15/12/2007
If we were still going to Lord Howe Island we'd only have 240 miles to go, unfortunately with Christmas nearly on top of us, we just haven't got the time. What a shame, it has been a goal of ours for many years to sail into the beautiful lagoon on Lord Howe; it'll just have to wait till another trip. Funny, it always used to seem so far to sail, but now we've traveled over so many sea miles, Lord Howe from Australia seems a snack. We may just get close enough on this trip to get a sighting of Ball's Pyramid.
Newcastle is 575 miles away, although now we have lost the wind, so we have done a lot of motoring since yesterday, the clouds and rain went away, the sun came out, the seas calmed down, BUT we lost the wind. Once the boat speed gets down under 4 knots, Greg decides to put the engine on (so we can be home for Xmas), unfortunately too we have at least a one and sometimes a 2 knot current against us. Not fair, we're running downwind to Australia, the waves are pushing towards Australia, you'd think the current would be kind to us and also push us the right way but no, someone decides to make it a bit more challenging for you.
The above definitely has hindered one of the boats that left with us. Paul is an Australian, a single hander, who bought a little tiny 31ft trimaran in the Bay of Islands with the aim to sail it to Australia. It has a 5 horse power outboard as its auxilliary propulsion, only a wind generator (now we only have 5 knots of wind, so his wind generator would hardly be working)! He has no other form of battery charging, no fridge or freezer and now his auto-pilot has broken down so he'll be hand steering the rest of the way to Australia (we're half way home). When we spoke to him on the radio this morning, his position was the same as he had given us at 7:30pm last night, so he has been drifting around in the same area all night.
Auto pilot failures, in our experience have been the major source of problems for yachts on the crossing. Never, never, never contemplate a crossing without some form of backup.
This is Greg writing now.
Yes, we are stuck in the middle of a huge high pressure system that extends from the East coast of Australia to New Zealand. That means light and variable winds from all points of the compass. We need to maintain an average speed of about 5.5 knots in order to get into Newcastle, clear in, then get to Sydney before Xmas Eve (we have to do our Xmas shopping!!). This means motoring more than we would like. We topped up our fuel tank from the remaining spare fuel we carry yesterday which gives us about 80 hours of motoring. Already, since then we have been motoring for 17 hours and there appears to be no change in the weather conditions for the next few days. We can't motor all the way to Australia, so something has to give.
We are currently considering a contingency plan of stopping at Lord Howe Island in order to take on more fuel. It's about 50 miles out of the way of our rhumbline course to Newcastle and we have changed course to motor in that direction - about two days away. If things change for the better over the next 24 hours we will go back to plan A and continue straight to Newcastle.
Watch this space. #
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12/12/2007
10am Wednesday 12/12/07 and we have just slipped the dock lines for the final big leg of our travels. Australia, here we come!!!!
Thank goodness, the rain finally stopped yesterday; it's miserable out here in the rain. Today we have cloudy skies but no rain. The wind is from the NE at about 30 knots out at sea and it will hopefully ease this afternoon (update, we're out here now and they told a fib, the wind is only about 20 knots) Not much wind in here at all, as we are still in the protection of the Bay. We have to head over the top of New Zealand and clear Cape Reinga before we make our turn for Australia. We should take a minimum of 7 days and a maximum of 10 days, so the aim is to make into Sydney for Christmas.
We have had a great time in this beautiful part of the world. My brother-in-law, Milton has flown over for the trip back with us and it's a shame he didn't see it in sunshine; it certainly makes a difference. Yesterday, as it was still sprinkling in the morning, with a gale warning out, we hired a car (from some lovely English ex cruising people who have settled here and started a car and van hire business) and took off to show Milton the countryside from Opua to Whangerai - very, very pretty. Our first stop was at the home of the hire car people to pick up the car, which was a treat in itself, as they have bought a lovely house and land in the middle of what's known as Brit's Road, yes, you guessed it, there are so many English people that have bought along that country road, I'm sure as it reminds them of the English countryside. After that we continued onto Kawakawa to visit the Hunderwasser Kawakawa Toilets. Very colourful and fascinating place! The shinny multi-coloured ceramic columns, at the entrance to the toilets are a feature and the tiles were made by the local school children, bricks came from local buildings and the windows in the block were constructed using old bottles.
I suspect the artists and architects amongst us will know of Frederick Hunderwasser, the Austrian internationally known architect and ecologist, who first came to New Zealand in the 1970's and subsequently made NZ his home. In 1990 he was declared a national treasure, he died and is buried on his farm in Kawakawa in February 2000 at the age of 71. A few fascinating shops opposite the toilets have the same columns and hold a collection of books and paintings of his works. Will post a photo when we finally get to land. This area is well worth a visit, so much to see and do.
Now it's back to sea again and I suppose I better get up on deck to see my last glimpses of land, before sighting the coast of Australia.
UPDATE: 16:00 the wind is dying on us now, e have less than 10 knots, can't see land, mainly because we're sailing past a huge bay, we're getting along nicely though, at approx 5.5 - 6 knots on a comfortable beam reach. #
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12/12/2007
Yes, we past all the islands and rocks to the north of New Zealand and turned the corner for home at 0550 today, so now it really is Australia here we come.
If you want to follow our track and haven't tried yet, just go the right hand side of the blog page and click on current position. This chart tracks our trip when we input our latitude and longitude. We just type away on a sailmail email putting all the correct codes in, and push the button and a computer sets everything out on the blog page for us. Except for times when human error intervenes and the codes aren't put in the correct place and oooppsii the posting doesn't get done, like yesterday. You can also follow the instructions if you have Google Earth on you computer and you can actually see our live position, neat isn't it! If we had satellite communication on board we could also post the pictures at the same time. Unfortunately, we don't so we have to wait till we get to land and get wi-fi coverage to do that.
The trip is going well, we're averaging about 6.5 - 7 knots, wind is from the NE at about 15 - 20 knots at times, with a 2 metre swell, "Volare" is still moving along nicely on a beam reach. We move between having one to two reefs in the main and the genoa furled in depending on the breeze. Captain Greg doesn't like to over extend the boat, especially in confused, cross seas. We could sail a lot faster if we put more sail out but no use over extending the boat and making it a lot less comfortable for the crew. So we're pretty snug, except now and again when we go over a big undersea trench and we notice the sea gets a lot more confused and choppy.
Current ETA into Newcastle (where we will clear customs) is next Thursday, 20th Dec, but this will be updated as we get closer. We'll have a quick stopover, change of crew, my Dad 80 year old Harry Parsons (nearly 81) is going to do the last leg into Sydney with us. After all, he is one of the reasons why sailing is in our blood. Dad has done about 5 Hobart's in his days and sailed many thousands of miles himself. For the intrepid sailors or motor boat people amongst you, Dad may have even rescued, towed or taken your position when he was on watch at the Sydney South Head Coast Guard Station, as he was very involved in Coast Guard Sydney for approx 6 years and Commodore of the Sydney Flotilla for the last few of those years, until last year when he switched from the Coast Guard to his new passion, Bowls. #
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