New Caledonia to New Zealand
Position 23 13 S 166 16E, motoring at 5.1 knots, almost no wind.. course 175, swell <0.5m
Distance to Opua, NZ: 870nm
We cast off our lines and bid a fond farewell to New Caledonia yesterday afternoon. We have loved the country so much. Undoubtedly, it has some political troubles, which will be ongoing for some years, as they have two more planned Independence referendums. As a place to visit, and especially to sail, it has been fantastic, and we don't really want to leave. Our amazing few months in the South Pacific islands have drawn to a close and we have set sail for New Zealand, where our adventure will continue during the southern hemisphere summer. "Safe passage, don't sink!" cried the children with big smiles as they waved merrily to other boats as they left the marina.
So far, two boats have sunk on their passages south, neither of which we knew, but both of whom we crossed paths with in Fiji and Vanuatu. The first was a large motorboat, who were unlucky enough to drive directly over a huge floating rope. In fouling the propellors of their twin engines, the boat was holed on both sides where the prop shafts exit. They took on more water than their pumps could handle, and they had to abandon ship to their liferaft. All on board were rescued safely. The second sinking was a tragedy, involving the loss of the life of a well known and very experienced sailor from New Zealand. He and his wife, plus two more crew, were returning from Fiji on their 47-foot yacht, Essence, and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. As they closed the coast of New Zealand, they found themselves in an unexpectedly vicious low pressure, whipping up 50-60 knot winds and 6m waves. A huge wall of water swamped their cockpit and flooded the boat below, blowing out some of their windows. The boat sank quickly and they lost their liferaft, leaving all four crew in their lifejackets in the water. The amazingly skilled rescue services successfully dropped them another liferaft, and subsequently airlifted all of them by helicopter, but tragically one life was lost. These two incidents have been very sobering and we will be watching the weather extremely closely as we time our arrival to New Zealand.
Right now, things are pretty peachy on the good ship Victoria. It's 4am and we are just over 12 hours into a 930 mile passage. The moon is lighting our way, the sky is scattered with stars, and the gentle swell is rolling the boat from side to side. The motion, coupled with the whirr of the trusty engine, is keeping the sleepers asleep; George and Jack in the aft cabin, Eloise in the cockpit, and Angus in our cabin. We had a wonderful sail for the first 10 hours or so, but gradually the wind died, as predicted; we are expecting quite a lot of motoring during the first half of this passage.
When we left New Zealand five months ago, we didn't have much idea how we would function as a crew for a week or more offshore. Now we are a bit wiser, and have planned things accordingly. Angus and I are still keeping our original watch system which seems to work pretty well; both awake unless physically impossible by day, and alternate 3-hour watches from 8pm-8am. I do 8-11pm and 2-5am, and Angus does 11am-2pm and 5am-8am. During the day we are trialling several new introductions; morning happy-half-hour (involving sweets), afternoon happy-half-hour (crips / biscuits), am and pm "activities" (weather dependent - yoga / football / lego / painting / papier mache halloween masks / stories), a daily film or audiobook, plus a mile-countdown diagram on the whiteboard. There are several developments in the galley, too. Top of the list is that as soon as we arrived in New Cal, home of the french baguette, Angus rekindled his Clipper love of bread-baking, and has been knocking up some delicious loaves. For ease, we have allowed ourselves UHT rather than powdered milk for passage, plus a few ready meals. We are trialling biodegradable plates (aka kitchen roll) for dry-ish food, and even have some disposable wooden forks and spoons that we plan to use when the motion is particularly bad, so we can just chuck them overboard with the food scraps, and reduce the length of the battle with the washing up.
In summary, all is well on board tonight and everyone is happy (or asleep!). There are about 17 rally boats doing the crossing, plus several other non-rally boats. Some left before us, some will leave tomorrow morning, and we are all watching the weather carefully. There is a small island, Norfolk Island, between New Caledonia and New Zealand, where boats can stop to anchor if the timing is wrong for their arrival in New Zealand. Based on the current forecast, we won't need to do that, but it's good to know it's an option.
Lots of love from all of us. I'll update again with how we are getting on with the more optimistic kids activities soon - like the papier mache masks, for example. We might try and get those done while we are motoring and the boat is flat!
