around East Cape. Yeah right. 

AKL here we come!

Tomorrow (Friday) we fly out to Napier at 11.30am to sail the boat two handed to AKL. The forecast is looking decidedly friendlier than last weekend. No storm warnings in force and no cyclones. The only cyclone we are aware of is sitting off the Australian coast - not anywhere near NZ.

Having caught up with Dave, Anna, Pete and Karen this evening over a lovely dinner, we are all set for tomorrow. We have beautiful meals from Karen's Kitchen - red chicken curry, macaroni cheese, slow cooked beef with Pete's last Ale.... we will definitely be the most fabulously fed crew of all of the RNI fleet.

Tomorrow's tasks are to refuel and rewater the boat. We also need to grab a few things from the super dooper market and then we are away.

From my hug from Sir Robin last night, I feel that what I don't have in Sir Robin's amazing seamanship, I have a little bit of magic or sparkle from that hug. Might be entirely psychological - probably is - but that is all I need!

Looking forward to the 2 handed sea trials. The song "Just the Two of Us" keeps ringing in my mind.

Sir Robin helps out ...

This evening at a Velux 5 Oceans solo around the world race function at RPNYC, not only were the Velux solo sailors there but also Sir Robin Knox-Johnson.  If you're a golfer, this is like having Jack Nicklaus at your local golf club, or if you're a tennis fan like having Pete Sampras or Bjorn Borg show up at your clubhouse.  Vesna managed to score a hug from him to wish us good luck for the RNI 2-handed, so now she's even keener.

Clear Vision is currently in Napier awaiting delivery to AKL for the start of the Round North Island 2nded Race.  Gearbox repair probably going well, in the context that no news is likely to be good news.  Current plan is to sail CV to Auckland on Friday 4th Feb. Should take a few days (rhumb line is 363nm) weather being kindly. Start of RNI is 19 Feb at 2pm.

Wellington - East Coast: RNI2h Delivery Part 1

We've not had the best run so far ...

First attempt at Gisborne delivery: Friday 21 Jan 2011

After an enormous amount of time and effort preparing... making sure that we had carefully stowed, checked and double checked (1) all the gear we needed to 'cruise' the boat to Gisborne, (2) all the things we would possibly need for the RNI race, (3) enough fuel, gas, water etc and (4) nothing else -- we threw off lines and headed out of the harbour in light winds on Friday at 12.30ish.  Near Steeple Rock at the harbour entrance the engine, still running, stopped pushing the boat forward, so we switched it off and turned back to investigate (there was a bit of very tricky sailing up the narrow channel to the slipway at Chaffers Marina in a gusty southerly).  By 5pm with the help of quite a few people at the marina including lifting the boat out of the water to check we had a propeller still attached, we worked out that a linkage between the engine and gearbox had failed.

Which means that instead of staying on schedule and having CV in Gisborne to sail to Auckland the next weekend it was still tied up in Wellington.  :-(

The engine was then in bits and the Volvo guys were working with a diesel mechanic trying to track down a part, over which there was some confusion re the correct part number... or even if the part was original.   We still had a couple of weekends available, but Vesna and I still had to tick off our remaining race entry requirement of 250nm 2-handed offshore sailing, so couldn't really make use of the option to hire a delivery skipper and crew to take the boat to Auckland for us, at least not all the way.

Most frustrating, after more than a year of planning, new sails and equipment etc, and having had the engine serviced a month ago so as to avoid exactly this sort of problem


Second attempt: Thursday 27 Jan 2011

Thanks very much to all who helped out with supporting our second attempt at getting the boat to Gisborne, ranging from helping with food for the crew, on-call cover, managing clinics to feeding cats etc.

We didn't make it.

We motor-sailed (with freshly rejuvenated engine and gearbox and delivery crew: Tony, Vesna, Mark Ansell, Mark Holmes, and MVP -see below- Paul Porter-Howland) away at 5pm on Thursday into a lovely evening, light wind from the southeast.  This was of course on our nose but there were no waves to speak of, the sky was brilliantly clear with stunning stars and we got around Cape Palliser to head northeast escorted by dolphins and an albatross or two before midnight.  Before dawn we passed honeycomb rocks and by 9am were about 8 nm east of Castlepoint, ahead of schedule and really enjoying the trip.

We had been maintaining 6-hourly scheds with maritime radio, and on the Friday 10am sched we received a message from the mechanic who had worked on the gearbox in Welly to check that he'd done up the bolts on the gearchange linkage, and for us to tighten them if necessary.  He hadn't.  We had an engine bay full of gearbox oil but still some left in the sump.  So I tightened the bolts which were *very* loose and the linkage must have been misaligned by then because that jammed the gearbox completely, and the engine that was pushing us along in the right direction in the light-but-building headwind stopped.

Thankfully Paul knows a few things about engines and stuff, and started getting on to fixing it.  Unfortunately the wind and a light swell had started to build more from the northeast (right on our nose, again) and Paul started getting seasick while head-down and tinkering with engine parts etc.  So we were now sailing (slowly, and moving at ~45° to our intended direction), and Paul was doing a few minutes of work on the linkage at a time before coming up for, er, air.  Meantime the forecast 10-15 knots NE had 'eased' gently in the traditional NZ manner 'down' to 25 knots and the seas were getting bigger.  After several attempts Paul wasn't winning on either front and so we decided we'd just have to sail north, just as fast as motoring in a straight line, but always well off the right direction since sailing directly upwind doesn't work.

The weather forecasts at this point were for the winds to stay at about 20 knots from the northeast until Sat morning, although they were actually in the mid-20s up to 30 and there was now a most unpleasant 4m swell emanating from where we wanted to go thanks to cyclone Wilma, which you'll remember we were racing to Gisborne.   Moderate wind and large, steep swell were having an impact -- 3 of us were unwell with varying degrees of seasickness.  It was very slow and unpleasant going, with lots of falling off big waves and crashing into the troughs.   We didn't have an engine to fall back on if we had rig/sail breakages (or, perish the thought, a man overboard). So we were were seriously considering bailing out on Gisborne and heading to Napier, although Cape Kidnappers still nearly 8 hours away.  It was 2am, rain bucketing down and all of us and lots of the cabin were very wet.  None of this was in the brochure.

I was getting a little tense... Many of the reports of rescues at sea stories start with a gear failure, a few unwell crew, and then things generally progress from there with the help of some big weather.  With the big southerly forecast and nowhere to shelter further south, it only made sense to continue north.

Then we heard the forecast for sea area Portland (Gisborne and East Cape region) change from a Gale Warning to a Storm Warning with winds up to 50 knots and seas to match.  Wilma had beaten us: destination Napier.  

At Cape Kidnappers, there was a lull in the wind and the seas were better, so Paul had another go at the engine with an idea he'd thought of which worked, except for a quiet but disturbing grinding metal noise.  Another visit to the engine bay and all seemed fine, working with no nasty noises. We turned in towards Napier harbour and the wind turned with us, to be right on our nose, again (!)  We had travelled about 400km, about a third done tacking across 45° to the rhumb line, and not once did the wind swing to a direction that was slightly favourable.  Our maximum speed was about 7.5 knots, in a boat that will comfortably do speeds twice that downwind. We arrived in Napier marina at 10am Saturday.

Fist move at Napier was a mechanic, who pulled up the gearbox dipstick and showed us lots of small metal shards, like glitter, in the oil.  Not good.  So the boat is now out of the water again in Napier, getting the gearbox cleaned out and fixed up, including a planned visit from the Wellington mechanic who is traveling to Napier to put things right himself.   We *should* be ready for Friday for Vesna and I to do the planned 2-handed sail to Auckland, our qualifying miles, with another 100 nm added to the trip.  So we're looking to get a flight to Napier about lunchtime on Friday, and we had already cleared my appointments at CES on Monday, so hopefully we have enough time.
[Photos Mark Holmes -- thanks Mark!]