Distance to Opua, NZ: 870nm
We cast off our lines and bid a fond farewell to New Caledonia yesterday afternoon. We have loved the country so much. Undoubtedly, it has some political troubles, which will be ongoing for some years, as they have two more planned Independence referendums. As a place to visit, and especially to sail, it has been fantastic, and we don't really want to leave. Our amazing few months in the South Pacific islands have drawn to a close and we have set sail for New Zealand, where our adventure will continue during the southern hemisphere summer. "Safe passage, don't sink!" cried the children with big smiles as they waved merrily to other boats as they left the marina.
So far, two boats have sunk on their passages south, neither of which we knew, but both of whom we crossed paths with in Fiji and Vanuatu. The first was a large motorboat, who were unlucky enough to drive directly over a huge floating rope. In fouling the propellors of their twin engines, the boat was holed on both sides where the prop shafts exit. They took on more water than their pumps could handle, and they had to abandon ship to their liferaft. All on board were rescued safely. The second sinking was a tragedy, involving the loss of the life of a well known and very experienced sailor from New Zealand. He and his wife, plus two more crew, were returning from Fiji on their 47-foot yacht, Essence, and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. As they closed the coast of New Zealand, they found themselves in an unexpectedly vicious low pressure, whipping up 50-60 knot winds and 6m waves. A huge wall of water swamped their cockpit and flooded the boat below, blowing out some of their windows. The boat sank quickly and they lost their liferaft, leaving all four crew in their lifejackets in the water. The amazingly skilled rescue services successfully dropped them another liferaft, and subsequently airlifted all of them by helicopter, but tragically one life was lost. These two incidents have been very sobering and we will be watching the weather extremely closely as we time our arrival to New Zealand.
Right now, things are pretty peachy on the good ship Victoria. It's 4am and we are just over 12 hours into a 930 mile passage. The moon is lighting our way, the sky is scattered with stars, and the gentle swell is rolling the boat from side to side. The motion, coupled with the whirr of the trusty engine, is keeping the sleepers asleep; George and Jack in the aft cabin, Eloise in the cockpit, and Angus in our cabin. We had a wonderful sail for the first 10 hours or so, but gradually the wind died, as predicted; we are expecting quite a lot of motoring during the first half of this passage.
When we left New Zealand five months ago, we didn't have much idea how we would function as a crew for a week or more offshore. Now we are a bit wiser, and have planned things accordingly. Angus and I are still keeping our original watch system which seems to work pretty well; both awake unless physically impossible by day, and alternate 3-hour watches from 8pm-8am. I do 8-11pm and 2-5am, and Angus does 11am-2pm and 5am-8am. During the day we are trialling several new introductions; morning happy-half-hour (involving sweets), afternoon happy-half-hour (crips / biscuits), am and pm "activities" (weather dependent - yoga / football / lego / painting / papier mache halloween masks / stories), a daily film or audiobook, plus a mile-countdown diagram on the whiteboard. There are several developments in the galley, too. Top of the list is that as soon as we arrived in New Cal, home of the french baguette, Angus rekindled his Clipper love of bread-baking, and has been knocking up some delicious loaves. For ease, we have allowed ourselves UHT rather than powdered milk for passage, plus a few ready meals. We are trialling biodegradable plates (aka kitchen roll) for dry-ish food, and even have some disposable wooden forks and spoons that we plan to use when the motion is particularly bad, so we can just chuck them overboard with the food scraps, and reduce the length of the battle with the washing up.
In summary, all is well on board tonight and everyone is happy (or asleep!). There are about 17 rally boats doing the crossing, plus several other non-rally boats. Some left before us, some will leave tomorrow morning, and we are all watching the weather carefully. There is a small island, Norfolk Island, between New Caledonia and New Zealand, where boats can stop to anchor if the timing is wrong for their arrival in New Zealand. Based on the current forecast, we won't need to do that, but it's good to know it's an option.
Lots of love from all of us. I'll update again with how we are getting on with the more optimistic kids activities soon - like the papier mache masks, for example. We might try and get those done while we are motoring and the boat is flat!
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